Maldives holiday, Dhoni cruises

country:	Maldives
departures:	2009: 24 Nov, 1 Dec, 8 Dec, 15 Dec, 22 Dec, 29 Dec 2010: 5 Jan, 12 Jan, 19 Jan, 26 Jan, 2 Feb, 9 Feb, 16 Feb, 23 Feb, 2 Mar, 9 Mar, 16 Mar, 23 Mar, 30 Mar
price:	From £580 (6 days) excluding flights. See below for inclusions.
vouchers:	Gift vouchers can be used with this holiday

Cruising holidays here

Maldives holiday here

the amazing things you'll be doing

Our Maldivian crew will accompany you as you cruise the coral reefs in the translucent waters of the Maldives. During the day there is ample time to swim, snorkel and cruise between islands, while at night we moor off remote islands with small settlements, a world away from the resorts.

Inclusions:

5 breakfasts, 5 lunches and 5 dinners

Accommodation on board a private Dhoni on a twin share basis

Maldives tourist taxes and tour permits

Basic snorkelling equipment

Local guide and crew

Airport transfers

Basic fishing gear.

day-by-day itinerary

Day 1:	Join Male, transfer to dhoni
Day 2-5:	Cruising the waters of the Maldives. Passing numerous atolls and islands with opportunities to visit local fishing villages, swim, snorkel and relax
Day 6:	Return to Male, trip concludes

highly commended

This tourism business was Highly Commended in our 2006 First Choice Responsible Tourism Awards the largest awards of their kind in the world, and organised by responsibletravel.com in association with The Times, World Travel Market and Geographical Magazine, of the Royal Geographical Society.

Since 2004, the Awards has recognised individuals, companies and organisations in travel making a big commitment to the culture and economies of local communities and helping to conserve biodiversity.

small group adventure holiday

Typically you will be sharing your experiences with between 4-20 like minded travellers (depending on the trip, operator and how many others are booked on the trip) and you'll have a group leader with you. Whether you are travelling alone or with friends its good value, and a great way to meet new people! While itineraries are pre-planned there is some flexibility and you'll have plenty of privacy. This trip will appeal to travellers of all ages who enjoy meeting new people as well as seeing new places.

how this holiday makes a difference

Environment
This small group trip aims to encourage you to discover and ultimately help preserve the cultural heritage of the Maldives by getting away from the large resorts. For centuries the only form of transport through these spectacular islands was a ‘Dhoni’ and this trip allows you to experience uninhabited island, snorkel among crystal coral reefs and visit idyllic island fishing villages missed by many as you travel on our specially equipped and traditionally designed dhoni.

Our Responsible Travel Guidebook
Our philosophy since 1975 has been to leave only footprints and take only photographs. To reiterate this, every customer who travels with us receives a copy of our award-winning Responsible Travel guidebook. This detailed book outlines our environmentally sustainable principles, and outlines how each customer can minimize their impact while travelling.

Global Warming and Carbon Balancing
The root cause of Global Warming is society's dependence on emission creating fossil fuel. Planting trees is not going to reverse this trend or cancel our carbon emissions very quickly or effectively. We believe the way to reduce these dependencies is to create clean energy production. Therefore, we support renewable energy projects like wind and solar power, and we are aligned with Climate Friendly, the gold standard setter in effective, meaningful action addressing climate change. So, while we believe that tree planting can play a small role in greenhouse gas abatement, we have gone the extra mile in promoting a longer term solution. Is this cheap? No. Is it responsible? Absolutely.

Community
With the help of our locally employed guides we endeavour to create the necessary circumstances to ensure we have a positive effect on the communities who welcome us when we moor in the evenings.

No local payments policy
Local cash payments are becoming increasingly popular with many operators in the adventure travel industry. This policy seems to benefit the tour operators more than the local economies or the travellers, as it avoids local taxes and transfers the costs and risks of cash handling onto the travellers. In accordance with our Responsible Travel practices, we have chosen a policy of not asking for such payments.

Tourism can be good and bad for destinations & local people.

We carefully screen every holiday against our criteria for responsible travel.

'Look behind the brochure' to find how each holiday makes a difference (see left).

We don't claim to be perfect - there is no global accreditation - but we've led the way since 2001 and screened 1000's of holidays.

We invite every traveller to write a review about their experiences and responsible tourism.

This valuable feedback is sent to the people who run the holidays. We keep a very close eye on it and take off holidays that don't live up to our standards.