Editor’s Choice: 6 Best Maldives water-villa resorts with excellent scuba diving

As mentioned above, pretty much every Maldives resort offers a full diving program including PADI training and certification, gear rental, and regular (usually daily) excursions to the best nearby spots with a qualified dive master.

All the resorts offer excellent snorkeling as well, usually on their house reef and sometimes very good snorkeling right below the water villas. Some offer daily boat excursions to the better snorkeling spots nearby, and these are often included in the room price, or at least much cheaper than scuba diving.

We’ve gone through all the options to find the absolute best resorts where guests also rave about the scuba diving and dive center. The diving opportunities are similar enough at all resorts that you are much better off picking a highly-rated resort with great diving rather than focusing only on the diving and perhaps having a miserable time when not in the water.

The 6 recommended resorts are all:

• Among the highest in overall guest reviews
• Have scuba diving and dive centers that get great reviews
• Offer good valu

• Water villas: 33
• Total rooms/suites: 36

Fantastic scuba diving is only one of the interesting features at the COMO Cocoa Island Resort. It has 33 unique water villas that are shaped like traditional Maldivian fishing boats, plus 3 beach villas, making it one of the smallest and most exclusive resorts in the area. Importantly, this resort also literally gets the best reviews of any Maldives resort, so it’s likely to only get more and more popular throughout the coming years.

This boutique resort only has 1 restaurant but there’s also room service, a bar and an excellent spa. If you’ve come to the area for it’s ocean life, you’ll find plenty when you snorkel or scuba dive. Those looking for a unique and luxurious small private-island resort should put this at the top of their list, though it’s obviously not for everyone.

• Low season online specials from US$977 per night
• High season online specials from US$1,251 per night

• Water villas: 30
• Total rooms/suites: 75

With a location only a short speedboat ride away from the international airport, the Baros Island Resort is one of the first and most famous overwater villa resorts in the region. The excellent diving here is in addition to a marine biology center and a coral planting workshop, so this is a perfect choice for nature lovers who dive. If you have an underwater camera of some sort, you’ll want to make sure to have it fully charged each and every trip into the water.

The 30 water villas are all quite large and loaded with luxury amenities, as you’d expect in this price category. There are four restaurants and 2 bars, which is quite impressive considering there are only 75 total rooms here. Each water villa comes with its own wine-chiller, just as an example of what you can expect should you take the plunge.

• Low season online specials from US$1,540 per night
• High season online specials from US$1,826 per night

• Water villas: 86
• Total rooms/suites: 110

An all-inclusive resort with a temptingly reasonable price, the Constance Moofushi Maldives only opened in late 2010, so everything is still new as well. The scuba diving here does get very high marks from guests so far, which makes this one of the best value resorts on this list.

There are 86 water villas spread over a stunning lagoon, in addition to 24 island rooms and suites. There are almost no facilities for young people, making this unofficially an adults resort, for better or worse. There are 2 restaurants and 3 bars, so plenty of choice for a limited number of total guests.

• Low season online specials from US$1,097 per night
• High season online specials from US$1,244 per night

• Water villas: 129
• Total rooms/suites: 360

Another that mostly specializes in all-inclusive meal plans, the Kuramathi Maldives resort is one of the largest in the Maldives, with 129 water villas among its 360 total rooms. The diving is said to be very good here, as well as the snorkeling, which again is a pleasant bit of news considering everything else included and a moderate price for the all-inclusive plans.

There are 12 restaurants and 7 bars, so not many people are going to struggle to find something or some place they like as far as dining is concerned. The advantages of a large resort include a much wider range of activity and dining choices, and for many people that is more important than the extra privacy you typically get at the smaller islands.

• Low season online specials from US$1,037 per night
• High season online specials from US$1,208 per night

• Water villas: 60
• Total rooms/suites: 142

Okay, this one is better avoided by anyone looking for a budget rate. This is an exclusive and remote resort with 60 water villas and 90 island rooms and suites, all at prices that are out of reach for most of us. The location just south of the equator puts it into rare waters, which help explain why the diving is so well regarded here and very impressive to even the most experienced of divers.

You can expect an enormous water villa here, plus the best of everything and impeccable service. The remote location does provide some solitude, though it’s also conveniently located a short speedboat ride away from an airport that can handle private planes, so fuel up your jet and book a villa here.

• Low season online specials from US$825 per night
• High season online specials from US$1,065 per night

• Water villas: 25
• Total rooms/suites: 75

Quite different from the others on this list, the Vakarufalhi Maldives resort is a small all-inclusive hotel with 25 new water villas recently added to the 50 island rooms and suites. The diving here gets very high marks, as does pretty much everything else, in spite of the fact that there isn’t the usual long list of water sports. Though the rooms don’t come with room service, guests will find a private terrace, Wi-Fi, an entertainment system and a beautiful semi-open bathroom with a garden.

This is a resort where many guests return every year, and they love the fact that they often go barefoot for days at a time. The low-season prices are quite tempting considering that’s an all-inclusive rate for a couple. For a more traditional Maldives island holiday, this is one to book.

• Low season online specials from US$544 per night
• High season online specials from US$705 per night