What to choose in the Maldives: Beach Villa or Water Villa?

Best Maldives Water Villa Resorts


Book Your All Inclusive Vacation and save 25% in Atmosphere Hotels and Resorts, Maldives
Book Your All Inclusive Vacation and save 25% in Atmosphere Hotels and Resorts, Maldives

Updated December, 2023

The Maldives is no doubt the most beautiful and romantic destination in the world. The islands are an untouched getaway with white sand beaches, azure waters, abundant marine life and with a true reputation for being remote, relatively few visitors compared to other beach destinations. With a combination that makes it a perfect location for romance, self-discovery or a relaxing trip it's no wonder the Maldives evoke visions of paradise, seducing honeymooners, romantics, adventurers and families looking for escape.

The Maldives with it's 1,192 coral islands grouped in a double chain of 26 atolls boasting turquoise-blue lagoons, white sand, palm-fringed beaches, coral reefs and luxuriously intimate resorts, each island paradise has something for everyone.

One question always being asked is - Is it worth staying in water Villa Maldives and is water villa price? Maldives is home to the famous over-water villas and beach villas. There’s nothing better than stepping out from your villa right onto the beautiful beach or into the crystal clear waters of the Indian Ocean, but which option is perfect for you? If you are having trouble deciding on whether to opt for a luxurious beach villa or a magnificent water villa then you have come to the right place. Whether you are looking for an overwater bungalow surrounded by crystal clear blue water or an exclusive beach villa with pool in a luxury Maldives resorts, we can help you find the right accommodation option for your desires and budget.

Beach Villas in The Maldives

the best beaches in the world

With the best beaches in the world, the Maldives are just full of beach villas! Beach villas are perfect if you love relaxing on the white sands and want to be just a few steps from the own beach with sun loungers and crystal clear waters. The proximity to your room, quality, colour and combination with lagoon and reef, it is still true that your beach experience in the Maldives is very likely to be wonderful, second to nowhere else in the world. Comfortably equipped with modern amenities, most of these Villas are ideal for a secluded break. You can choose between couples and families, sunrise and sunset, and often the rooms come with a pool and butler service. Sunrise beach villas are ideal for early birds Wake up with the rising sun in your generously sized Villa. Sunset Beach Villas give you to enjoy a dramatic sunset from your sun lounger in your garden or dining under the stars on your private deck. Also, when choosing a villa keep in mind that the villas on the island's souther side catch more sun and some have more fine sand than others. For most rooms most of the year there is a glorious beach right outside the door. And when there isn’t, the islands are generally so small that you only have to stroll a few seconds away to get to an area of ideal beach. And ultimately, the management is always willing to move you when a better room becomes available. Indoors, you’ll be delighted with the large outdoor bathroom featuring a terrazzo bathtub semi indoor shower and outdoor rain shower, as well a posh tropical vegetation for privacy. The some of the best beach villas even offer a direct sea view from your bedroom.

Pros: The beach villas give you direct access to the beach. Some beach villas have private garden meaning extra privacy. Some beach villas have outdoor bathrooms in walled gardens and private pools making it more romantic. Easy access to all island facilities yet still quite secluded. You can move your sun bed around depending on the movement of the sun.

Cons: Having a private garden can cause obstructed views. other guests can walk past your beach making it less private. However if you have your own garden then it will help prevent this. You might be able to hear unwanted noises from people passing by your villa or from the resort’s bars and restaurants

Best Beach Villas for Couples

Maldives is a prime honeymoon destination

There's no question that the Maldives is a prime honeymoon destination for a luxury holiday spent by the Indian ocean, with turquoise waters and sprawling sandy beaches galore. However, with so many resorts and locations to choose from, narrowing down the different options can seem like a bit of a task. With a selection of fine quality beachfront getaway for couples in the Maldives that provide the ultimate in tropical peace and seclusion, we are pleased to help you discover the finest vacation for you to create a bespoke beach experience that is both relaxing and memorable. We've taken a look at our top 10 beach villas to help you discover all the best that the Maldives has to offer. The best thing that outside of these Maldivian beach villas you will find a gourmet food, pools, spa, wide range of activities and exceptional service. You can to sunbath, swim, snorkel and scuba dive just steps away from your doorstep. All you have to do is settle into your secluded paradise as you unwind, relax and enjoy the beauty and the gorgeous Maldivian sun.

