Beautiful Biyadhoo in the Magnificent Maldives

Welcome to Biyadhoo Island Resort in the Maldives! Explore Biyadhoo Island Resort, a beautiful Maldivian island in the South Ari Atoll. This island is exceptional value for money, with prices on a par with many European hotels. It offers All Inclusive and is reputed to have the best house reef in the Maldives, making it very popular with divers. Knowing this island well, this is a specialist destination for Worldwide Explorer Travel Holidays, so you can book your Biyadhoo holiday with us, knowing that a specialist is taking care of your booking.

Find out more about Biyadhoo here...

Location

Biyadhoo Island Resort is a beautiful – almost circular – island in the South Ari Atoll. 30km from the airport in Malé, and a 30 min speedboat transfer away.

Introduction Biyadhoo’s easy informality is a rare and refreshing treat in the Maldives today. This is a friendly and sociable island resort with excellent attentive service from the hard working staff. The resort is enhanced by breath-taking mature tropical vegetation, which makes walks around the island extremely pleasant. It has 96 rooms, and boasts a world class PADI Dive Centre. This is no surprise, given that Biyadhoo can lay claim to what is a unique and probably the best house reef in the Maldives, with outstanding corner and channel dives. This make Biyadhoo a destination that scuba divers and snorkelers return to year after year. There is also a 24 hour reception, a fabulous spa, a restaurant with world class speciality chefs, a bar, a club, stunning beaches, water sports facilities, a boutique shop, library, TV room, and a variety of excursions. This is a real value for money resort. It is one of the cheapest resorts in the Maldives, yet it offers guests so much that they just keep on coming back!

Accommodation

The accommodation at Biyadhoo is a little different from many other resorts. This resort has rooms arranged in six apartment blocks. Each block has 16 air conditioned rooms measuring 30m2, with 8 on the ground floor and 8 on the first floor. The ground floor rooms can be accessed directly from the terrace, which has direct beach access. This also makes them suitable for the less mobile. The first floor rooms have a balcony and they access the beach via a staircase.

The décor is traditional and a little dated, but exceptionally clean (cleaned daily) and extremely comfortable, but the style of the rooms is part of what keeps the price down. Given that you will spend most of your time on the beach or in the water, the rooms are perfectly adequate for anyone’s needs. The housekeeping team are experts in towel art, and can turn a towel into all kinds of creatures or flowers. This - along with the beautiful display of petals on the bed - makes for a lovely surprise whenever you enter your room!

Within each block, 12 rooms are double rooms, with a double bed, shower, toilet, wardrobe, minibar, facilities to make a hot drink, a hairdryer, a desk and sitting area. There is also a laundry service available. 4 of the rooms are bigger and also contain an additional single bed to accommodate families.

Restaurant

The Palm Restaurant is a buffet restaurant, offering international cuisine, prepared by world class speciality chefs. The chefs also offer special menus at a supplement, which can be taken as a romantic dinner on the beach. The sumptuous barbeque is also a big hit with guests. Full board and All Inclusive board basis available.

Bar

The Coconut Bar is set on the beach. The west facing position gives it incredible views of the sunset across the lagoon. The bar serves a large selection of beverages and snacks.

Club

The Banyan Club is set close to the beach with an ocean view. You can opts to sit indoors or outdoors. There is live music or a disco available every night for your entertainment.

Spa

The quality spa is a wonderful place for a spot of pure relaxation and indulgence. It provides a total sensory experience. The natural treatments available draw on the ancient health and beauty tradition.

Diving

This resort has its own PADI Dive Centre offering high standard courses, so even if this is your first experience with diving, you will be in safe hands.

Here is some general information about diving in Biyadhoo from the dive centre staff:

"All divers registering for diving with Dive Ocean in Maldives are required to participate in an orientation dive, this dive is done on the beautiful house reef. The typical meeting time for this dive is 10.00am at the dive school. The dive and accompanying briefing will be finished by approximately 12.30pm.

Once you have completed this dive you can then participate in the boat dives and self-dives. The dive boat goes out twice a day, a single tank trip in the morning and a single dive trip in the afternoon; all boat dives are guided by one of the dive school staff. The dive centre offers a guided night dive by boat on a Tuesday and a Friday. You can furthermore do self-dives at the house reef throughout the day. The morning dives are the deeper dives (max. 30m) and with more current (only suited to Advanced Open Water Divers); and the afternoon dives are more relaxed and accessible to divers from all levels.

