Kuredhivaru review: remarkable value after a dramatic transfer

The transfer ordeal

Buckle up - this one has kind of a crazy start…

The evening before our transfer to Kuredhivaru we were informed by the Patina transport team that they were expecting horrible weather the following morning, and that they were planning to frontload some of the transfers earlier in the morning as they had guests also flying out relatively early and did not want them to miss their flight.

So we woke up at the crack of dawn to board our 7:45am Patina time (6:45am Malé time) speedboat to catch an 11am seaplane. Mind you, this is what the weather looked like when we woke up… I was not overly optimistic that this would be a great day to move resorts.

The boat ride back to Malé was awful. If you guys have seen The Wolf of Wall Street, I literally felt like we were living the real-life scene of when they are on the yacht going to Monte Carlo. For the entire duration of the boat ride, the waves were quite literally towering over our boat and it was slamming onto the waves left and right, and at some points I felt like we were about to capsize. It was so so scary and nearly everyone in the cabin was… unwell. The captain did as good of a job as he could and got us there safely, but this is not something I’m ever looking to repeat!! The only thing I could think of when we got there was… omg these guys now need to go BACK!

Of course our seaplane was delayed on end (understandable) and we ended up having a 6-hour wait in Malé before we left towards Noonu. Not great but understandable and, for once, not TMA's fault.

Unfortunately, 60 minutes later, once we reached Noonu, we tried to land 3 separate times (once at Kuredhi, once at Noku, and a final time at Cheval Blanc) before the pilot called it quits and decided to return back to Malé. So that was over 150 minutes on the seaplane to go from Malé to… well, Malé. Great!

By the time we landed it was too late in the evening to try our luck another time (even if the weather was settling down), so we ended up spending the night at Barcelo in Malé (perfectly clean and fine but well, it wasn’t Kuredhivaru). Since we were only spending 2 nights in Kuredhivaru I actually considered scrapping this part of the trip altogether, but that proved to be more complicated than just sticking with it.

So the following morning we made our way to Malé for our 8am departure (which ended up getting delayed to 10am, again due to poor weather), and we reached Kuredhivaru at noon island time to make the most of our 18 hours on the island…

I think this probably goes down in history as one of the most dramatic transfer days ever, but I’m curious to see if anyone on here can top this?????!!!

Island and first impressions

Kuredhivaru at first impact, even in god-awful weather, was stunning. The island is exactly what someone pictures when they think of the Maldives, with a very beautiful shimmering lagoon with no seagrass, nice vegetation, and beautiful sparkling white sand (and enormous beaches).

We were whisked away to our villa and I think the very first thing I noticed was the architecture. Unlike other islands in the Maldives, Kuredhivaru feels more modern (somehow even more modern than Patina) and the materials used to build the resort are very different than what you would usually find in the Maldives. Whereas many resorts use wood and cement or a mix of both, the jetties and structures here are made of what I think is vinyl, and even the jetties are not made out of wood. I did not realize this when looking at pictures as I thought it was white wood, so I was slightly surprised.

Overwater Pool Villa 232

The villa here is very beautiful, no doubt about that. We had an ocean-facing villa but all the water villas here are the same in layout and square footage. I personally would not want to have an inner-facing water villa for the same reason I do not like the inner-facing villas at Six Senses Laamu (don’t understand the point of flying all this way and paying hundreds of dollars per night to stare at your neighbor’s deck).

The villa admittedly does not have the best furniture and the finishings/craftsmanship are not the highest, and I think that the blue carpets need to go ASAP, but it is a very visually stunning, large, comfortable villa with a large bedroom, huge (although way too shallow… this also took me by surprise) pool, and nice open bathroom area.

Perhaps my favorite thing about this room is the price, as it is very easy to find this villa at sub $600 or $700/nt in low season and IMO it punches way above its weight, especially compared to some of the other competitors they have in atolls closer to Malé. I cannot think of many other properties with this sort of hard product at this price point, and that’s before we even talk about the food.

The villa did have some noticeable wear and tear around the deck and I do think that this is even more visually apparent since the decking is white/cream and made of vinyl and not wood, so it’s quite difficult to remove stains (there were some black ones around the villa), but I found that at this price point it was acceptable to not expect perfection.

Beach villas and island positioning

We had a chance to tour a beach villa as well and like the water villa it is beautiful. Very private (with lots of vegetation), and while the deluxe beach villas are technically the more expensive ones I would personally take a sunset beach villa if/when we come back if we were to stay on land.

For my tastes there is too much going on on the deluxe side of the island between the water sports center, the water villa jetty, Bodumas, and the beach IMO is too wide. Yes, in my opinion there can be such a thing as a beach that is too wide, Kihavah also has this problem. So the sunset beach villas provide a more “typical” and quiet beach and a lagoon that still has some beautiful colors in my opinion (although of course there is coral), and you can see the ocean when lying on your sun chair outside your villa, which is more challenging on the deluxe side.

The Mondrian transition

We had some great chats with their Sales & Marketing team over breakfast and dinner and I am very excited about what is to come for this lovely property. Kuredhi is in the process of transitioning to Mondrian (yes, this is still happening and should have already happened, but the war had an impact on shipments). They are going to start by renovating the beach villas. I saw some mockups of what the new villas will look like and they look amazing. They reminded me most of a mix between Joali Being and the new W, if that is any indication of how amazing they will be.

Food

F&B dining (minus breakfast) was really good at the 2 outlets we tried (Latitude and Bodumas). The buffet also offers grilled lobsters included (but I think we are all very intimately familiar with this given the 7 lobsters that Daniel had here in 2025 - sorry Daniel, I just had to put that in here… but I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear that this has not changed!!)

Four points to improve

If I were to provide some feedback for them, it would be these 4 points:

1) The decking and general wear and tear around the resort does take away from the “premium” 5* experience. Hopefully with the Mondrian takeover this will be resolved.

2) The price of the HB upgrade makes little sense at the price point this resort operates at. They should perhaps offer a non-deluxe version of HB that includes just the buffet restaurant for those that are not as picky about F&B. I need to check my notes but I believe the HB upgrade is $340/couple/night, which if you think about the fact that these rooms sometimes sell for as “little” as $500 or $600 a night in low season, the HB upgrade seems disproportionately expensive, even if it is dine around. I think there are some changes coming with their new Director of Sales trying to make some changes.

3) The breakfast was basic (too basic) for a 5 property. There is just a pretty simple buffet which is not great and the options are not that appetizing or premium-feeling. They should focus on having some more lightly prepared dishes you can pick from, like fresh salads and better cold cuts etc. that are easily available at other 5 resorts.

4) The venues (especially the buffet) have black floors which require extra maintenance and upkeep… as guests walk in and out and around the buffet, a lot of sand gets dragged into the area which makes the entire area feel untidy and again loses that premium atmosphere.

Reef and final verdict

Sadly, given the swells and wind and rain there was no chance to try to snorkel the reef. But perhaps that’s a reason to come back.

Overall, Kuredhivaru gets an almost unconditional recommendation from me at this price point. We had a lovely, although way too short, stay at this property and will need to come back when the weather is better. In some ways, this property is a bit of a unicorn because it has all pool villas, a beautiful lagoon, and excellent F&B at a very fair price point.