When you spot a woman in Prada getting off one of the seaplanes arriving at Malé airport, it’s almost certain she’ll have been staying at Reethi Rah. The hotel is deeply glamorous: guests dress up for dinner in its dimly lit, gently gleaming environs, and sometimes for breakfast, lunch and dive school, too. Super-smart, with its stone baths designedfor two, often with a royal in residence (never seen but identifiable by uniformed bodyguards sitting outside the villa), this is an immense and hugely successful hotel, with 12 man-made beaches anda busy marina where big inflatables can be hired. There’s a very Zen Japanese spa where you can fully detox, and an amazing teen zone with ping-pong tables and all kinds of watersports. Since it opened, a cookery school has been added and its overwater villas now have pools, but the beach pool villas are still the best: thrillingly big and impressive, they have wardrobes and shoe space to match.
