Well we got back last week from what was the overall best vacation of our lives. The W Maldives property is gorgeous, you cannot beat it - it is its own island in the middle of the Indian Ocean in the island Republic of the Maldives. The resort island sits on a coral reef atoll, with the dock of the over water bungalows bordering the other side. While I have never stayed in any other over water bungalows before, I am confident this room cannot be beat. The indoor and outdoor space seems to exceed what i've seen on some of the bora bora property sites. Only 87 rooms I believe, and they strive to never go above 75% occupancy. While the island and dock isn't huge, because of how few other guests there are, and how spread out everything is, you get the sense that it is truly a private island for you and...whomever. The food in incredible. There are three different restaurants on the island, but the pool area also has food servers and a full menu from one of the three kitchens. There are also multiple bars and a pretty cool lounge/club with an amazing selection of vodkas from around the world. Every morning begins with an included breakfast buffet with every type of world breakfast food imaginable, hot and cold, made to order - quite the way to start the day.

W Retreat & Spa offers loads of daily activities and excursions. Diving trips, snorkeling, all varieties of motor and hand powered boating, etc... If you ever didn't want to just relax on your gigantic private deck on the Indian Ocean with your own plunge pool, there are almost too many activities to choose from. They have a library with a couple of iMacs for internet, a DVD, CD and book collection that you can borrow, billiards, foosball, and a great work out facility. We did a day trip to a local island and a fishing trip. We caught some red snappers that the chefs cooked up for us in one of the restaurants that evening for dinner.

There are 200+ staff on the island. When we arrived there were only ~25 units occupied, so the staff:guest ratio was 4:1!! The staff are top notch, the type of personal custom service that could put Ritz and Four Seasons to shame. Never have I seen a staff so wanting to go above and beyond for their guests. The GM makes a point to greet and meet all of the guests.

It is not easy to get to the Maldives from the US (we had to fly through Germany and Dubai), so most of the guests were coming from Europe and Asia. It was well worth the near 2 days of travel to get there.

Bottom line: the level of service at this property, the facilities and the location are unbeatable if you can finesse the transportation to the Male.