Originally Posted by Sam P. Goodman

We just returned from 11 nights at the Westin. This was Plan C for a big summer trip after A and B fell through due to country specific travel restrictions. Maldives has always been intriguing, but being stuck on an island without the ability to experience much local culture always deterred us. Enter COVID-19 and a fantastic redemption rate (360K for 10 nights + free credit card night) and here we are.

I’m eternally exhausted by the FlyerTalk obsession with finding which villa has the perfect sunset view, but also the right amount of sunshine on the pool so the water temperature is just right, not to mention the popular narrative that anyone who isn’t able to drop $600 on dinner every night isn’t worthy of a visit the Maldives. We like nice things, but also appreciate value so take this for what it’s worth…


Arrival
We had an early morning arrival at MLE from DOH. After a 15-20 minute wait, we cleared immigration, grabbed our bags, exited, and were immediately greeted by a Westin staff. He took us to the Trans Maldivian Airways desk where we waited in line for about 15 minutes. We were then whisked to the Westin shuttle and taken to the Westin lounge at the seaplane terminal. We checked into the resort in the lounge while we snacked on pastries and coffee. We were told our flight was in about an hour, give or take. After 40 minutes, we were taken to the dock and were in the air about 10 minutes later. We had one stop before the Westin, which gave us an extra landing and takeoff, which was fun. A brief storm added excitement to our arrival—we were greeted by staff in golf carts, taken for a quick welcome drink, and then on to our villa.


Villa
We redeemed points for a base room (beach villa) and applied SNAs for an overwater pool villa (the highest category shown when I applied). They cleared 5 days in advance and we were given villa 105, which is one villa away from the tip of the oval of villas on the west side of the island. Sunset views in June for those keeping track at home. Of note, the “Heavenly” villas are 106 and 107 on this side—from what I can tell, they have windows on the living room side of their villa and a slightly larger wraparound deck that also means anyone could stroll onto your deck if they wanted (saw someone do this once). 105 seemed like the sweet spot to us, but I think any of them seemed pretty good.

The villa was perfect for us (2 adults and a 9 year old). One of the sofas was converted into a bed for our daughter. The villa has four main sections (living, dining, bedroom, bathroom), each of which can be divided with large sliding doors. All but the dining room have sliding doors to the deck. The doors don’t seal up particularly tight, which was great for letting the sounds of the sea in, but I could see that being problematic during a storm.

Of note, it’s a bit of a hike down the ladder to the sea and was generally pretty choppy during our visit. We never went in the water from the villa and only saw others try a couple of times.

Our villa was serviced twice a day. We had an endless supply of glass bottles with purified water, a Nespresso machine, and an orange juice press with oranges galore. We put that thing through a workout as it was the best orange juice we’ve ever tasted.

Food
We were pleasantly surprised by the food quality and value. We took breakfast as our Titanium amenity. It’s all ala carte, which I’m finding I actually prefer to even the most impressive of buffets. They brought fruit and pastries to our table every day, juices were made to order, the menu was extensive and they were also happy to make whatever wasn’t on the menu. We could order whatever and as much as we wanted. They also brought us fresh coconuts every morning and thanked us for being loyal Titanium members. It was cute. We were never charged for our daughter.

Island Kitchen is the main venue, open for all 3 meals. Hawker was mostly lunch only, except dinners on Mondays when Pearl was closed. Hawker opened for the latter half of the month for a special Filipino dinner menu. The Island Kitchen menu was pretty extensive and they had several daily specials. They also repeatedly reminded us that they could make whatever we wanted.

Value at both venues varied greatly. We had many fantastic entrees that ranged from the low $30s to high $40s (USD) that were plenty big enough for a meal. We also had a few starters that were high $20s that were good, but only a couple of bites. Filipino Fiesta was a small menu (6 items) that were close to $100 each. We ordered 2 (whole fried fish and whole chicken) and it fed three of us. They were both fantastic—probably our favorite overall.

The Pearl is the fancy Japanese restaurant and has a rotating tasting menu. We went on a Sunday night on the recommendation of some of the wait staff. It was Izakaya night, which included sashimi, ramen, salads, and grilled meats, including wagyu. It was fun, but ran us about $400 for 2 and I’m not sure I enjoyed it any more than our much less expensive meals. We had initially planned on going a second time for our anniversary, but ended up choosing Hawker Filipino Fiesta instead.

