I acknowledge not having posted on FT for over a decade but still like to believe I share the FT spirit since originally joining this forum. Here's my admittedly rare but somewhat comprehensive review of our stay at the Curio Maldives.

TL;DR: Two days into our stay this month at the Curio, my spouse and I began searching for other hotels as well as flight options to go home early. In the end, we served our full 7-night sentence, largely regretting it. Don’t make the same mistake we did. If you can afford them, I strongly recommend both the Conrad and Waldorf properties in the Maldives. If those or other luxury Maldives resorts are not in your budget, then you’ll find better options closer to home. The Hampton Inn Pensacola I imagine would have way more authenticity at a fraction of the cost, and probably better snorkeling. In fact, the Embassy Suites in Cleveland probably has better snorkeling.

Long version:

There are some positives to the Curio Maldives property. The breakfast buffet, the local Maldivian staff, even the foreign staff -- albeit it’s clearly Hilton's B team -- are all wonderful, not to mention the resort's ability to make us actually look forward to returning to work after vacation. However the negatives far outweigh these. The negatives of this property are too numerous to mention in entirety, so I’ll focus on the major ones.

If we start at the bottom of a Maslow hierarchy for lodging, the Curio does not fulfill even the most basic necessities for a hotel room which are to be devoid of noise and cigarette smoke. Even most airport and roadside hotels around the world have figured this out.

Like the island itself, the problems with the accommodations are man-made. The bright neon lights outside the rooms still managed to penetrate the curtains all night long. The large flat screen TV seemed to have a mind of its own, turning itself on and illuminating the room in the middle of the night while blasting its in-house advertisement channel (“Curio Collection by Hilton! ...”) at full volume. Opening the sliding glass doors to listen to the ocean while you sleep is not an option if you’re a non-smoker or prefer not to inhale cigarette smoke during your slumber. Rooms are set up in separate blocks of two-level buildings containing 8-12 rooms each, all of which have smoking balconies. No separation is made of smoking guests and non-smoking guests, which strikes us as simply idiotic. Finally, with the dance music carrying over from the Hard Rock hotel just across the lagoon, it feels like trying to sleep over a night club.

In fact, it was hard to find a spot on the island to get away from the dance music which seemed to be blaring at all hours of the day, even during breakfast.

While trying not to be too nitpicky, the Curio did appear to make some "Curio-us" architectural choices. For instance, how the placement of the bathroom windows of the ground floor rooms allow unobstructed views directly into their showers from the outdoor staircase leading to the upstairs rooms. Or how the bathroom door swings directly into the toilet. Or how the walking paths must be shared with steady traffic of speeding hotel golf carts and require frequent side-stepping into the shrubbery for pedestrians. These didn't really bother us but might be annoying for some.

We found the sparse Diamond benefits at the Curio Maldives to be meaningless since we don't drink champagne (a complimentary bottle was offered upon arrival). The other Diamond perk was free coffee/ice cream at 4:30-6:30pm, also offered to HH Golds. A long line starts forming at 4:15pm, and supplies ran dry by 5pm, so we usually skipped this one too.

If you’re going to the Maldives to see tropical fish, you would be disappointed at the Curio. The fundamental problem is that the Curio is on a man-made island with dredged up sand. It is not part of the natural ecosystem, thus there are no coral reefs nor much of any marine life around it. Probably due to the dredging and construction, the water is murky from cement dust, at least during our stay in early February. If you look closely at the small shells scattering the artificial beach, you will find that many of them are in pristine condition and nearly identical. We wondered if these shells were also artificial, perhaps manufactured in a factory in China.

However, while out snorkeling off this artificial beach, I did spot the following "sea creatures" submerged on the shallow ocean floor: a rusting metal pipe, a sunken busboy tray, several stainless steel flanges and L connectors, a caulking gun, an empty can of paint (praying it was already empty when discarded into the sea), a drill bit, a discarded lighter, and other various industrial debris one might find around a construction zone (bolts, hinges, metal shavings, etc.). In retrospect, with a bit of imagination, the rusty metal pipe did somewhat resemble a moray eel. Oh and the hotel does place a few statues of fish underwater, probably so that the staff can claim there are fish off the shore without technically lying.

If you do take the risk of playing in the water while staying at the Curio, make sure that you are up-to-date on your tetanus shots.

Given the discarded industrial debris and the hotel's proliferation of disposable plastic bottles, it’s hard to believe that the Curio is not having any adverse effect on the marine ecosystem. Shame on Hilton for their hypocritical proclamations about sustainability.

In summary, the Curio Maldives is an embarrassment and leaves a bad taste in my mouth now every time I think of Hilton, which admittedly is unfair because every other Hilton resort experience has been amazing. Come to think of it, Hilton should drop this property from its portfolio before more damage is done to its reputation. If you're traveling all the way to the Maldives, our advice is to splurge for the Conrad or Waldorf, or any other high-end properties. For overnight transfers, the local budget hotels on Male island fit the bill just fine. Maybe there is a segment of the population who will find the Curio Maldives appealing. It certainly does not include us.