Holiday Inn Resort Kandooma, Maldives
What is your Priority Club status?
Platinum RA
Were you (or for multi-stayers are you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?
Yes
Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?
Booked one night in a king bed sea view beach villa, and the remaining nights on points (standard garden room). Emailed ahead of time to ask them to link the reservations so we would not have to change rooms. Was told at that time (several months ago) that this was not possible, and that we'd have to change rooms after the first night. I figured it was a technicality, no big deal -- at least I tried. I noted a few weeks before arrival via the mobile site, that our reservation for the reward nights had been upgraded to the sea view beach house. ^
How are the rooms?
Breezy, "beachy", comfortable. Everything was shades of white and blue or light gray. White-washed wood walls and floors. They looked larger in photos than I thought it really was, even though they are quite spacious. Downstairs is an open-air "living area", with sofa, table and chairs, loungers, outside shower. Upstairs (and inside), is the (very firm) king sized bed, a small sitting area at the base of it which overlooks a wall of windows leading out to a deck that seats 2 comfortably (with table and chairs), a desk tucked away in a corner. Flat screen TV attached to the wall. Quite strong AC, overhead ceiling fan. Large bathroom, outdoor shower upstairs as well (don't worry, unless your neighbor is a giant they can't see you). Nice touches, like a huge beach bag, huge beach towels, flip-flops to use, free sun cream available by the pool. Orange press & 6 oranges provided daily. Kettle, great loose tea (forget the brand on offer now...) and Illy coffee in-room complete with press. Lots and lots of free drinking water.
What was good and what was bad?
In general service was fantastic.
Good:
Location - well, in relation to other islands in the Maldives, that is; it requires only a compulsory $140 per person speedboat ride to get to, instead of a sea plane that would cost 2 or 3 times as much.
Things are actually "reasonably" priced -- that is, as reasonably as things could be priced at a resort out in the middle of the Indian Ocean. For example, a Tiger Beer from the mini bar was only $5US, which is the same (or less) than I'd pay for the same in a mini bar in the US for a similarly local beer.
The "Deck" bar offers happy hour nightly with 2 for 1 drinks that really works out to be a good deal (otherwise, expect to pay about $10-12US per cocktail, and $6-7 per beer).
Staff were wonderfully friendly, bending over backwards to help us, and to make sure we were OK, even in more than one situation seeming to anticipate our needs and getting it taken care of ahead of time.
Free wifi worked better than I had anticipated, pretty much all over the island.
Really nice little gym, and if you get there at 6AM you've got the place to yourself
Free use of snorkel equipment is a nice touch, too.
Bad:
This resort basically got wiped out in the tsunami of 2004. They really have no reef any more though they're trying to regrow it. You can find some small fishes to look at around the jetties on the island, but to see anything of consequence you have to take one of the free trips (offered daily) to another island (which, BTW, provides for some fantastic snorkeling). There's a lack of mature foliage at the fringes of the island due to this as well (they do have their own nursery however). This isn't a "bad" so much as a "be aware of".
We had to wait over 1/2 hour at the airport for the boat which, after an 11 hour flight from the UK (following a 9+ hour flight from the US, never mind the layover in between!) was a bit aggravating. We just wanted to GET there already.
As "a valued platinum member", I was promised a free daily newspaper but that never materialized. That's OK though; who the hell wants to know what is going on in the world when you're in paradise?!
As our time wore on, a couple of little things happened -- they didn't refresh our beach towels (even though it was obvious we needed them); they didn't refill the mini bar unless we asked (even though the chit from the previous day was collected) -- minor annoyances, really.
They do note it everywhere, but be aware: there's a 10% "service charge" tacked on to e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.
Value for $/Priority Club Points? Would you return?
Great value at 15K/night. If I were to return to this part of the world, I'd be highly tempted to stay here just because of how few points I'd burn. However, if I was paying for it, I might be more interested in staying somewhere else where we can do better snorkeling any time we wanted to -- not just once a day along with everyone else at the resort who signed up.