aleksandar99

Hi all!

I just came back from a 15 day trip to the Maldives and visited One&Only Reethi Rah and Cheval Blanc Randhelli.
Before the Maldives, I visited Dubai and will post that review at my first opportunity.

Going back to the Maldives for the 3rd time and choosing these two best resorts in the Maldives.

ARRIVAL

At the airport I was met by a O&O represantative and transfered to the luxury yacht for the 1 hour transfer to the resort. When I arrived I was greeted in the most amazing way by the whole staff.
Where as, at CBR when I arrived I wasn't greeted as near as nicely as I was at O&O. I was really disappointed.

ROOM

I stayed at the Beach Villa with Pool and the Water Villa with Pool. Both villas were absolutely amazing but I would suggest the Beach Villa much better positioned and more private and overall it is designed better than the Water Villa. All the little details in the Villas are amazing and the attention to detail is wonderful.
At CBR I stayed at the Garden Water Villa. The Villa is absolutely amazing and the pool just to much to take in but overall the O&O is just much more sophisticated and appeals much more to me than CBR. That is just my opinion.
I just think that CBR and it's design just doesn't fit in that well into what the Maldives are and on the other hand O&O fits in so naturally even though it's a man-made island.

SERVICE

The butler service at CBR is extremely weirdly concepted and the scheme how it works is very strange. Only they (the butlers who serve you) know your name all the other people don't know who don't have contact with you.
At O&O every single person who saw me regarded me by my name or Sir or Mr...
at the restaurants and bar the service was impecable and not even close to service at for example a Four Seasons and maybe even better than Aman.

ACTIVITIES

Both resorts don't have a house reef because O&O is man made and CBR is half man made and half natural. It is absolutely ridicolous to say that O&O doesn't have diving. The resort is already 10+ years old and the reef over that time has regenerated and species have made a new biodiversity at Reethi Rah, but the boat always has excursions and taking you to absolutely other amazing diving sites in the vicinity. I saw mantas, dolphins, sharks, and many tropical and fish you can't describe how wonderful they are and it is complete nonsense what some say on the forum, the reef has completly regenerated.
At CBR you can see they are much less experienced divers and I was quite disappointed with the diving. And the other activities both resorts have the best available options in the whole Maldives I can confirm and garuntee that.

DAY TO DAY

The pools at both resorts are amazing - all of them. The outdoor one, the private pools. The beach at CBR disappointed me with not being cleaned. The beaches at One&Only is something you can only find at Amanpulo and North Islad and nowhere else. There is no feel that it is not natural. The hammocks, egg-chairs, kids club, excursions, everything is just amazing. The spa at O&O is not chosen as the best one with no reason. I really haven't experienced anything more amazing including the high end and luxury gym. Just amazing. At CBR the spa is on another island and it's just not good. It's just not.
O&O is clearly the King resort of the Maldives. The jog and bike trail through the "forest" in O&O is great and the little bridge in the middle of the island is something you can only see in animation films. Truely magnificent!

DINING

Let me start by saying that O&O has food which I haven't tasted something like the food ANYWHERE in the world. You can tell that everythig is organic and fresh procuce and the prices are not that expensive. The breakfast is amazing, you can litteraly ask for anything at any time. The dining at the beach club all day. I really liked it because it's very relaxed and nothing over the top and them you go fancy for dinner to Botanica or the Japanese restaurant. The cocktails and drinks are amazing.
Once again I was dissapointed by the food at CBR and really expected much, much and not to talk about the prices and the prices are not worth the resort let alone the food.

VERDICT

As you probably reliased I blessed and praised One and Only much , much more than CBR but it really is still the best and the best luxury and the go to resort in the Maldives whether it's for first time travellers or for the returning travellers.
I recommend One&Only and can with confidence say that it IS the best resort in the world.

I hope you enjoyed the review and please don't hesitate to ask any questions or queries you are intrested about here or just PM me

All the best to all
Alex
Regards from London, UK

batmandds

Thanks for the writeup. We are heading to the O & O in November with our 7-year-olds so your praises definitely get us excited!

Ericka

Thank you, Alex. Just to confirm, could a family with children snorkel easily on the reef(s) at Reethi Rah? Are these reefs easily reachable from the beach? Any coral bleaching? What sorts of fish are there?

Thanks!

aleksandar99

Hi @ericka!

It's very safe for the snorkel and the kids club organises special snorkels for the "little ones" but you can bring them along with you as well and they will really enjoy themselves. Our kids asked us to go back to the kids club and said it was much more fun
There are still signs of coral bleaching but the resort is so underrated about diving on the forum. I think I was the only guest to know about the bleaching and barely even noticed. All the guests who went with us on excursions: All of there comments were great and also they said that their corals in front of their Water Villas are fantastic!
We saw the butterfly fish, clownfish, parrotfish, reef shark, the MANTA, turtles, angel fish, snapper, goat fish, and many more

Please don't hesitate to ask any other questions you may have!

Alex

Ericka

Good to know. Thanks, Alex.

Michael82

Hi,

To be honest your review sounds very biased and while I agree with some points I would always choose the CBR over one and only. As well as Velaa over the one and only as well.
Just slighty because reethi rah definately is a great Hotel but the other 2 are in my opinion superior.
(If money is no problem)

The_Daddy

I do not mean to disagree with the OP but Reethi Rah actually does not have a real house reef. At least it was not there when I was there few years ago and considering how long it takes a reef to growth (we are talking thousands years) I am not sure we share the same idea of reef.
And the signs of coral bleaching are so evident that it is actually the only thing you might see under water.
They was almost zero to see all around the resort in a swimmable distance even in terms of marine fauna.
Now, I will really be shocked if this has changed in such short time in a way that I do not consider possible by natural or human mean.

