Completed a 4-night stay a few days ago. Just for a frame of reference, I haven't been to a ton of luxury properties (Ritz Kyoto, Suiran, St Regis Bali, Punta Mita), so this may be more for the honeymooner or people without a ton of luxury travel experience. I also traveled with two young children, so much of our activities and dining revolved around them.
I've noticed that there are a lot of people considering this property or the Conrad Maldives. While I haven't been to CMR, I have to firstly say that you won't be disappointed with this property. The hard product is amazing and the room is very spacious. As a light luxury traveler, I'm probably more willing to overlook service hiccups, and while my wife and I did notice them, none of them were glaring. It does seem that complaints from earlier guests are slowly being addressed, so it does seem like the hotel is at least making the effort.
Food
My wife and I both agreed that our favorite dishes during our stay were the Maldivian ones. Our first dinner was at Tasting Table and we each selected a Maldivian curry. I don't remember the names, and while both were very good, one had extremely tender octopus, which we both preferred over the fish in the other dish. I think that was my favorite meal during our stay. There's also a rotating selection of curries at breakfast and one of our first requests as soon as we were seated was a bowl of rice to eat with the curries. Beyond the Maldivian dishes, we thought food was okay overall. Nothing blew us away, though we tried to stick to a budget, so didn't go overboard in any way. Based on previous reviews, I wanted to try the Periperi chicken, but sadly, it wasn't on the menu the night we went. Some things to note about specific restaurants:
- The Ledge - Our children get cranky when they are hungry, but also get bored after an hour or so of just sitting there. They were hungry when we got to the restaurant, so we asked for their food to be brought out first. Our waiter informed us that while they could bring out the kids' food first, the steak and fish that my wife and I ordered would take about 45 minutes, which it did. Therefore, the kids were done eating before we even got our food, so the last half or our meal was spent apart with one adult babysitting the kids while the other ate.
- Li Long - I liked the decor of the restaurant here. I know this isn't too relevant to the food, but it was something that struck me while eating there, and it's not something I typically notice. The food was pretty good, but some of the dishes have pretty small portions, so it's something I'd suggest keeping in mind. If you have to, ask the waiter if you think what you ordered will be enough food.
- Tangled - Nothing to complain about here. I believe the restaurant is open only for lunch and is attached to Tasting Table. One thing to note is that you don't really have any views from here.
- In-Villa Dining - We had two meals in our villa, one for lunch and one for dinner. While the quality of the food is generally on par with the restaurants, I really enjoyed the atmosphere and being able to go for a swim in the pool or ocean immediately after finishing our meal. Timing dinner with sunset, whether you have a view of the sunset or not, was a great experience, and we also didn't have to worry about the kids misbehaving.
Kids Club
Prior to our stay at the WA Maldives, we didn't have a ton of experience with kids clubs. However, when comparing to the kids clubs at St. Regis Punta Mita and Bali, the WA Maldives blows these out of the water. There's a ton of space for the kids to play indoors, not to mention the outdoor area. The water park is a big hit with the kids, but only open from 1:30 pm to 4 pm. There were always multiple staff members in the kids club generally numbering from 3-6. When talking to the staff, we learned that when the hotel was full during August, there were as many as 80 kids in the kids club. The manager of the kids club also told us that the hotel offered her a bunch of Xboxes, Playstation, and other technological forms of entertainment when designing the kids club. However, she wanted more of an educational atmosphere, so while there is a TV that is generally always on and one Playstation, I never saw the Playstation in use. Instead, there are painting easels, chalkboards, puzzles, beads, and a ton of Melissa & Doug toys.
Beach Quality/Snorkeling
With the kids in tow, I didn't get to explore the beach quality around the entire island. However, based on the beaches we did visit, the sand quality is quite mixed. There are areas where the sand is very fine, while there are others in which it's quite rocky (think mostly small pebbles that hurt to walk on if you have a white collar job). There is also some trash in the water. It was quite common that you'd see a plastic bottle floating in the water, and my wife did a daily morning beach clean-up along our stretch of sand. By the end of our 4-night stay, she had a decent collection of garbage. There's also a bridge near the gym with a small channel of water that smelled quite bad at times. While I realize that this sounds bad, it's more of an FYI, and in no way ruined the vacation.
My wife and I went snorkeling on two separate occasions, both times near the 600s-700s villas. We were both pleasantly surprised at the amount of marine life we saw. Visibility isn't spectacular, but my only other point of comparison is at Molokini eight or so years back, in which you could clearly see 30 feet, if memory serves me correctly. The pictures upthread were consistent with our experience.
Sunset Fishing
This is the one activity we participated in. I went with my 4 year old son (wife and daughter stayed in the villa), and while I had concerns that he might be too young, he thoroughly enjoyed it. There was another kid about the same age who was on a phone the entire time, so the level of enjoyment is obviously a YMMV thing, but I feel pretty safe in saying that young kids around that age won't have any issues. There were about 10 of us on the boat and there was a ton of room for all of us (the staff mentioned that another trip had 30 people). We visited three different fishing spots with the last being the best. During the trip, other families were catching fish, while we had nothing. The staff definitely took note of this and set up extra lines to increase our chances, so while we technically didn't "catch" anything, once they had a fish on the line, they allowed us to pull it up, so that we ended up "catching" two fish. As others have mentioned, you can have the hotel cook the fish with different preparation options for $65/person. Note that the cost is per person, not per fish, so you can always check to see if there are any unwanted fish that you can add to your meal. We had our fish pan fried and steamed, and while we enjoyed both, I slightly preferred the steamed one.
Yachts/Transport to Hotel
The day we arrived, the weather was quite bad with fairly strong wind. The transportation on the yacht was fairly rough and my 4 year old son was pretty scared. However, the staff on the yacht were extremely helpful, particularly Sam. She offered him seasickness bands that she described to him as super hero bands that would help protect him. The staff also allowed him to "drive" the yacht in which he sat in the captain's chair holding the steering wheel. I thought this would be a temporary thing, but he sat in the chair the entire trip. By the time we arrived at the hotel, his attitude had changed completely.
Do note that the ocean can get quite rough, particularly in the area between the airport and the first resort you pass (I think they may be the Hard Rock and Saii Lagoon). Once you pass the first resort, the water calms down a good amount. During the rough stretch, it's bad enough that I spilled water on myself, despite holding the cup in my hand, specifically so it didn't spill.
There are currently four yachts in the fleet. Based on previous posts, I thought there was only one WA-branded yacht, but it seems as though there is currently four. On the ride to the hotel, I thought we had lucked out as I saw the WA branding on the yacht. However, I was pleasantly surprised on the ride back to the hotel to see an even bigger WA-branded yacht. We learned that there are three smaller yachts (I believe one is 52 feet and two that are 56ish feet) and one larger yacht (72 feet). Apparently, on the ride to the hotel, we had the smallest yacht, and on the ride to the airport, we had the largest. I'm not sure how water conditions compared, but the staff mentioned that you get a much smoother ride on the 72 foot yacht, which was quite noticeable. The larger yacht is very nice with two bedrooms downstairs, though my wife noted that they were quite warm as she had to nurse our daughter during part of the ride.
Things to Expect in the Future
These are all things we heard from staff members during our trip, so take them with a grain of salt.
- The hotel expects to receive bikes with child seats.
- Seaplane arrivals are expected in the future, but not from the airport. I think this is meant more for transportation from other resorts.
- The hotel expects to receive glass-bottom boats so guests can view marine life without getting in the water.
- The breakfast buffet is supposed to be extended/enlarged and another overwater Japanese restaurant will be built. I would take this last one with a big grain of salt.