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Best Family Beach Pool Villas in Maldives

Best Family Beach Pool Villas in Maldives

The best Family Beach Pool Villas in Maldives offer so much more, than just a place to spend your Maldives holiday with family. They offer choices of amenities and services that cater to the different needs of parents and children. These villas in Maldives offer you a holiday experience with unique designs, luxury amenities, sense of privacy, and the added feature of doors opening to the beach with a pool to soak in. The plus factors are convincing: complete privacy, freedom of movement, and a spacious living environment that especially children lack. Travelling with kids and sharing the holiday experience can be a real pleasure. Many hotel also choices provide supporting facilities for the little ones. Parents can equally partake in the fun, or easily enjoy their private time-for-two.

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Best Romantic Beach Pool Villas in Maldives

Best Romantic Beach Pool Villas in Maldives

Maldives is world famous for its beaches, crystal clear waters and a take-it-easy vibe that are the perfect backdrop for a honeymoon getaway. There is no dearth of beach pool villas in the Maldives, but some of them stand above the rest. The best romantic beach pool villas in Maldives are the perfect choice for newlyweds and couples who want to spend a holiday in Maldives like they are in a home away from home. There is no comparison to the feeling of total intimacy you get from having a villa all to yourself, with the added bonus of a private infinity pool. For many reasons, it is perhaps the best accommodation arrangement available, which is why they are currently at the top of the list for many honeymooners. They afford significantly greater freedom to spend your days however you please and are also suited to families, groups of friends and couples.

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Best Beach Houses in Maldives

Beach Houses in Maldives for group vacation

Looking for a luxury vacation by the beach in Maldives? For a romantic escape or some quality time with your nearest and dearest, booking your own private beach house is absolutely the best way to enjoy of Malldives. The privacy that comes with a standalone property is complemented by private plunge pools, suites and airy accommodation. You get to be blown away by the magnificent ocean views while being pampered by the butler services around the clock of your private beach villa. These stunning beach houses are away from the monotony of the city life, and offer a breathtaking view throughout the day. These luxury residences are truly a paradise for group of friends or families where crystalline turquoise waters lap against sugar-white sands steps away from your bed, and each day feels like paradise. If a clear blue sky, sparkling azure waters, fine sand, and a luxurious retreat makes for a perfect backdrop for your travel story, then you must check out these 10 best beach houses in the Maldives!

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Best Beach Residences in the Maldives

Beach Residence n the Maldives for your next holidays

There are plenty of reasons to pick the Maldives, from exceptional beaches and unbeatable marine life to some jaw-droppingly luxury hotels. These beachfront houses, equipped with every imaginable amenity, are your perfect palatial residences, designed for making extraordinary memories with your family or friends. Plus, they offer access to the most pristine beaches away from the crowds in this popular romantic destination in the Indian ocean.

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Water Villas

Six senses Laamu overwater bungalow

The chain of 26 natural atolls that make up the Maldives is home for 2/3 water villas in the world and staying in an overwater villas is one of those bucket-list items you must check off. The variety of stays here (more than 100 properties) is mind-boggling: whether you’re a dedicated diver or environmentalist, honeymooner or family group looking to splurge, there’s a over water bungalow here for you. Interested in personal butlers and meals delivered straight to your room? Prefer something more social? Villas at Soneva Jani have their own slides and outdoor swings while the property hosts live music and outdoor movie nights. Conrad Maldives Rangali Island made the biggest news splash when it debuted the world’s first underwater villa in 2019 —though any guest can experience the novelty at its ethereal underwater restaurant Undersea, where guests dine on fine European cuisine while schools of tropical fish swirl all around.

You’ve probably seen water villas on Instagram. These are the unmistakable thatched bungalows that appear to float on the clear waters. Aside from being a feature for very “share-worthy” photos, overwater villas also make for amazing holiday accommodations. They provide a measure of privacy over traditional beach villas while offering easy access to the water and ocean's underwater treasures.

