Set on a private island in the South Malé Atoll, Ozen Reserve Bolifushi blends laid-back Maldivian service with a solid premium all-inclusive plan. It is a very family-friendly resort, catering heavily to families with kids programming and buffet options. From the stunning and iconic overwater villas to the calm lagoon the resort is designed for guests who want easy access from Malé for a stress-free, all-inclusive vacation. This review covers what stood out most during our stay, including the location, arrival experience, rooms, service, dining, facilities, and overall style.

Location: 4.5/5

One of the biggest benefits to Bolifushi is the fact that it’s only 35 minutes from Velana International Airport. It’s located on a natural island with stunning views for most of the island. Bala Fushi used to be the old Jumeirah Resort and therefore features stunning overwater villas and land villas that make for spectacular views. The island is lush, and the foliage is really grown in, and the beaches are very easy to walk on, with easy access to the lagoon. The island doesn’t face any obstructions other than the Mandarin Oriental that is currently being built very close to Ozen Bolifushi and does obstruct the views from the two-bedroom overwater residences. Once the Mandarin is done in about 2028, it will provide very nice views, but note that there is quite a bit of ongoing construction that is visible from those two bedrooms as well as from the Sunset Bar. Bolifushi does also have a vibrant house reef that’s easy to access due to it being an older resort with very little disruption in recent years.

Lobby & Check in experience: 5/5

Upon arrival at Velana International Airport, you are greeted by an Ozen representative that does take you to the lounge for waiting on the boat. The resort is very lucky to have a waiting lounge, as this is quite rare for boat resorts during this time, thanks to it being the old Jumeirah. The lounge has tea, coffee, and water and is an air-conditioned space while you wait for the boat. The boat itself is fabulous. It is fully enclosed and acts more like a lounge than one of those standard boats that you’ll find at other resorts. Like our research experience at Vellasaru, you can see the review here. They have one of the nicer boats accessible from Malé, similar to Patina and the Ritz-Carlton. On the boat, they do also have water, coffee and tea, as well as cold towels.

Once you arrive at the dock, you are greeted by lots of staff and management. Bodu Beru drums, a cold beverage, and a cold towel. We even had a special welcome with flower petals being thrown as we exited the boat. The arrival was absolutely excellent, and we were met by our butler, who took us on a very short tour before dropping us off at the room. They did also take a photo of us in front of the Bolifushi sign when we arrived, and our butler sent it via WhatsApp, which was a nice treat. He did not provide a ton of information about the resort, but he did show us around the room and provided us with everything we needed to know about the room itself.

Overall, their arrival experience is excellent, and Bolifushi clearly understands that the first impression is really important. You are met by the representative, taken on a beautiful boat, and greeted by a number of staff that are genuinely excited to see you there.

Rooms: 4.5/5

Rooms are one of the highlights at Bolifushi. This property is the old Jumeirah Maldives and is iconic. You may have seen many photos of these rooms on the internet. A large number of them do have water slides, and it’s well known for those two-bedroom residences with the two floors. We were in one of the water pool villas with a slide, and it was absolutely stunning. The room is not a standard box like you’ll find at many resorts in the Maldives. Instead, it’s in a very interesting shape. When you walk in, there’s an almost circular bed that faces out to the view in a triangular shape, with a bathroom to the right and a living space on the left-hand side. These rooms are very large and have ample living space as well as a nice-sized closet and a beautiful bathroom. The bathroom has a double vanity, a deep sunken soaking tub, an outdoor shower as well as an indoor shower.

There is also a minibar in the main room. The minibar has an espresso that is quite inconvenient to access. Everything’s on the bottom shelf, which can be quite difficult if you have mobility issues, but all of the minibar is included. You’ll find some beer, a few small bottles of wine, soft drinks, and one snack.

The living room does have a lovely L-shaped, comfortable sofa as well as the table with a glass floor. Both the bedroom and living area open up to the patio, where you have a beautiful pool as well as a sunken living room, which is an excellent space to watch the sunrise. There is also a beautiful slide that was actually such an incredible time. The slides that new hotels are adding are quite short and make for a fun experience, but not something that’s super incredible. However, these slides are long and go super fast, and it’s such a fun experience. We ended up using the slide more than we ever thought we would into the lagoon, and it was super easy to jump in and out. There was one slightly odd area of the outdoor space where there were two chaise lounges with a very tall glass table in the middle. It seems like that used to be a dining area, but they put chaise lounges there. I do wish that they would either shorten the table or put a new table in to make it a bit more usable, as we never used that space.

The standard Water Villas without the slide are the exact same layout without the slide. We do recommend getting the upgrade to the Slide Villa if you can within your budget because it really is such a unique experience.

