Overwater Honeymoon — 4 Nights

Across the atoll to a villa on stilts with steps straight down into the lagoon. The transfer is the first real moment of the trip — either a speedboat throwing spray across water that changes colour every few hundred metres, or a seaplane low enough that you can see the reefs from above. Nothing is planned for the first evening. The lagoon under the villa is lit after dark at most resorts, and the fish come to it.

Snorkelling from your own steps in the morning, which is the whole argument for a water villa — the reef starts within a few metres and the first hour of the day is when it is busiest, before the water has been disturbed. Green and hawksbill turtles are common in the Maldives and reef sharks are harmless and everywhere. The heat of the afternoon is for the spa, or for the shade of the deck, which is what it is there for.

A slow day on the water, with dinner as the fixture. A private sandbank dinner is a table set on a bank of sand that is above water only at certain tides, reached by dhoni, with the resort lights a distance off across the lagoon and nothing else in any direction. It is arranged in advance because it depends on the tide, and it is the one thing on the island genuinely worth paying extra for.

Out on a dhoni in the late afternoon for the sunset cruise. Spinner dolphins are resident across the atolls and travel in groups that can run to a hundred or more, riding the bow wave and doing the spinning leap they are named for — they are seen on most cruises through the year, though nothing in the ocean is guaranteed. The light going down over open water with no land in it is the other half of the reason to go.

The transfer back across the atoll to Malé. Seaplanes operate in daylight only and are scheduled around your international flight, which sometimes means an earlier start than the distance suggests; speedboat transfers are more flexible. Most resorts hold a departure lounge with showers for guests whose flight is in the evening, which is worth confirming when the booking is made rather than on the day.