Not every island is blessed with the sand and surf worthy of postcard —but those that are are as spellbindingly beautiful as the hotels that line their shores.

Make your stay in Maldives as memorable as it can be with a stay in an overwater villa. Fall asleep to the lullaby of lagoon waters lapping beneath your villa, watch the sunset from your private deck, and enjoy the marine life below through the glass floor. Most Maldives luxury resorts have water villas where you can spend your days leapfrogging from spa to swim up cocktail bar to beach and back again. Water Villa is only a few steps down a staircase into the cristal clear water, where you’ll often be surrounded by psychedelic-coloured fish, so definitely worth considering if you love swimming and snorkelling.

Pros: Tend to be quite private. You can enjoy uninterrupted views of the sea. Some people feel water villas are more romantic. Some water villas have glass-panelled floors, which means you can watch the sea life beneath you. There is direct access to the sea and house reef snorkeling. You can relax on your own personal lounge deck with a pool and sun beds. Some water villas have a small artificial sand beach on the sun deck.

Cons: Water villas can be a long way from the resort’s main facilities such as the restaurants and bars. They can be poorly lit at night. Your personal lounge deck might not be facing the sun and therefore might be in the shade half the time. At low tides the water beneath you can be too shallow to get into the ocean or see the sealife beneath you. The steps leading into the ocean can be made out of steel making them slippery to climb in and out of the water. In most cases, for safety reasons, accommodation with small children is prohibited in water villas.

If You want to feel the true magic of the Maldives learn more why the water villa is your next ‘perfect honeymoon’ idea.

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How to Choose a Water Villa

water villas for honeymoon in the maldives

The key things about a water villa are the sun deck and the lagoon. Assuming the interior is good for the money you have paid, it is the sun deck that delights or disappoints in a water villa. This is where you hope to spend a lot of time. So, critically, how long does it have the sun on it and how secluded are you from your neighbours?

South-facing gets you the sun for most of the day, west-facing gets you the sunset. East-facing is fine for early-ish risers and those who won’t be sunbathing in the heat of the day, north-facing verandas don’t get the sun, but have the best view because of the sun behind them. Most water bungalows are in staggered lines, so that you don’t see more than one neighbour either side of you, and sometimes it is well done enough not to see anyone. Other water bungalows are joined together or in straight lines with very little dividing them. These can be okay but they are not ideal. The width of the sun deck is important and then it is a matter of what those steps down take you into. Actually, some water bungalows don’t have steps down but the only good reason for this that is because you would be stepping straight down onto a coral garden.

Like the ideal island for snorkelling, the ideal lagoon for a water bungalow is not that common. But, once again, whatever you do end up with almost always gives you great pleasure. Ideally you walk down the wooden steps from your veranda into a sunlit lagoon that is a good depth for swimming and standing around in, say waist to chest deep. The bottom is softest sand but coral blocks are here and there delighting with their colour and activity. A short swim then takes you to the reef drop-off, either over the corals at high tide or down a cut through. What can happen is the lagoon never gets above knee height, or the floor is covered with broken pieces of staghorn coral, or it is featureless and lifeless. Sometimes the drop-off is miles away or the current is worryingly strong when the tides turn. Any one resort is unlikely to have all these disadvantages, but one or two of these things could affect your holiday experience.

As for season: If the prevailing wind is coming from south-west (Hulhangu as it is called in local Dhivehi language, runs from May to October) and your resort is on the western side of the atoll, you will experience the worst of it or best of it depending on what you want. Villas set over the water can actually shudder when the wind and waves are strong though the storms are not common. So it may pay to try to get a room on the eastern side, but then you give up the sunset view. The same rule applies to beach villas that're facing the ocean (not inside the lagoon).