The beach pool villas are both the same on the sunrise and sunset side. It’ll just depend which direction you’re facing, but they feature a nice sitting area on top with a sunken bedroom. There is a beautiful bathroom out back that is very lush. It is outdoors, so it can get quite hot, but it is beautifully laid out. In front of the villa, there is a pool that wraps around the side of the villa, which is a very aesthetically pleasing pool. There is also a covered pergola with a sitting area, as well as two chaise lounges on the beach. The two-bedroom beach pool villas are essentially the exact same layout. They just add a bedroom to the right-hand side of the main space that does have two twin beds and a separate bathroom.

The two-bedroom residences are the iconic but villas that you’ll see on the internet as the old Jumeirah. They have retrofitted these to have an enclosed glass bedroom on the first floor, as well as a lofted king bed at the top. There is a small bathroom on the top floor. This top floor bed area is not enclosed, so that does make it not private for two couples traveling together, but it can be nice for families because you can hear the kids from upstairs. There is a main bathroom downstairs with the full shower, tub, etc. These currently do face the construction at the Mandarin Oriental, so just keep that in mind if you are booking in the next year or so, because it can be a bit troublesome. Work with your agent to make sure you request a room on the far end of the jetty to ensure minimal disruption from the view.

The reserve villas are the two-bedroom residence categories and above. These reserve villas come with upgraded amenities by Chopard versus the Asprey products from the standard villas, as well as some additional benefits like in-room dining. It also comes with a floating breakfast and a one-time laundry service before departure. You can also dine for a la carte breakfast at Origine. Preserve villas do not have a customizable minibar, so if you have specific requests, they are not going to accommodate it. This is different from Ozen Life Madhoo, their sister property, where they were willing to customize a minibar even in the standard category.

One important note about all of the rooms is they do not have universal outlets, so you do have to bring an adapter. This is the first hotel we’ve ever stayed at that has no universal adapters in the room. You can request them from the butler if you do forget one, but it is just something to keep in mind to bring as you plan for your trip.

Service: 4/5

Overall, the service was good across the board. You are assigned a island host upon arrival who does provide their WhatsApp number so you can reach out to them with any requirements or needs that you do have. Our host was very responsive and helpful when we needed something overall. Housekeeping does come twice a day and was overall good. Service staff were attentive and genuinely happy at all the dining outlets. They were very quick to bring new drinks and ask you if you needed anything, which was amazing, especially at the sunset bar as we were enjoying cocktails with the view.

The main pool bar was great. They did drink service to your lounge chair. They were very quick and efficient, and they always brought water, which we really appreciated. Sangu Beach did not have any beach service. It was a bit quieter over there, but we were surprised to see that they were not offering beach service when they did have beach chairs available.

In general, most of the service was really good. We found some of the issues to be around operating a five-star service level. For example, the staff were so willing to help and to do anything that you wanted. If you wanted them to make you something, they would 100% do it. They just weren’t always able to execute correctly or in a refined manner. It felt like the service is more reactive than proactive. The staff weren’t super proactive across the board. For example, at their sister property, Ozen Life Madhoo, the staff went above and beyond to provide a personalized yet professional service experience. Like, on the last night of people’s stays, they made little “see you soon” plates with fruit or a cake on it. Housekeeping would fill your bathtub with rose petals just because they were being nice. I felt like that was missing, since this is a sister property of Madhoo and supposed to be the higher-end property. There were a lot of opportunities where they could have wowed guests, and we did hear from other guests that they felt the service was a bit lacking in this area. It was also quite surprising that at this price point or this star-level property, you were unable to get a more customized mini bar. Their sister property did provide customized wine bottles. If you requested rose, they would provide it. Since it was all available on the all-inclusive, it just felt like a cheap maneuver by the hotel when this should have been the higher level experience

Dining: 4/5

Coming into Bolifushi, we did expect dining to be the core focus of the hotel. Given the sister property is more activities-focused, we found the dining to be overall good, but the options were a bit limited. Vista Del Mar is the main restaurant on property, and it is a buffet for lunch and breakfast and an à la carte dinner. The a la carte menu for dinner seemed more like a lunch menu, as though this used to be an a la carte lunch restaurant, because they had items like sandwiches, pizzas, and salads – things that were not available during the buffet lunch. I did expect this restaurant to be an a la carte option at lunch at a minimum.

They did, on certain days, serve light bites with a menu of about five to six items in the pool bar, but it was often closed. Sangu is also open for lunch on some days, but on most days we found ourselves stuck at the buffet for lunch. Sangu, when they were open, they featured somewhat heavy Mediterranean food such as meats and some seafood, but there were not any light options such as fresh ceviche, fresh fish, or items like that. Similarly, the buffet at Vista Del Mar for lunch did feature a lot of heavy food, pastas. There were some fresh items like a salad bar, but it was very difficult to get a fresh item like a Caesar salad wrap, ceviche, or the like.

Soyi is the Asian restaurant which is restricted to 1 per 4 nights. The food was good, but they did not offer sushi, which is surprising for an Asian restaurant in the Maldives. It did feature a lot of hot food items. It was not open every night, as it did alternate with the other specialty restaurants. During our stay, there was only one signature restaurant open per night.

