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» Package Holidays: Asdu, Maldives

Package Holidays: Asdu, Maldives

Reviewer: Simsi
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The second visit to the Maldives and we did things a little differently, veering off the package holiday route and booking flights and “hotel” seperately. We had an equally fantastic time in a slightly more “natural” habitat than you generally get with package deals on Asdu Sun Island, which is an hour speed-boat ride from Malé airport.

Asdu is different to many of the other Maldives resorts a in several ways – it’s less “purpose built” and more basic/informal, plenty of trees in a more natural habitat and a smaller Island all-round – without the 5* touches, but much more of that “middle of nowhere” feeling which is, I have to say, fantastic.

You sit on the white sandy beach during the day looking out at….nothing! Not a thing in sight. Robinson Crusoe this is! You can walk right round the Island in, ooh, 10 minutes, it’s that small. It only had around 25 guest rooms, a central restaurant, and catering mainly for visitors on diving holiday packages, is quiet during the day because they all sail out to the reef to, well “dive” I guess! Not that it will ever get busy with so few rooms!

It’s a more rustic feeling, basic yet very clean rooms, but it’s also a very cheap holiday by Maldives standards. We did this differently in that I booked the flight and room seperately this time and got a fantastic deal. I booked the flight via the CheapFlights.co.uk site and got us a return from the UK for £159 each! And remember this is in season too! The week before Xmas in fact. I emailed Asdu Sun Island direct and got a room-per-night cost of $150 for 2 people including breakfast and evening meal!! Unreal.

And the food, while not Michelin star obviously, was still damn good…my g/f still talks about the amazing fish that they caught and cooked. The menu each day isn’t published because it depends what they catch! How much more rustic do you want?! All in all, we did the holiday with accommodation, flights, food, speed-boat transfer and airport taxes for a fraction over £500 each for 7 nights. And we spent about £10 a day each on drinks/lunch/ice cream – a total bargain. I have one tip though: because it is a wooded Island, it attracts birds that decide squawking at 4am is a good way to liven things up! Take earplugs – or just catch up with the shut-eye during the day…but do not let that put you off. The beach-to-yourself in paradise is an opportunity not to be missed.

One of the other reasons I piked Asdu out is that it has a good reputation for snorkelling. Like most Maldivian Islands, a lot of the coral is bleached, but a lot isn’t so there is still a huge array of sea-life. Didn’t see a shark this time round, but did come across a turtle and a multitue of other exotic fish! The snorkelling was very good though and if you’ve never been , it’s an ideal place to try it as you are never in more  than 6ft of water inside the lagoon, although you can get shipped out to reefs outside the Island perimeter if you want deeper action! In the restaurant they have charts around the wall showing all the fish you can come across and we found it handy matching up what we’d seen that day.

Incidentally, Asdu is marketed as a package holiday generally in non-English markets so mainly you get Italians and french people there to dive, so you won’t find this on the radar on the main holiday sites.

Check out my review for my first visit to the island of Kanuhura in the Maldives.

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