One of the best ways of flying to the Maldives is with Emirates via Dubai, from most of the UKs largest airports, Birmingham, Newcastle, Glasgow, Manchester, Heathrow, Gatwick.

We recommend Emirates for two reasons, there are no direct flight options anyway and you can break up a 10-11 hour flight, into two more manageable sectors. Perhaps you can stop over for a couple of nights in Dubai to break up the journey. Please ask us for a recommendation on where to stay in Dubai!

Furthermore, Emirates economy and Business Class cabins are simply hard to beat. You will need to take care of the weight of your luggage, especially if you are taking golf clubs, we will explain how this works and the allowance at the time of booking. The flights from Dubai are into Male, from where you can connect on a domestic flight of 40 minutes to Praslin.

Alternatively, from November to March in the main season, British Airways offer flights direct from London Gatwick with an overnight flight out and a day flight back. There are 3 cabins available, economy, premium and business class.

Finally, another good routing from the UK or Ireland, is with Etihad from London Heathrow, Manchester, Edinburgh and Dublin via Abu Dhabi. Again, we can recommend stopovers in Abu Dhabi.

On arrival in the capital of Male you will connect to the island in a small 50 seater plane to the Island of Gan and then a 5-10 minute boat ride to the jetty at the Shangri-La Villingili. The Maldives domestic flight is very much part of the holiday and the flight time is about 70 minutes, but is one of the worlds. Most beautiful flights as you fly over this special place in the middle of the Indian Ocean heading south from Male.

Note that there are flights from Gan also to Colombo in Sri Lanka, so this destination is a great two centre option combining two very fine Shangri-La Resorts, Villingili and Hambantota.