We received a 20% elite discount on non-promotional food (e.g. Izakaya night was excluded) that basically offset the service charge and tax at mealtime. I reviewed the meal plan offers before our trip, but the math didn’t seem to make sense unless you eat a LOT of food (3 courses each meal), which we could not have possibly done.

We spent many a happy hour at Sunset Bar (6pm to 7pm). They had about half a dozen happy hour specials ($8). Other drinks ranged from $14-$18, which while not great, didn’t seem any worse than non-Happy Hour Maui. They also have a food menu up there and we had a couple of dinners there—especially nice early in the trip when we were still getting adjusted on time.


Kids Club
Our daughter was the only kid on the island for the first half of our trip (no complaints from her). They basically had to dust off the kids club for her. She spent a couple of hours there each day and she loved it. They took her to the kitchen to make pizzas, she got to go to the bar to make a mocktail. The restaurant staff were great with her and one even took and edited a cute video of her making the drink and shared it with me. They followed a weekly schedule of activities, but basically said they could do whatever she wanted since she was the only kid.


Dive/Activity Center
We did a couple of trips—the manta ray snorkel and the sunset dolphin cruise. Manta was a little disorganized getting into the water and I had a snorkel that was taking in a lot of water. That combined with some choppy seas and strong currents got me into some trouble. One of our guides saved my butt and dragged me back to the boat so you can thank him for this review. There were some mantas and I saw one for a brief moment, but I had other things on my mind. Another person on the trip also had gear issues and said she felt like she paid $200 to be waterboarded.

The dolphin cruise was far less dramatic. We didn’t see any dolphins, but were the only guests on the boat so we just looked at it as a private sunset cruise that was far cheaper than a charter. We actually saw dolphins on our way back from the manta trip and also from our villa so not all was lost.

There’s a resident marine biologist who is doing some cool things with coral restoration. He was great to chat with and very patient with all of our daughter’s questions.

The beach behind the dive center was a favorite spot of ours and we enjoyed snorkeling just off of there. We saw a huge variety of fish and a few reef sharks, which was exciting for us.


Departure
I expected departure support to be minimal, but was impressed with how involved the staff was in seeing us off. We had a late night flight so the resort put us on a 4pm seaplane—the last of the day. Upon arrival at Male, we were greeted by Westin staff and escorted to their van. They fetched our bags, provided me with some added paperwork for our airline and then escorted us through the airport, including security and check-in before seeing us off. It felt like a VIP airport experience.


Other Observations
Occupancy was low. They were at 25 to 30 people during our stay and said that was the case for the month of June.

Guests appeared to be mostly from the Middle East, with a few Russian and North American mixed in.

The resort is about 3 years old. It’s starting to show some wear in some areas (wood peeling, metal rusting, etc.). Nothing that detracts from the experience, but they’ll have their work cut out fighting the elements.

The island feels very jungle-like in the areas where the beach villas are. It was more lush than we were expecting. I suspect that also means bugs, critters, etc. in the room and pool.

There is a healthy population of fruit bats on the island. They were fun to watch fly tree to tree.

There is an onsite photography company. They provide a free photo session and one print. They sell albums and digital packages that range from $150-$400. We ended up buying digital copies of our pics as they were really nice and felt like a good value compared to what we’d pay someone at home.

Weather for us was pretty good. Some days were pretty windy. Most were sunny. Seas ranged from calm to choppy, with the area near the dive center being the best part to go in the water. Sounds like there were some pretty good storms recently that caused some damage. The lower main pool was still being cleaned up as it had filled with sand.

Staff were universally friendly and social and made this trip even more special for us. We enjoyed chatting it up with many of them and some were clearly happy to have guests to talk to. We felt very well cared for. Most seemed to know our names almost immediately and we knew most of them by name too.

They usually work on a 6 month contract, but COVID has created some tough dynamics for them. Some are past their 6 months, but aren’t going home out of fear of getting “stuck” like some of their Indian colleagues. There are several from neighboring islands who would normally get to see their families on days off or take a boat home for the night, but don’t currently get to due to COVID-19 (they quarantine on island for 14 days prior to starting work). Perhaps some good perspective for those who feel they’ve had to make the ultimate sacrifice by wearing a mask to the grocery store.


TL;DR: A great resort with fantastic elite treatment, great food, and wonderful staff. We really loved it and it got us trying to figure out how to get back to the Maldives.