Ithaa - World's 1st undersea restaurant!

Seven Restaurants, Three Bars and 10,000 bottles of wine. Conrad Hotels & Resorts are at the tiny Maldives islands in the Indian Ocean. One of the restaurants is ‘Ithaa’, the World’s first undersea restaurant. ‘Ithaa’ means ‘pearl’ in the Maldivian language of Dihevi.

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As tourist always comment on being blown away by the colour, clarity, and beauty of the underwater world in the Maldives, its a great idea to have a restaurant where diners can experience fine cuisine and take time to enjoy the views – without ever getting their feet wet!
Ithaa sits five meters below the waves of the Indian Ocean, surrounded by a vibrant coral reef and encased in clear acrylic offering diners 270-degrees of panoramic underwater views. Aquarium technology has been used to put diners face-to-face with the stunning underwater environment of the Maldives.


Created by MJ Murphy Ltd, a design consultancy based in New Zealand, Ithaa’s distinctive feature is the use of curved transparent acrylic walls and roof, similar to those used in aquarium attractions. The fact that the entire restaurant except for the floor is made of clear acrylic makes this unique in the world.
The five-metre by nine-metre transparent arch, which spans the entire room, seats 14 people and provides a feeling of being completely at one with the underwater world while submerged beneath the surface of the ocean. Set with the resort’s renowned house reef one side, and a clear lagoon on the other, diners enjoy their meal within Ithaa’s translucent shell as the underwater drama unfolds on all sides.


The food is as spectacular as the underwater setting. The restaurant offers contemporary Maldivian cuisine as a theme.combination of local spices and traditional flavours and give them a western twist to create a fusion cuisine that could be found only in the best restaurants in London or New York.While the cuisine is dedicated to the fine balance of western food items with a Maldivian flavour, the wine concept is equally exciting; offering diners the perfect opportunity to discover the wines of the prestigious Champagne house Louis Roederer.


Ithaa is reached by a wooden walkway from the nearby over-water Sunset Grill Restaurant. Diners begin their meal with drinks on a specially constructed deck over the ocean and then descend to the restaurant via a spiral staircase where the a la carte menu is served. Seating only 14 people, Ithaa offers one of the most intimate and exclusive dining experiences in the world. Read more...

Under the Sea...Under the Sea...

If living UNDER THE SEA is as much fun as Sebastian the Crab of the Little Mermaid fame sings it to be...then in the immediate future many privileged patrons and visitors to the beautiful land (sea!?) of Dubai will experience it in its full opulence.

The Crescent Hydropolis Resorts PLC is going ahead with the revolutionary construction of underwater hotels and resorts in both shallow and deep waters, which would take mankind to a totally new and different dimension of hospitality.



To be located also in the coming years in many more fabulous and prominent cities of the world such as Isle of Man, London, Monaco, Munich, New York and Qingdao (est. 2009, in the Yellow Sea); these high-class underwater cities will cater to all the luxurious needs of its inhabitants through its immediate surroundings. They have been engineered from the conceptual stage onwards to help people adapt to the change in environment and enjoy it to the maximum.

Hydropolis Dubai

The Hydropolis Underwater Hotel and Resort is a planned hotel which will be the world's first underwater luxury resort. It's situated 66 feet below the surface of the Persian Gulf, just off Jumeira Beach in Dubai. Reinforced by concrete and steel, its Plexiglas walls and bubble-shaped dome ceilings will enable guests to see fish and other sea creatures. It is basically divided into three sections: the land station, where guests will be welcomed; the connecting tunnel, which will transport people by train to the main area of the hotel; and the 220 suites within the submarine leisure complex. It will cover an area of 260 hectares, about the size of London's Hyde Park, and will cost an estimated £300 million. (All this guarantees it to be a future yachting hotspot also). It is self-acclaimed to be a 10-star hotel.

The hotel was scheduled to open in late 2007. However, as of February 2007, Hydropolis' launch has been rescheduled, due to cost issues and concerns over the project's impact on marine life, the project has faced major delays, and it is now scheduled to open in 2009.



The hotel, along with other sister projects, is being developed by Crescent Hydropolis Holdings LLC, a firm especially created for its development. The designer is Joachim Hauser.


Small step for Crescent, Giant step for Mankind (?)



Could this be the next step for mankind's existence ? Will mankind move to the food and mineral-rich environs of the seas and oceans for its daily sustenance and living ? Considering that its expanding in numbers and at the same time there always seems to a lack of inhabitable land. We at Giira Yachts would like to believe so since it would solve many a relatively simple (space, food etc) and complex (territorial, political etc) problems faced by the human race. Read more...