I've been to the Maldives twice for dive trips. The first time (Feb 2020) I stayed at a Cinnamon resort on Ellaidhoo. It was a 25 minute sea plane flight or 40 minute speedboat ride from Male. They have basic rooms as well as the over water bungalows. There was a "house" reef around the island if you want to do shore dives. The boat dives were very nice, they use a negative entry I.E. hit the water and go. The dive shop was run by a german company and were very friendly and helpful. The guides were all local Maldivian, knew the sites very well.
My second trip was in May last year. A local dive shop here setup the trip and secured the hotels and dive shop. There are multiple dive groups on the bigger islands so do your research ahead of time. We went to one of the southern islands, Fuvahmulah. It required a domestic flight to get there about 1.5hr. It's a much bigger island with more of a residential feel to it. The lodgings are small hotels with basic but nice rooms. The big draw to this island is the amount of sharks available to see. Because of this shore diving and night dives are are not offered. All of the dives were great, the shark dives were incredible. We were able to setup a moped tour of the island, there was quite a bit to see and it cost about 20 USD to rent the moped for 3 days.
Do your researchand figure out what you're looking for, resort life or a dive specific trip. Does your SO dive too? If you're both going to be diving every day then a basic room that you won't be spending a lot of time in mght be better. If you have to take a domestic non sea plane flight to your final destination then your carry-on bag will most likely be checked with your luggage. Bring a smaller empty bag with you for batteries or anything electronic that can't go into checked baggage. I had this issue between Male and Fuvahmulah.
