Affordable Maldives Excursions | The Best Maafushi Tours & Activities

The Maldives gets really mundane after awhile.

Can you imagine having to spend day after never-ending day staring at water so clear, so dazzling, and so magnificent, that it’s beyond imagination? By the 3rd day, I was already totally over it.

Don’t even get me started on the cloudless, blue skies, perfect temperatures and Robinson Crusoe like serenity. Not to mention being forced to sit on soft, powdery white sand, watching a pod of wild dolphins frolicking in the distance. Utterly boring!

It’s something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

The whole thing was so dull, that we were forced to sign ourselves up for what was sure to be an equally monotonous Maldives excursion. It couldn’t get much worse than that tired old beach on Maafushi.

Or so we thought.

But no, it got much, much worse. As we sped towards the first of our snorkelling sites on the decrepit speedboat our Maafushi tour provided, we were compelled to look at water that kept changing colour. I swear that I must’ve seen every single shade of gorgeous turquoise, blue-green, cerulean sea possible. All sparkling annoyingly brilliantly under the sun. It was painful and blinding. And to make matters worse, that horrid, salty water kept hitting me in the face and cooling me off.

It would’ve been refreshing if it wasn’t so absolutely tiresome.

But then, for our next stop on our Maldives excursion, the Maafushi tour operators had the nerve to pull up to a deserted sandbar in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It was literally a drop of pristine, white sand abandoned and surrounded by more of that annoying crystal clear water. The damn thing was so ephemeral, parts of its “beach” kept washing away in the few hours that we were forced to spend there.

The Maldives excursion torture was prolonged with a second snorkelling site full of listless sea turtles. Being 5 months pregnant and floating around weightlessly in that immaculate water was a liberating sensation I can’t even begin to describe. But if I had to? In one word?

Awful.

But just when I thought the endless Maafushi day tour would finish, we had to go in search of wild dolphins on a “dolphin safari.” Driving back and forth in that speedboat, under the blazing hot sun, we only saw 1 pod of dolphins in the whole half hour we were looking. And they only came within 1 metre of our boat for a few minutes. What a complete waste of time.

Thankfully, the Maldives day trip was finally over, and we could go back to boring, old Maafushi.

How to book Maldives excursions on Maafushi

If you get bored of sitting on one of the most perfect beaches I’ve ever seen, there’s a plethora of activities and day trips to get involved with. There’s scuba diving, snorkelling, trips to resort islands and so much more to choose from. And the best part is that the Maldives excursions offered on Maafushi were extremely affordable.

We comparison shopped at a lot of different places on Maafushi, and found the best deal and service at WhiteShell Beach Inn. For example, WhiteShell provided beach umbrellas. A lot of other Maafushi tour operators didn’t, and they were definitely needed. That deserted sandbar was HOT.

And while I’m sure that resort islands charge an arm and a leg for the same tour that we did, we paid just $45 each for our entire Maldives excursion. It included transport by speedboat, 2 snorkelling sites, a picnic lunch on a deserted sandbar and a dolphin safari. All drinks, food, towels, and gear were provided.

All of the hotels, home stays and activity centres on Maafushi offered similar tours. There was very little difference in WHAT places provide, but there was definitely a difference in price, service and professionalism levels. And just because you pay more, doesn’t mean you’ll GET more. Shop around, ask a lot of questions and negotiate if you can.

Hopefully you won’t end up on some Maldives excursions as terrible as ours. 😀

Do you pay for additional day trips and excursions when you’re traveling? or do it all on your own? Tell us all about your experiences in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you!