Recently, a video about an abandoned resort in the Maldives went viral and I was curious to find out which one it was as I have come across several. My further investigation has uncovered five specifically:
- J ALIDHOO – We actually had the distinction of staying at J Alidhoo went it was in the final stages of decommissioning. Our tour report mentioned “operational issues” as we thought that the property was having a bump in the road as resorts sometimes do, but I guess it never recovered. Our visit was actually quite surreal. We arrived and the marketing manager who had invited us had left the company a couple of days ago and had not passed on our visit details to the staff. So we arrived at the jetty and they were all a bit surprised (but they saw the correspondence I shared with the invitation and they happily welcomed us especially and the island was 95% empty with only a handful of other customers there. The spa was closed and the F&B operation was severely constrained (as mentioned in our earlier report). We were happy to see the place being in the neighbourhood so far up north, but it was a bit of an eerie experience even before it fully shuttered a few months later.
- ZITALHI DHOLHIYADHOO – The “Out Chasing Stars” blog posted a pretty comprehensive photo essay about this place, “Walking an Abandoned Resort in the Maldives – Out Chasing Stars”, in addition to the video (see bottom).
- FARU – Faru was one of the earliest resorts in the Maldives and was a renowned budget property (pretty much one of the cheapest resorts in the 1990s), but they never invested in some of the basics (eg. air conditioning) that the new waves of Maldives visitors were looking for and got left behind it seems. I heard rumours of the island being revamped, but nothing specific seems to have emerged.
- J RESORT RAALHUVELI – This is the one that is causing all the fuss recently with the Kale Brock video (see below).
- VELIDHOO – I’ve long heard about Velidhoo, but couldn’t find much about it and the video directly below explains why.
