Honeymoon Maldives/Sri Lanka in September

Going on honeymoon to the Maldives/Sri Lanka and Dubai for 2 1/2 weeks in that order. Anyone recommend places to stay/visit/eat etc. etc.

Already booked flights with Trailfinders so accommodation is the only issue here left to book.

For the Maldives have you not got accomodation as part of a package ? - If not you'll certainly need to book somewhere.

I've never been, but I've always heard that the Maldives is not really somewhere for just turning up on spec to get accomodation. All the tourist hotels are on tiny islands (The maldives is a string of tiny islands) ... you arrive into the airport in Male and get transferred by boat or seaplane to the island where you stay for the 7/14 nights .. in many cases the only thing on the island you're staying on is your hotel ... you're essentially stuck there for the holiday ... you can checkout any time you like but you can never leave ... or something like that

I think a lot of the hotels there do most of their business with flight + hotel packages and are very expensive for independent booking (and are expensive for packages too!) ... You may well find that trailfinders have the best rates ... but shop around

The arrangement has always struck me as like a bit of a tropical luxury prison for 2 weeks with little possibility of escape , hence i've never felt inclined to visit it myself having a low boredom threshold for beach holidays ( nice for a few days but it's nice to do other things too... and I dislike having to eat in hotel restaurants all the time) ... but many people I know have been there and had a great time - as with all travel it depends on what you like yourself .. it's likely a great place to relax after the big day.

For Sri Lanka, I'm afraid i've not got much advice... it's probably somewhere much better set up for travelling around

For Dubai - loads of posts here just do a search.

That you can mention the Maldives and not mention its one of the worlds top diving/snorkel locations I don't understand. You can move between Island but it not usual. You can choose a basic island or a more luxury based one. You mainly get honey mooners or groups of divers there. Though its perfectly fine for families due to all the outdoor activities. I don't see theres any reason why you couldn't contact a [SIZE=-1]Madivian island directly and make arrangements.

I've used scheduled flights to get there in the past. Much better than the sardine charters IMO.
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aircobra19 said:

That you can mention the Maldives and not mention its one of the worlds top diving/snorkel locations I don't understand.

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Fair point about the diving ... for me personally it wouldn't entice me to go to a tiny island for 2 weeks ... but if you're into watersports/diving then certainly it would be a good spot for that.

Agreed on the charter flights too ... I guess the OP is going on scheduled Emirates flights through Dubai if they're combingin it with Dubai... so they've probably escaped from the sardine flights.

For me 2 weeks on a smaller island was too much. On a bigger island with more sport facilities and a bigger bar/more events it was ok. Agreed its a different type of holiday than driving around rome etc. I spent most of the days in the sea when I was there. We loved it.

we stayed in the Hilton Maldives for a week - expensive but worth every cent for a one-off luxurious holiday. There are 7 restaurants spread across 2 islands, so there's plenty of variety and a lot of activities, although a week on a beach resort was plenty for us. I believe you can book directly with some of the larger resorts on their websites.

Also, the nicest part of Dubai is the Jumeirah beach resort - a collection of hotels along a man-made (but very nice) beach. Again, you can probably book directly with any of these hotels if you google Jumeirah Dubai.