‘Ultimate’ solo women’s getaway
With its 270 rooms, Kandima Maldives is one of the biggest island resorts in the Maldives, an “active lifestyle” location that offers a wide variety of attractions, scuba-diving included, but among its claims is that it is the “ultimate solo island getaway for women travellers”.
When you’re not diving Kandima promises relaxation, holistic spa treatments, yoga sessions, snorkelling, parasailing, jetskiing, fishing, coral conservation, art classes and sunset cruises as well as more energetic pastimes such as windsurfing, kayaking, tennis and volleyball, not to mention “10 unique dining options”.
Also read: Booking Now: 10 ideas for your next dive-trip
“For solo travellers, especially females, safety is a top priority,” it says. On the scuba front guests will find not only the Aquaholics dive-centre but a dedicated diving safety officer and an on-site decompression chamber.
Kandima Maldives currently has a “Stay Longer” deal that features discounts of up to 65% off on all room types, 50% off return transfers, staying on a dine-around-all-inclusive basis, 15% off selected excursions and water sports and 10% off spa rates.
Under the deal, lead-in rates for solo guests this November are from US $256 (£196) a night in a studio on a B&B basis, from $400 (£306) for half-board and $504 (£385) for an all-inclusive stay. Up to five dives cost $100 each, 6-14 $90 and 14+ $85.
Drive, dive and save £400 in Bonaire
If you fancy a stay at the well-known Buddy Dive Resort on Bonaire this November, Dive Worldwide is offering savings of £400 per couple per week.
The package includes provision for the “drive-and-dive” style of diving that made Bonaire famous, with car-hire and tanks supplied to enable unlimited shore-diving up and down the island’s west coast, with a choice of up to 60 marked dive-sites. Six boat-dives are also included.
The entire coastline is a designated marine park, and more than 470 species of fish have been recorded there, along with hawksbill turtles, giant frogfish, spotted eagle rays and seahorses.
The fringing reef is just 10m from shore, water temperature averages around 29°C, visibility often exceeds 30m and, close to the South American mainland, Bonaire is well south of the hurricane belt.
The resort, which offers informal and relaxed apartment-style accommodation, also has its own house reef. Apart from the on-site PADI 5* Buddy Dive Centre there is a swimming pool, a Buddy Rangers’ kids club and a choice of restaurants.
The special offer price from £2,595pp includes return flights from the UK, transfers, seven nights’ accommodation (two sharing), car hire, six boat-dives and conservation fund contribution.
Bigger ride for Mexico Liveaboards
Mexico Liveaboards is getting a new vessel, Quino Del Mar, which will replace Quino Del Guardian when it launches next July. The operator is already taking bookings for trips out to Socorro and the Sea of Cortez.
The steel-hulled Quino Del Mar is bigger than its predecessor at 36m with an 8m beam, and also bigger than the other boat in the fleet, Rocio del Mar, with the operator promising more space, stability and comfort on what can be long Pacific crossings.
It has 10 double en suite cabins, two at lower and eight at upper deck level. The main deck has a large salon, computer-station, dining-room and kitchen, while the dive-deck includes a fully equipped camera table; there is also a shaded sun-deck. There is air-conditioning throughout, and diving is from two 8m Achilles inflatable pangas.
A 10-day trip to Socorro is priced from US $4,195 (£3,200); eight days to the Midriff islands in the Sea of Cortez from $3,095 (£2,360); 13 days exploring Baja California from $4,895 (£3,730) and an eight-day southern safari of the Sea of Cortez from $2,500 (£1,900).
Summer continues in Spain
Don’t give up on summer in Europe yet – until the end of November the water temperature is ideal for exploring the seabed of Costa del Montgrí, the natural park of the Medes Islands, says Hotel & Diving Les Illes in L’Estartit, on Spain’s Mediterranean coast.
Les Illes dive-centre was founded in 1985 and it takes only 10 minutes for its dive-boat to reach the protected marine reserve, where you can dive in posidonia meadows and see many impressive species of fish, sessile life and crustaceans.
An eight-day, seven-night stay on full board with 12 boat dives costs from 774 euros (£650) and budget flights are available to Girona from the UK.
Atlantis links with Infiniti
Atlantis Philippines, which operates resorts in Dumaguete and Puerto Galera and has long operated its own liveaboard, the 32m Atlantis Azores, has now formed a partnership with what it describes as another “true bluewater yacht”, the Infiniti liveaboard.
It says that after years of consideration Infiniti proved to be one of the few vessels to meet its exacting standards for quality of service and value to guests. “It is not the typical salvage vessel or wooden coastal vessel commonly sold as dive-boats in the Philippines,” is its harsh verdict.
Infiniti was built “by divers for divers” in Thailand in 2013 and is a 39m all-steel boat with four decks and 11 cabins. It also has two 5m RIBs. The move has more than doubled Atlantis’s capacity, the operation reports, and you might have to get in quickly because it reports already being booked solid well into 2026.
Atlantis is also once again offering diving families its “Kids Dive Free” weeks, where adults can dive with their under-18 offspring at no extra charge – that is: one pays, one goes free, so children can stay, eat and dive for free during these special weeks.
It goes further, with older family-members aged 18-30 qualifying for half-price diver or non-diver rates, and the latter offered a free Try Scuba. Families with more than two children also receive 50% discounts on their diving. Note that Atlantis does not provide babysitting services.
The next KDF weeks at Puerto Galera are 21 December to 11 January and at Dumaguete 30 November to 8 December and 14 December to 11 January. Next year both resorts will be running the special weeks from 1 to 12 July and 23 August to 6 September.
In among the giant mantas
Manta Expeditions is taking bookings for an Ecuador land-based dive-trip next year. The South American country has the world’s largest recorded oceanic manta ray (Mobula birostris) population and is on the humpback migration route, with 400-2,000 of the whales arriving to give birth and mate around the time of the expedition.
The base is Isla de la Plata off Manabi, part of the Machalilla National Park, and the nine-night trip runs from 15-24 August 2025. At this time oceanic mantas visit in such numbers that 30-40 individuals can be recorded during a day’s diving. It isn’t only the numbers that are big – so are the individual rays.
The dive-sites also hosts a large population of green turtles, reef fish, moray eels, unusually big sting rays and occasionally sunfish.
Guest are promised the opportunity to experience and participate in cutting-edge conservation research to protect the rays, working alongside UK-based charity the Manta Trust and affiliate Projecto Mantas Ecuador scientists. They will be deploying tags, collecting biopsy samples and photographing identification images.
Accommodation is at the Victor Hugo hotel and diving with the Exploramar 5* PADI dive-centre. The price of US $2,750 (£2,100) includes B&B accommodation (two sharing), transfers between Guayaquil Airport and Puerto Lopez, six full-day private boat-trips to Isla de la Plata with lunch, two guided dives a day, municipality tax, a guided tour of the island and a guided jungle tour. Maximum number of guests is eight. Email Niv at info@mantaexpeditions.com
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