Visit Date: May 2007

I went on a works trip to The Maldives with the intention of trying out a few dives, but never thought I'd be confident enough to complete my Open Water PADI course - but the staff at Ocean Pro are so friendly and they just make you feel so happy and confident in the water that I ended up completing 10 dives and being certified!

The dive school is definitely the best I've been to with regards to staff, safety and equipment. I've been diving at a few different places (Egypt, Dominican Republic) and nothing comes close to the service and staff at Ocean Pro.

The hotel:

Coco Palm is a lovely resort although not as amazing as Soneva Fusih Resort in The Maldives where I've been before, but that is hard to beat! If you do want to splash out the cash I recommend that Soneva Fushi would be my first choice as a resort. Coco Palm is lovely but the villas are a little small unless you stay on the water bungalows (more on that later on).

The Spa is out of this world! I can't recommend it high enough and I think I had absolutely every single treatment while i was there over the 10 days! The girls are all wonderful and make you feel at ease with all the massages/treatments they offer ( a full, wide range and definitely worth trying all of them out). Never felt so relaxed in my life!

The food is good, however, there's only 2 restaurants the main one is buffet type every night and although the food was an extremly high standard, it can get a little boring. The out door smaller restaurant is great for couples and the food was great, although a little spicy! The staff are absolutely wonderful throughout the resort and really look after you.

The first 5 days I stayed on the bungalows on the beach, very nice and secluded if a little small. You have your own beach spot and you hardly see anyone else there your entire stay! The second part of my trip I spent on the water bungalows, which was beautiful. The water bungalow is a lot more spacious with a great big jacuzzi bath and plunge pool and sunbathe deck at the back, really lovely although I didn't feel it was as private as the beach bungalows.

Now for the diving! You can't get better diving then in The Maldives, there's such an abundance of marine life and a great chance of seeing Manta Rays & Sharks, it's truly the best place ever.

1. There's definately enough staff to man the boat, etc but you don't have much help with your equipment as the boats in the Maldives are very small (if you go diving at your resort not liveaboards) and they don't even have toilets on them! so you end up having to jump back in the sea after your dive if you need to go! The dive school will get all your equiment on the boat for you so no need to lug it all down to the beach!

2. The place definitely lived up to expectations, the snorkelling off the house reef is not bad, but make sure you always have a snorkelling guide or someone with you, as the drop off is a bit of a swim to get to. We saw lots of baby mantas (not sting rays actually baby mantas!!) so exciting to see them free swimming around the boat.

3. There is a marine biologist who lives on the resort and we did an excellent snorkelling trip with him and he had great knowledge of all the marine life (really recommended).

4. I didn't participate in any shore diving and tended to spend all day on the boat for 2 dives each time. Some of the dive sites are an hours boat ride away but well worth it.

5. I took the PADI Open Water course with Ocean Pro and was the only one in my class so had one to one tuition which was excellent. Unlike Egypt (where they tend to rush through things and qualify people at the drop of a hat) they were extremely thorough with Ocean Pro making sure you took all the exam tests and practise dives before sitting the exam, I felt I knew pretty much everything by the end of it! Their motto is always 'safety first' and I've carried my dive experience from them on to progress to further dives in other parts of the world - Ocean Pro are a real confidence giver!

6. I could hire a compass and computer for all dives, and the boats were never busy, we were also the only boat at any one time at a dive site, which made for an excellent dive. There were a maximum of 10 people on our boat at one time which was great.

Ocean Pro was hard to beat, every time I go diving with a dive school now I always compare it to them, as they were the best!

Coco Palm is a lovely island but probably wouldn't stay there again as would rather visit another part of The Maldives and different dive sites. I think there were some water sports on offer as well but I didn't particapate in those, this resort is mainly for those who want to dive or just chill out on the beach.

Highlight was definitely the Manta Ray dive where we had 3 Mantas constantly schooling round us, totally amazing and well worth purchasing the video footage!

Hope this review helps!

Visit Date: April 2009

We had a great experience with Dive Ocean at Coco Palm Dhuni Kolhu. We were on our honeymoon and so were only planning on doing 3 or 4 dives but we were so encouraged by the enthusiasm of the instructors that we ended up doing our PADI Advanced Course. We are only novice divers and had found other dive schools that were too busy to give us the time we wanted to learn new things but this was not a problem here and we did everything that we had wanted to.

It is a new dive centre so all equipment was new and therefore in very good condition. Everything was set up by the dive centre staff and all then taken apart by them afterwards and washed, those who prefer to do this themselves can do. They encourage all equipment to be checked by the diver prior to each dive anyway.

We always dived with Gilles Chardon who was a very good guide and instructor, he seemed to know the identity of every fish in the sea and made each dive interesting and fun.

The dive boats were traditional 'dhoni' style but had a shower on board and also after each dive we were given towels, a hot drink, a bottle of water and fresh fruit. The boat staff were very helpful with equipment.

Dive sites were varied so no repetitive dives and the night dive was fantastic and can't be missed.

The maximum number of divers to 1 guide when we were diving was 5, however usually it was only 2,3 or 4.

A couple of times a week there are 2 tank dives on the boat which is great as you can get 2 dives done in a morning.

I would definitely recommend this dive school, I couldn't fault them at all, would love to go back.