I agree that diving nearby was excellent among the best I have seen in several spots I visited in Maldives.

I am even quite impressed to see how food has improved. At that time was fairly acceptable for a five star resort in the middle of the ocean.

Michael82

To add a few more comments:

Arrival: Ive experienced the exact opposite. Also I would expect the service at O and O to be worse at full capacity as the hotel is 3x the size atleast of CBR.

Rooms: They actually have the same designer so your comments dont make that much sense here. But yes CBR is obviously much more modern and definately a lot more WOW. Also like double the size of the O and O Rooms.

Service: Ive had both good and bad experiences at both Resorts but would definately say that the service at CBR is WAY more personal than at O and O where ive never actually met a manager while at CBR I was invited to drinks with the GM.

Pool: The Pool at the O and O is great for postcards, the beach area and the few chairs next to it is not. Granted the CBR Beach next to the Main Pool is not that amazing either. I would call it a nice Tie. But then you do have your own 12 meter Pool at your Villa anyhow at CBR.
Agree that the larger size of O and O is quite nice for Bike rides and scenery and the beaches are very pretty.

Dining:
I just looked at both Japanese Restaurant Menus to confirm my feeling. There is basically NO difference in pricing. In terms of champagne like Dom Perignon - O and O is actually more expensive. They really are both expensive in Food and very similarily priced.
Ive had great and not so great Food at both Resorts but would say that CBR definately wins in the Food Department in terms of quality.

aleksandar99

I love to hear your guys' opinions and it's nice to contradict these opinions. It was just my point of view, I hope I haven't let down anybody, but this is a review based on my own look on the two resorts

tcmb99

I am at one and only right now, typing this from a gorgeous beach villa with pool.

Here is my 2 cents on the topic:

being a diver i can say the diving around reethi rah is good, however there is no house reef and the project of developing one has been abandoned because there is so much sand being brought in every year to keep the beaches pristine. However, you can always take a trip to somewhere close. Overall I am very happy to be diving here. One problem with diving center seems to be that they turn people away because of availability, so book early.

The rooms are amazing, miles ahead four seasons landaa beach bungalows, better than beach villas. I really liked the jumeirah vittaveli rooms beach villas, and would put the two in the highest category of comfort and luxury. Only problem with one and only rooms is that they are not private from the beach area, so no vegetation seperating the room and pool from the beach side which means people walking by can see you and I have to see the naked gentleman in front of his pool whenever I fee like a walk on the beach.

food is better here than other top hotels I have been to in maldives, lots of choices and quality is as good as you can find on an island.

kids club is amazing, my child doesnt want to leave.

tcmb99

And about the general vibe:

there is no ibiza feeling here, everybody is here to relax. There is a beach club which doesnt seem to have much going on in terms of partying.

there is a mixed crowd of families and honeymooners though, so it makes for an interesting scene

deer

Had a high season stay recently at Reethi Rah, and, yes, for us it was also too much Ibiza feeling!

We hoped for an idyllic, romantic, amanesque resort on a little island in the Indian Ocean - but the One & Only did astonishingly not feel like that! In fact, it felt a little too much like a mediterranean family/party resort for bad-taste-dressed nouveau riche to us.

For two evenings, there were bad-music-parties in nearby Villas, clearly to be heard in our bedroom. The audience was generally louder, ruder than we would have expected at this price point.

Food in the Japanese restaurant was brillant! But eating breakfast and dinner in the main restaurant was too crowded, like a "hot fight at the cold buffet“.

Villa design, size and hardware was great, we loved the bicycles and the possibility to explore different beaches by bike. But the garden towards our Villa beach felt too much like „man made concrete with a little sand on it“.

Last year we stayed at Cocoa Island - although the room hardware was a bit rustic, the whole experience in this intimate 33-villa-resort was much more of a romantic, individual, peaceful island holiday with nicer staff, much more snorkable fish/reefs and more relaxation than RR.

jp-mco

This totally contrasts with our stay at O&O RR. Our most recent stay was 10 nights in a Beach Villa with a pool. We always ask to stay on Grand Beach as the beach there is wide and the villas set far back from the waters edge. It's always quiet and I think I saw one other person on the beach during the whole 10 days. There was a DJ most afternoons at the beach club (where we spent most of our days) but it was pretty unintrusive. The only dining event we didn't enjoy was the Sax & BBQ night on the beach. We didn't really mix with other guests as we were there just to spend time together. The food and drinks are expensive but the Maldives always is. We did a private beach BBQ at our villa, Japanese restaurant 2 times (once in a private overwater pavilion), Teppanyaki, Chef's Garden, Fanditha and a couple of times at the main restaurant. We ate lunch at the beach club every day and always made sure to make the afternoon tea which was a highlight for us. We love the spa and always spend a couple of afternoons during our stay there - it's heavenly. All in all it's our favourite holiday that we do. Nothing has yet come close!

BESVISOR

Heading to Maldvies again to review some new properties:

O&O, St. Regis and FS LG....sadly, had to drop CB.

Have 4 nights at O&O: 2 in a beach villa pool and 2 in over water villa pool.
The water villa really doesn't seem too appealing. St. Regis and Cheval Blanc's water villa appeals to me much more. Thinking about just staying all 4 nights on the beach and just walk through the water villa to get a feel for it.

Does anyone agree that the beach villas are better than the over water here at O&O?

vuittonsofstyle

Yes, the Beach Villas with pools are much better and bigger than the overwaters at O&O Reethi Rah, but the best accommodation to be had are the Pool Villas at Cheval Blanc Randheli - also designed by Jean Michel Gathy, but a definitely notch up!