Twenty five minutes on a bus against twice the room rate. The honest arithmetic for a three night trip.
We are asked this every week by people who have meetings in the capital and are wondering whether staying on the airport side is a mistake.
The bus takes about twenty five minutes to the terminal in Male and runs every ten minutes through the day. A taxi is about fifteen minutes and reception will tell you the fare before the car arrives. Neither involves a ferry any more, which is the thing people remember from five years ago.
What you get for that twenty five minutes is a room that costs less, a desk that is a desk, a window that opens onto something other than another building, and an airport eight minutes away at the end of the trip.
What you give up is walking to a meeting. If your whole week is in the ministry district and you have four appointments a day, stay in Male and accept the rate. We will say so if you ask.
The pattern most of our regular guests settle on is the middle: the first and last nights here because of the flights, and the middle nights in Male if the diary is heavy. Nobody minds a booking of two nights and we will hold the bags in between.