We enjoyed our 5 nights there mid March, we then went to Northholme for 5 nights and enjoyed that too, but overall thought Labriz was better. I wouldn't described it as luxuriously high end, but everything was done to at least a reasonably good standard.

Arranged for the hotel to lift us at the airport. I thought our timings were quite tight, But the airport "terminal" is very small, and once off the plane, we were meeting the taxi guy no more than 15 mins later, and the journey from airport to their jetty/lounge was only 20-25 mins, and we had about a 20 min wait for the boat.Boat over only had 15-20 on board, and some of those were workers about 10 or so guests I reckon. Journey over was rough with the boating hitting the water quite hard and a few were sick, but it didn't both either of us and neither of us would be used to boats. Boat back was much calmer, it obviously depends on the weather.

As we landed on the island around 11am, room wasn't ready, and at this stage we had been travelling from the house about 24hrs so the wait for the room (couple of hrs) seemed to take a long time. Virtually all the buildings on the island except the villas are oper-air, so no A/C, so it was a warm wait in the bar area.

It is a definite beach resort vibe, quite laid back. Beach villa is definitely better than the garden villa (we got the upgrade as a diamond). Beach villas have a veranda out the back with chairs and loungers, a small semi-private area with a hammock,that leads onto the beach. As far as I could tell, except in the common areas, only the people staying in the beach villas had the beach beds, which you pulled out from beside the hammock, out onto the beach, and then pulled them in, in the evening. So although the beach is open, you effectively have about 10-15 meters of the beach to youself, save for the odd time people are strolling along the water front.

Water lovely and warm, and other than the first day when it was a little rough, you could walk out a good 20 metres of so. Be aware that out there it can switch from sand to jagged rock under foot very quickly, so would strongly advise some reef shoes. There is a pool in the central communal area, but we never tried it. Temp wise, it didn't get below 23c even at night. We had some rain, but mostly it was good weather.

On Diamond points, we had breakfast either in the buffer area or Portabello, which was an enclosed A/Ced area, and the 3 mornings we used it, it was quite quiet and definitely not overly busy so good service. The buffet had a good range of food, but there are some midges and flies to deal with.

At evening time we ate in the buffet once, and ate in the bar area the rest of time, we aren't really foodies, so didn't try any of the restaurants. Drinks are expensive (around £16 for a cocktail as far as I remember), measure is 30ml. Didn't fancy the local beer which was the only beer on tap. A very well kept secret is that there is a happy hr from 5-6 in the main breeze bar. I never saw anything about it mentioned anywhere. I only asked because as Diamond you get a voucher for 1 day of all-day happy hour, so I assumed there must be an actually happy hr too. Drinks all 50% during that time. Breeze bar had some low-key live music many of the evenings, I think from 8-10pm.

There is an OK gym with some technogym machines and free weights. There are trails you can walk if that's your thing. But we just lazed for the 5 days, Having breakfast, back to villa, then out for 3-4 hrs on the beach/veranda, then rest, then down for some early evening food and some drinks.

Internet isn't great on the island, ok for a bit of whatsapp vid calling, but really not good enough to stream netflix or whatever. Thankfully I'd downloaded a few things onto the laptop in advance. All the English language channels on the TV are news channels. TV isn't smart so you can't cast to it.

Other than going to the Buffet, you never seen a major gather-up of people and so it had a nice relaxed vibe. Some families there but no major noise or anything. Staff were universally friendly and well trained.

Also arranged for Labriz to have a taxi waiting for us once off the boat to take us to Northholme. Could have saved maybe £30 or so on the two taxis by booking it ourselves, but the convenience of having it done by the hotel seemed worth it.

7 nights too much...depends, there are some boats based trips you can do, apparently they are some decent trails to walk, or if you are happy doing nothing then it'll be good too. Personally I felt the 5 nights was good for us, but everyone is different. Initially we were booked for 10 nights here, but given we had a flight back to AUH and then onward from there after a 5 hr layover, I felt adding on the boat back to the main island on top of that was going to be a lot. You kinda put up with that level of journey when you are going TO somewhere, more than when you are going home. So put the 2nd 5 nights into Northolme instead, which is a different type of vibe.