Depth limitation for all divers/dives is 30m, for entry level divers (Open Water Diver or equivalent) the depth limit is 20m.

Please visit the dive centre staff upon arrival to register for your orientation dive, and do not forget to take your certification card and logbook. If you are bringing your own, full or partial, set of dive equipment; then you can easily store that equipment in the wet room.

The Advanced Open Water (AOW) Diver course consists of 5 dives. Of these 5 dives, 2 dives are mandatory. These two are the Deep dive and the Navigation dive. The other 3 dives are choice dives, you can decide together with your instructor which dives you would like to take. Some of the most preferred options are Wreck diving, Underwater Digital Photography dive, Drift diving, Fish Identification, Peak Performance Buoyancy Diving, and Night

Diving.

The theory for the AOW course consists of you reading the 5 chapters related to the dives you are doing, and answering the knowledge review at the end of each chapter in your manual. Your instructor will review these with you, and before every dive you will get a thorough briefing regarding the particulars of the dive you are about to take. There are no quizzes or exams, nor are there videos to watch for the Advanced Open Water Diver course. Please review the Medical Questionnaire every participant to a PADI course has to complete. Please have a look at the document and read through it before booking the Advanced Open Water Diver course. If you can answer all questions with ‘NO’ then you can participate in a Open Water Diver course, if however you answer ‘YES’ to any one of the questions, then you need to provide a statement from a doctor stating that you are ‘fit to dive’. Please also bear in mind that there is no doctor on Biyadhoo, so once on the island it is very difficult to obtain a medical certificate."

Activities and Water Sports

Within the resort, you can scuba dive, snorkel, try out windsurfing, sailing, canoeing or the catamaran. There's also the fabulous sea swings and hammocks dotted around the island for a more leisurely form of entertainment. Or you can read a book in the library, do a spot of work in the small business centre, play football, or shop in the little boutique.

Excursions If you fancy venturing a bit further from the island, you can do a spot of fishing, dolphin watching, island hopping, have a picnic on a deserted paradise island,visit a local island or even go on a shopping and cultural trip to the Maldives capital, Malé.

Renewal of Vows

The Wedding Ceremony will be conducted on stunning Biyadhoo beach. The wedding will be traditional Maldivian, bearing in mind that it is not an official ceremony under Maldivian law, as registration will not take place and no legal certificate will be issued.

The ceremony takes place a few hours before sunset with the Groom dressed in a traditional sarong and The Bride – already waiting on the beach - is dressed in traditional Maldivian wedding attire. As the Groom arrives, traditional Bodu Beru (Maldivian Drums) signal his arrival.The Groom will then ask consent from the Bride’s father (or another guest who is representing him), seated under the ceremonial coconut hut. Once the Bride’s father’s consent is obtained, the Minister will conduct a short, beautiful ceremony culminating in the exchange of vows. During the exchange of vows, the ritual of the Dowry will be respected, when a witness will ask the Groom to quote the Dowry he will remit to the Bride. This symbolic Dowry can be a local exotic gift or a ring.Following this is the signing of the wedding certificate, celebratory Champagne, canapés and the traditional ritual of cutting the wedding cake. It will end with fresh coconut being served to everyone present, who will then toast the couple!

After the ceremony, the couple will be escorted to their villa by all in attendance and accompanied by traditional drummers (Bodu Beru). The villa will have been decorated with flowers and local leaves.

The wedding dinner will be set on the beach, with the Indian Ocean as a background. The romantic dinner will be a combination of well-presented plates of grilled fish, lobster, prawns and meat.On their return to their room, another surprise will wait for the happy couple, the framed wedding certificate.

What’s included in the vow renewal package? Ceremony (as outlined above). Local flower bouquet for the bride and a Biyadhoo Wedding Gift. The above package starts at US$1,000 per couple and does not include the accommodation costs. Taxes: 10% SC + 8% T-GST. Prices and taxes are subject to change without notice.

Additional information

The island operates on a 220V voltage (50Hz) and adaptors are provided. Credit cards are accepted (VISA, Mastercard, American Express, JCB) and cash is accepted in US Dollars, GBP, Swiss Franc and Yen.

Booking You can book your holiday to Biyadhoo Island Resort via Worldwide Explorer Travel Holidays, who specialise in this Maldivian island. Out of date range bookings are accepted, so even if your booking is for the year after next, please get in touch.

Created by: Julie @ Worldwide Explorer Travel Holidays, Nov 2020 Photos: Biyadhoo Island Resort, Kuoni, Google