Just came back from a 6 day stay:
Pros:
House reef: the house reef was excellent. At low tide, you can walk to within about 100 feet of the reef, with the caveat that certain parts of the reef are uncomfortably shallow. We saw about 40 species of fish, including two species of ray and a couple pufferfish, as well as a baby blacktip reef shark. At the drop-off, we saw fish ranging up to about 4 feet - quite impressive. We did not scuba and did not see dolphins or turtles, though we heard those could be seen with non-scuba excursions.
Food: Overall, the food was quite good, ranging from good (Turqoise/Tabemasu) to really good (most Velaa). Breakfast was excellent, though we have a strong bias toward Asian/Indian.
Service: On the whole, excellent. Thursday elite get-together with the staff was quite nice. A few issues noted below, especially restaurant reservations and checkout. In the frequent miler post there is a comment about staff from the Ritz - we did not encounter any of these folks, but almost all the staff had significant experience at either island resorts or in the Maldives. It seems like a very competitive position - three different staff members mentioned that the Maldives is incredibly appealing right now with all of the SE Asian resorts shut down.
Value: On awards, tremendous. Seaplane, spa, and all, our total on the half board for four nights and with Plat status was about $800 person, and that was with drinks most nights and feeling overfull (though without excursions). Considering how bad 35k certificates are, amazing value. I probably wouldn't pay rack rate, but to each their own.
Spa: My partner went to the spa and said that it was incredibly good. They were running a “deal” - 15% off if you book more than 36 hours in advance - so it might be worth booking ahead. I’m not an expert on massages, but 90 minutes + 15 for status for $140 seems like quite a good deal for a resort.
Cons:
Room: The sunrise overwater villa had a lot going for it - the porch and bathroom are quite nice - but the aesthetic and size leave something to be desired. I would not pay rack rate with so many other options in the Maldives.
Food Reservations: You should try and make reservations for restaurants before you arrive. The reservations at Velaa seem to disappear about a day before, even though there are consistently many empty tables.
Checkout: We had nowhere near the issues that other people had with checkout, but it was a little frustrating to (1) not know the time of our seaplane flight until 11 PM the night before and (2) to only get checkout until 1:30 PM (though, to be totally fair, they said they were at full occupancy).
Neutral/Other notes:
Closet doors: I didn’t really have any problem with these. You can lock them open, but if you forget to then they can smack you.
Restaurant menus - Upthread someone was asking about these. You can find the current menus from the frequentmiler review - these are the correct links.
EMed test: These were accepted by QR flying MLE-DOH-US, but the check-in staff had to call a manager over. It was a little scarier than I would have hoped, but at least it worked out in the end.
Kids at the resort: When we were there, there were a ton of kids at the resort. One of the managers we talked to estimated that it was about 20% under the age of 12.
Nationalities at the resort - There were lots of Russians there over Orthodox New Year, but the same manager said that they generally had more Americans, followed by Russians and then Indians.
Eastern/Lagoon-side villas: We heard that these would open in April, followed by (eventually) the opening of a new restaurant near the Hub. I imagine that the restaurant “crowding” will be worse at this point.
Half-board: We were on the half-board for 4 nights (it appears to be dinner to breakfast). It was…an ok deal. The 11 AM breakfasts were so filling that I wasn’t that hungry even at dinner time. For example, the whole fish or meat platter at Velaa plus two appetizers would have been plenty of food for the two of us if we were a la carte.