Maldives’ US$50,000-per-night underwater villa offers unrivalled experience

On a recent trip to the Maldives, my entire itinerary was planned around one single hotel amenity: an overwater bungalow with a built-in, two-storey water slide – never mind the bedroom’s retractable roof and the floating catamaran nets by the private pool.

Here more than anywhere else on Earth, it’s extravagant design features – rather than a convenient location or knockout restaurants – that make a hotel.

After all, you’re not in the Maldives to explore a new country. You’re there to feel like the world’s most glamorous castaway. Your hotel room is your destination; you’d better pick a good one.

Enter Conrad Maldives Rangali Island, which is shaking up the formula of Maldivian luxury with the region’s first-ever underwater bungalow. (You read that right.) 

When it opens later this year, the Muraka, which translates to “coral” in the local language, Dhivehi, will have cost US$15 million to build – but the experience of sleeping 16.4 feet (five metres) below sea level can be all yours for a cool starting price of US$50,000 per night, before taxes.

What you will get

“The Muraka promises a unique experience that is not available anywhere else in the world,” architect Ahmed Saleem says. 

And while it’s true that there aren’t many beds suspended below sea level – encased in glassy tunnels and surrounded by tropical fish – Saleem was more concerned with creating a full experience than designing a single, iconic room.