Origine is their other signature restaurant restricted to 1 time. This is essentially the same as the Madhoo’s underwater restaurant but set above the water and features 5-course dinners. The mains offer a selection of 2. It has three different options for your menu:

• There’s a vegetarian menu
• There’s a seafood menu
• There is a meat menu

You cannot mix and match. You must select one of three menus, so if you choose the seafood menu, you are only getting seafood, for example. It seems like a missed opportunity not to provide a thoughtful menu of mixed items, with of course a vegetarian or vegan option on the side. The menu was also eerily similar to Madhoo’s, which also seemed like a missed opportunity to differentiate.

Saffron is one of their standard restaurants that you can go to any time (along with Sangu), unlike the other restaurants that are more limited. Saffron is an Indian restaurant. The food was delicious, but it is Thali style, so there is no option other than vegetarian or non-veg menus. They bring everything all at once, so it’s not coursed out, and you do not have a lot of options if you are staying at Bolifushi for a longer period of time. This can be quite limiting, as it is a very heavy dinner served all at once with no options to differentiate. The chef did say that they could specialize if you were coming more than once, but we weren’t able to test this out ourselves.

In terms of alcohol, generally the actual liquor is very high quality. They had a number of great options to choose from. The wine selection is somewhat limited and very varied. For example, they had yellowtail on the menu, but they also had Minuty rosé, so there are some gems within the wine list – you just have to find them.

Overall, the food was good, but we found the options to be limited. We found ourselves being forced to the buffet more than we would expect for this tier of a property. The a la carte meals that you have access to every night (Saffron and Sangu) felt more heavy and focused on meat than the fresh seafood that you find in the Maldives, such as the tunas, the fresh ceviches, and the like. We do wish that the property would introduce more local reef fish or specifically fresher foods like wraps, sandwiches, more salads, etc., to increase the available options. Similarly, we hope that they do open their a la carte restaurants more frequently and more flexibly to give guests truly premium unlimited choice.

Facilities: 4.5/5

Bolifushi does have some great facilities and inclusions, including one spa treatment if you stay four nights and two if you stay six nights. The spa service itself was excellent. The included massages are somewhat limited to a few massages and facials, but the service we received was absolutely phenomenal. It was so good that we would have gone back if we weren’t leaving at 8am the next morning. They are remodeling parts of the spa this summer to create more interior spaces.

They also include non-motorized water sports like kayaking and paddle boarding, as well as your snorkeling equipment. They also have a lovely over-water gym that’s well equipped and does have an attendant all day. They also offer a number of complimentary classes through the fitness and spa facilities, such as a sound bath, yoga, meditation and fitness classes. They offer about 3 free activities a day.

Excursions are not complimentary but they do offer an extensive list of options. They use Best Dives Maldives, one of the more expensive but better third parties in the Maldives with ample options. The house reef is excellent and easy to access which makes it a great experience if you do not want to leave the property.

There are two beach areas – Sangu and the Main Ozar pool area. The main pool is the hub and offers full service drinks to your pool chair. They had a dj here one day that was excellent and played during the day at the pool. We found the band to be not particularly good which did not take away from the sunset vibe. It’s worth noting they do rotate entertainment every 3 months. We felt they should have had the dj play during sunset because her vibe was very low-tempo and perfect for sunset and save the band for the late night crowd.

Every room receives a bicycle which is awesome – return guests and reserve guests receive a name plate on the bicycle which is a nice added touch. They were high quality, fat tire bikes that made for fun adventures around the island.

One note about facilities is that the internet was extremely slow and quick to throttle you if you try to upload photos to instagram, access heavy apps or try to Facetime.

Overall, the facilities were great. They were just aging. Also, the spa lacked a relaxation area, and as one of the core offerings of the premium all-inclusive (since it is included), we did feel that the spa needed more facilities for our guests to really take advantage of that added amenity.

Style: 4.5/5

Overall, the style is consistent across the property. The leftover elements of the style from Jumeirah are beautiful, with the aesthetic architecture and beautiful rooflines. The Ozar bar style was comfortable with overwater hammocks and comfortable furniture. Saffron was a very well considered and beautiful style through and through. Similarly, the buggies on property are beautiful, unique and made to look like a fancy car.

The main miss on style was the poor choice in band during the sunset time at the main bar. It was a poor style choice to have music that simply did not fit the vibe but we hope they will incorporate more dj sets during sunset in the future hiring of artists.

Overall: 4.4/5

Overall, this is a great property that’s very family friendly. They’ve made some great decisions, such as the minuti wine on the menu and some wonderful liquors, as well as comfortable lounge spaces. The areas of improvement focus around choices in music and style that don’t necessarily fit with the incredible surroundings that the hotel is located in. This is a great property if you are looking for something that is accessible, easily from Malle, that does offer a solid all-inclusive or provides more buffet options. We highly recommend this resort, particularly for families looking for a comfortable and spacious stay with incredible villas.