Originally Posted by
sfmom
Thanks for the honest feedback! It is both a once in a lifetime - finally empty nesters, major anniversary - but we also travel a fair amount and pretty well, and if we love it I could see returning (love love to snorkel and dive). We are not big “hangout in the room” people and usually splash out for food and activities. I’ll probably just forget it but am glad to have my expectations set. I was looking over some of the newer resorts and wow, they really are not for me. Glad I happen to have status at a place that could be “the one.”
No problem. We were there our first time a few years ago, going back again next February and will likely go every other year. We'd originally paid to upgrade to a Beach Pool Villa for a few nights and an overwater for a nights our first time.
Here's a few posts I did after that, if you are interested.
Just returned from a heavenly 5 night stay here followed by 5 nights at the St. Regis. I am a Lifetime Globalist (was Lifetime Diamond before that...) which I believe played into our stay.
Happy to answer any questions, but I'll just say our stay was spectacular. We were originally slated to have the base room for 2 nights followed by 3 nights in a a sunset overwater. We were upgraded to a Deluxe Beach Pool Villa. It was amazing, and the perfect way to start our first trip to the Maldives! In fact, my wife loved it so much we asked to extend our stay there for 3 nights, then 2 nights at the Sunset OVW, which they happily agreed to give us. The room was great, but the pool was amazing. We were outside for the entire 3 days we were in this room. The beach was very close, and in addition to the sunbed chairs in the pool and the floating bean bag type chairs, we had chairs on the beach. Most of our time was at the beach or in the water. When we got hot, we'd go in the water then our outdoor cabana. Showered outside every day which is really a cool feeling.
Obtained my Advanced Open Water certification with Ruben at the dive shop. He is a great guy and a terrific and patient instructor. Plus the diving was out of this world, especially the drift dive we did off of Dhaandoo, where he found several massive sea turtles resting in their little caves and then several large grey sharks while using our coral hooks. Just an amazing series of dives and a great experience in gaining more scuba skills. Can't recommend highly enough.
Everyone probably knows this, but the house reef is out of this world. We did a night dive on the house reef which was awesome - shrimp, lobsters, a shark, etc. plus bioluminescent plankton! Snorkeling during the day was also pretty awesome. At the sunset overwater, I literally climbed down the ladder and was greeted by a small sea turtle less than 10 feet away from me munching on algae. Plentiful fish and healthy coral everywhere, which is not the norm at most Maldives resorts.
The team here is extraordinary. I was concerned reading some of the posts about Nik leaving, but I can say that the new manager, Kristofer, reached out and we spoke with him multiple times. He embraced and reacted quickly to feedback. For example, walking around the island is awesome, but it is much tougher at high tide because you are pushed to rocks in a few places instead of sand. My wife suggested to him that they post the tide times at Blue Journeys on the chalk board. They started doing it the next day. He also did other things for us that made the stay very special.
The nightly Globalist cocktail hour was also awesome - the appetizers they provided and the cocktails were wonderful. My wife loved one of the salad creations we tasted. Kristofer spoke to the chef and she was able to have that same salad for dinner that evening. Every day, all three of the appetizers were different and were not menu items and we found that the chef would happily whip up variations of those and regularly ordered stuff off menu. Vinod at the bar was great, friendly and remembered our names and cocktail preferences after the first day.
Also loved the breakfast here. They have both "western" choices, but I really favored the Maldivian options. Great way to start the day, especially the Mas Huni, tuna with coconut and peppers wrapped in a flatbread cone that they'd make at your table.
Happy to answer any questions anyone has.
And this was in reply to a question:
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mikeb99
Thanks for the report! My question is how does it compare to the St. Regis?
Very different vibe. The Park Hyatt feels like you are on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere. We'd spend half a day after breakfast at the beach outside our villa and not see another person in 4 or 5 hours. Like not even out on the water. We loved it - it really set the tone for our vacation and made it feel like we were as far away as we were from the real world.
The St. Regis felt more like a large resort - more people, much larger island, but you see people regularly. We walked around the island at the Hyatt 3 times. I don't think you could do that at the St. Regis.
Regarding food, both were very good, though the St. Regis definitely had more choices. Treatment as an elite felt better at the Hyatt (nightly free cocktail and appetizers, constant recognition, champagne in the room a couple of different nights, gifts, etc) vs. the St. Regis. No upgrades, required to leave our room at noon, etc.
St Regis has a HUGE edge if you have to spend several hours in Male - their new lounge is excellent. Overall - Loved them both, will likely return to both in 2025.