1st major storm (been pouring for the last 3 hours) since we've been here for 7 nights with 3 nights to go so have some time to write my 2 cents now. This is our 6 trip to the Maldives with multiple trips to the Conrad before and first time with our 2 children. I share this background as I keep comparing this stay with our previous trips to the Maldives.
Overall, the hard product is REALLY good. As mentioned earlier, we had paid for an upgrade from a Garden Villa on points to Beach Villa and got upgraded for an entire stay to a 2 storey/2 bedroom family villa with 1 king bed and 2 queen/double beds. The space is amazing where me and one kid slept upstairs and was able to adjust to jetlag without disturbing my wife and younger one who slept longer. It's a perfect space to spend while waiting for this storm to pass.
The service has been really hit and miss. At breakfast drink and food orders can get messed up and sometimes take forever to come. We would have to specifically ask for plastic cups for our kids and there would be sometimes forgotten. At a resort of this caliber, I'd expect to be proactively brought plastic cups vs having to ask and reminding the staff to bring them. Met the new GM Vincent at breakfast and gave him the feedback. Have some minor issues with the butler as well where buggy wasn't waiting when we got back from diving and not proactively being offered buggy for some of our excursions. The food is a case of looks better than it looks. It looks really good and "instagrammable" but to be honest, it wasn't to my liking. Omelletes and eggs would come lukewarm, cold, etc.
We've done the Spa and it is amazing. Totally recommend it.
My 5 year old and I did the sunset reel fishing last night and that was a ton of fun. The crew hooked a snapper and let my son reel it in while I caught a good sized Jack fish. Having that for dinner tonight.
We've also done a bunch of dives and it's a much smaller dive operation compared to the Conrad. at most we had like 4 or 5 on each trip and we've had couple where I was the only one on the dive boat. They tend to go to dive sites 10-20 minutes from the resort. Haven't seen any particularly impressive coral but the fish life has been great - tons of shark, rays, fish, turtle, etc.
I'm happy to have spent points pre-devaluation to try out the St Regis but don't think we are rushing back. We have a ton of Hilton points so probably going to go back to the Conrad to see how it holds up after the last time we were there 4 years ago or try the new WA. If I was paying cash, I would have been disappointed with the resort..