The summary of stay at The Sunrise Huraa where we spent the first seven of ten days of our Maldives 2019 trip: fantastic, exceeded expectations, and we couldn’t have asked for better care.
My more specific comments!
The Sunrise Huraa is a guest house owned by Mr. Sameer, and he spent two decades working at The Four Seasons chain of establishments, including a stint even in Singapore, and is a born and bred resident of Huraa Island. His experience and awareness of the area and surroundings really show.
His guest house comprises eight rooms in two separate buildings. The rooms are slightly varied in sizing. We were a little worried initially whether there would be sufficient space in a guest house room to accommodate the four of us, but the fears turned out to be unfounded: Sameer was able to place two single-sized beds on the floor, in addition to the double-bed for the adults. The room felt a little crammed as a result amidst the other furniture in it, including a side and night table, a dressing table, wardrobe, and dresser – but it felt just as cozy too.
The guest house’s dining area is also the property’s common area, and the kitchen just behind the dining room. The dining area has a sand pit, and the two kids had literally hours of fun building sand castles and spent whatever free time they could there. A number of rotating fans are mounted on the ceiling, and easily keep things breezy even on the most hot afternoons.
The guest house is actually located on the opposite side of the island’s main pier, but it’s a short 200m / 5-6 minute walk straight down the road. The only point of consideration though is the relative lack of shelter from the noon-time sun for most of the walk if you just take the direct path down past the newly built mini-stadium and then mosque.
The Google map above suggests too that the guest house sits besides the beach: but it also hasn’t been updated as it no longer does. There is a massive reclaimed plot of land that’s on the side of the property and itself is roughly the size of Huraa itself. There’s nothing on the land yet as there is still ongoing construction work. But I reckon in a year’s time, it’ll be filled with new roads, residences and also guest houses.
Sameer is assisted by a number of other persons on his team, including his son – though we only met him once during our stay. Day to day, there were two other staff who seem to be able to do everything: including whip up our meals on-demand, house-keeping, and also accompanying Sameer when he brought us out on our daily excursions. I noticed that he also had a preferred partner for the travels that require the larger private speedboat, while the shorter trips he’d just drive us out himself with a smaller boat though without cover.
The in-house dining menu offers a variety of sandwiches, curries, main-courses and lighter finger-fare. We’re not sure what mojo is going on in that little kitchen of theirs, but what the chef can whip up is impressive! Each item that we ordered over the seven days was always delectably prepared and tasty, and reasonably priced too. For just USD25, we ate very well. We’d typically message Sameer our breakfast choices – American, Maldivian, or Continental – the night before, and breakfast is served at 7:30AM.
From the get-go, we were quite surprised by the fact that we were the only guests during our period of stay. Low-peak yep I get it – but still! Basically, we had the undivided attention of Sameer and his team over our seven day stay. We had the guest house all to ourselves, though I suspect one or two of his staff also sleep in quarters hidden somewhere in the complex. Sameer would arrive by motorbike usually around 7:45AM each morning also work out the details of the day’s excursions with us. We had 100% customized excursions, e.g. in view of weather, how far we were comfortable traveling, start and end-times and so on.
For the most part, the excursions we had on Huraa Island I reckon aren’t different from what you’d get from another resort: these would include sunset fishing, snorkeling to various spots and to see different types of sea creatures, picnic on an uninhabited island, and visits to the sand bank. There is one exception though: and that is the mangrove swamp and also crab hunting, since the presence of such would really depend on the local island you’re at. The latter was really special, since it was basically a treat that Sameer put together for us: and there was so much crab – three huge plates of – cooked chili crab-styled that we barely finished just one plate of it! And the entire excursion and dinner was on the house too.
Just to put forward a complete picture: there are little things in the guest house that we also had to learn to adjust around. The en-suite bathroom is spartan and a little dreary-looking: it’s clean and functional yep – just not the kind of bathroom you’d want to spend too much time in! The air-conditioning and ceiling fan rattled a little, and the power went out a few times. And that’s it: that’s all of the little things that didn’t work so good.
The finally, the most memorable takeaway was the amount of care and concern Sameer and his team had for us, and especially our two kids. More so when Peter and Hannah were pretty much game for everything, including wading out into the swamp in their quest for crabs haha. Sameer really kept an eye out for them, and ensured that the kids’ personal safety and health were taken care of at all times.
I think Huraa Island will look very different if we’re back here again at some point, on account that the island will double in size after its land reclamation project completes, and it might lose some of its sleepy charm. But with establishments like The Sunrise Huraa, visitors can still look forward to amazing Maldivian hospitality and care, and at a fraction of the prices you’d pay to do the same from one of the private islands. The Sunrise Huraa and Sameer has our highest recommendations.
My notes on Huraa Island itself next!
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