Best Water Villas in Maldives

Best water villa in indian ocean

The best water villas in Maldives offer you a holiday experience with unique designs, luxury amenities, sense of privacy, and the added feature of doors opening to a sea views to-die-for. These are easily the best accommodation you can go for a holiday in Maldives, especially for longer stays, with a range of personalised services that you can enjoy in the conveniences of your own compound. We've gathered the 10 best private water villas in Maldives' distinguished resorts for your consideration, which offer more than what you would expect from a typical resort guestroom. Enjoy your stay and take the ‘plunge'!

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Water Villa with Slide in the Maldives

Best water villa in indian ocean

What’s better than an over-water bungalow in the Maldives? An over-water villa in the Maldives with its very own slide, of course, to plunge straight from the room into the sparkling waters of the Indian Ocean! The slide in Water Villa can keep your busy, happy, and active all holiday, especially fun with children.

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Best Honeymoon Over Water Suites in Maldives

Best Honeymoon Over Water Suites in Maldives

An epic water villas nestled over some of the most beautiful stretches of lagoons make up this list for the Maldives best resorts for over water honeymoon suites. These hotels offer accommodations that allow you to fully enjoy an island getaway experience, with bungalow style rooms perched above pristine water where a dip in the warm ocean is literally outside your door. From the short speedboat transfer from Malé airport to a scenic seaplane jorney, these resorts provide a unique experience of remote accommodations to make you feel at one with nature while still offering luxurious and comfortable accommodations and top notch amenities and services that you expect from the best luxury resorts in the Maldives

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Best Over-Water Residences in The Maldives

Best Over-Water Residences in The Maldives

You will never experience the fascination of the over-water living anywhere as fully as in the overwater residence, which appears to float above the turquoise lagoon. Ideal for both couples and families alike with 100% privacy this is that type of luxurious accommodation where you can just get out of bed and dip into the ocean for swimming or snorkeling. You will not only enjoy luxurious living over an omnipresent ocean when you relax on the spacious terrace ranging across several levels over the lagoon but also when you have a bath in the hot tub or in the large private pool, and last but not least while enjoying a romantic sundowner cocktail or during a private dinner with your beloved one, family or group of friends.

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Best Family Water Pool Villas

water villa with a slide in the Maldives

With its unbelievably white sandy beaches and crystal-clear turquoise waters the Maldives, once considered a dream honeymoon destination, is now a haven for family-friendly beach vacations. The spectacular luxury kids friendly resorts which are nestled on the private islands are another major drawcard. These luxury Maldives resorts take ‘ocean view’ to another level, pleasing their smallest guests with endless adventure and indulgence. The atmosphere, kids' clubs, stunning family villas, endless activities and outstanding fun, is all really makes family holidays work. All the below resorts are family-friendly and if you’ve added “stay in an over-water villa” to your travel bucket list , but you still don’t want to leave the kids at home - don’t panic: there are over-water family accommodation options out there!

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30 Amazing Sunset Water Pool Villas in The Maldives

30 Amazing Sunset Water Pool Villas in The Maldives

What gives you accommodation in the Sunset Over-Water Pool Villa? The first is 100% privacy. The second it's gorgeous ocean and sunset views. Gentle waves lapping at your doorstep. Schools of fish flitting between vivid coral reefs in the glistening waters beneath your feet. Such are the pleasures of the Water Pool Villas, many of which featuring a spacious living rooms that lead to a private verandah with infinity pool, where you can indulge in the Maldivian sunshine and delight in the live aquarium before your very eyes. There’s nothing better than stepping out from your villa right into the crystal clear waters of the Indian Ocean to swim or snorkel. So, if you made a choice in favor of a water villa, check our list of the best luxury over-water villa resorts in the Maldives.

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10 Most Affordable Water Villas in Maldives

Cheap Water Villas in the Maldives

A water villa is usually a couples' choice, but it can cost $1,000 or more per night. The whole holiday experience including flight can be fairly expensive and that kind of price tag can be a honeymooner's nightmare. While it may never be cheap to visit thу Maldives, fortunately there are still some chic and relatively affordable overwater villas you can stay. We rounded up overwater villas around the Maldives, nearly all of which range from $300 to $500 per night. Although they lack in luxury and privacy all provide ultimate natural beauty, a great service, and both an elegant retreat and a unique experience at an attainable price point.

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