Datapoints on our recent stay in May 2022, any comparisons made are against our trip in 2019:
Positive-
- Service is great, and very personalised (partly to low occupancy). Breakfast drink preferences are remembered early on and we had a lot of good interaction with the staff. Housekeeping is world-class.
- Renovated rooms are a good change (Sunset WV), naturally, that came along with increased upgrade cost.
- Food is good. Mandhoo is my favourite restaurant. Not a fan of water prices ($15++), skip the Chicken Biryani at Rangali Bar.
- Local drums performance on Friday at Rangli Bar
- Minor hiccup at one of the restaurant, but was promptly remedied by the host & Director of F&B. Good service recovery.
Negative-
- Cost-cutting - Vilu Breakfast reduction in variety. Oysters/ Thai Fried Omelette / etc have all been removed. Personally, the magic of dining at Vilu breakfast is gone. We ended up heading to Atoll daily where similar food offerings (or more) can be found. IRCC Vilu will be closed in May/June (?) and rebranded as an Italian restaurant.
- Cost-cutting - Afternoon tea is gone. Lounge at Vilu is great for alcohol, service depends on the team serving + crowd size.
- Cost-cutting - earplugs + water is no longer offered for the initial seaplane ride.
- Significantly less marine life is visible around the resort, there used to be so many fishes at the bridge crossing. Did not catch any Manta-Ray over the 8 nights. (partly due to rain) Shark feeding has creased at Mandhoo due to regulations (?)
- Renovated rooms are great but faced teething problems. Water was leaking from the roof in both our BV & Sunset WV. BV - hole cut out for natural light within the toilet was leaking water due to condensation. WV - water was leaking from the roof onto the bathtub.
- Dropped by Rangali bar twice for the "live music" as stated in the app, but only to have no band showing up. At least we had the drinks at happy hour prices (?), Maldivian passion (cocktail) is great
- Awkward handover at Male when we were handed over to a tour guide (?) which we did not request for. Only mentioned we plan to visit the city to our host when offered the Conrad lounge at 55/pax. We ended up doing it solo as we already made plans prior.
Neutral-
- Cyclone in the Indian Ocean + SW Moonson brought terrible weather. Rained on most days and all our excursions (dolphin/Snorkeling) and beach events (Chmp + lobster/ Manager Recep) were canceled.
TLDR: Avoid coming during the Monsoon season if this is your first trip to the Maldives. CMRI is still amazing and we had a good time here, however, we thought the first experience was better. We were lucky enough to book this at 96k points, with the recent devaluation, would be keen to explore other resorts.
Conrad Maldives - soft toy series