SEA2BA

Excellent as I am thinking of this for next year. Can I ask how/who you are flying and how you are getting out to the island (and whether you are doing the night MLE arrival and stay in local hotel)?

SEA2BA

dmbfan222

That is great! I worried about that myself and was thinking of going there in the near future. What type of room were you able to secure and for how many pts?

srfrgirl4

that's great...have fun and ddon't forget to come back and tell all of us how is was... I need to save up a few more points for that award :-)

delpreston

Curious how many points you need. What kind of room? View? Extra costs associated with it?

I've been saving for a honeymoon hopefully in next 2-4 yrs. Wondering if that's the place to spend it. So far I have about 500k points, wondering if that will be enough?

zakami

I will be there on a paid stay for my honeymoon in early Nov. Will post a review when I return in mid Nov. Unfortunately they had 2005 blacked-out for award redemption. I went cheap and book the basic Beach Villa. Lets see what the Diamond treatment will be like.

delpreston

Congrats, have fun, and hope to hear from you after your stay.

BaldEmu

In answer to the questions above, I used an AXON award for 125000 points. The room reserved for me was a Beach Villa with a king bed.

I have not made any arrangements for transport etc. yet, but anticipate using the SQ flights and staying in Male the first night. I will report back once I make the arrangements.....

SEA2BA

Excellent, as this is exactly the itinerary I am considering. Will look forward to seeing your report on your arrangements.

Hoping this will be on my 2006 calendar as well!

SEA2BA

DCA_DR

And please eat at the underwater restaurant and tell us all about it!

coachigdon

My colleague, who is Diamond, just booked 2 weeks on points for sometime in May or June. I guess being Diamond has some benefits.

That underwater restaurant looks amazing.

divrdrew

I am waiting to hear about that...although the $200 per head pricetag I saw on a review seems a bit high. I can take a candy bar under water and eat it for much less, althoug it would taste a bit salty

zakami

I went to the Hilton Maldives on my honeymoon back in early Nov and am finally getting around to posting a review. I know there is not much information on the Hilton Maldives since I looked into it when planning our honeymoon, so thought I would add some.

We flew from DEL-CMB-MLE on UL and back the same way (miles to EK Skywards). The flights were uneventful and we landed in Male safely and on-time. Immigration and customs at Male airport were pretty easy and baggage arrived fairly quickly. There was a person from Crown Tours (contractors for thee Hilton) with a sign with my name on it waiting for us outside of customs. He proceeded to welcome us, took our luggage (which we did not touch until we got to our rooms) and then took our return tickets (a little unusual I thought) to confirm our seats for the return. The person did give us a receipt for our return tickets though.

We were then whisked away onto a bus which took us to the Hilton lounge at the sea-plane terminal. The lounge is very nice and we were given a welcome drink and a choice of hot and cold wet-towels. The person then got our boarding passes for the sea-plane and we were told to enjoy ourselves as we had about 80 mins before our departure for the Hilton. There was a choice of fruit and pastries and of course some juices and coffee/tea. There are also 2 computer terminals to use the internet. I do not know if you can plug in your own laptop as I did not use the terminals. We spent some of our time out of the lounge just enjoying the sun and watching the sea-planes land and take-off (it was a first for both of us). I thought the $250 per person charge (roundtrip) for the 25 min ride to the Hilton is expensive but there is no alternative.

At the lounge we were also told that we had been upgraded to a Superior over-water bungalow the first two nights since I am Diamond but then we would have to switch to a Beach Villa (which is what we had booked) for the next night. We were there only 3 nights. This worked out very well as we got to experience both the islands. Before departure of the sea-plane we were give 2 bottles of water and Bvlgari wet-naps.

We were greeted personally by a member of the Hilton upon arrival. Since I had been in touch wit h the concierge prior I was greeted by her. She showed us around a little, got us our keys and escorted us to our room. The Superior over-water bungalow is incredible. There are stairs off the balcony that take you out to the water. Bvlgari toiletries in the bathroom and great furnishings in the room. There is a DVD player and TV in every room on this island (but not the other) and you can borrow DVDs from the reception area at this island which we did not indulge in.

I would recommend the Mandhoo Spa restaurant as others have posted. It was excellent. I still cannot forget the Local Fisherman’s shrimp; just perfect in spiciness and incredible flavor. We got the appetizer portions and it was enough food for us. We also went to Ithaa, the underwater restaurant which was a great experience. The food looked great although we did not think all the items tasted that great. But it is worth it for a once in a lifetime experience. I had made a reservation for Ithaa about 2-3 weeks prior to our arrival and would recommend doing that as it is a popular choice and only seats 12. We also ate at Rangali bar and the food was rather good. We were told by a waiter that you could get food from any restaurant at that bar and they would not say no but of course they do not advertise this. This came up because I wanted something from the bar menu and my wife wanted lobster which was not on their menu. Breakfast is included in the rate for everyone and it was a huge spread. We only tried the breakfast at the Vilu restaurant though and not the one at the main island (more on that later but in summary we had to make our flight back to Male).

The Beach Villa was very nice as well in my opinion and had the newly built feel to it. They are rather large and have Molten Brown toiletries. The shower and the huge bath-tub are outdoors although the toilet is indoors. There is plenty of closet space. It rained for a part of the day we were there and did miss a TV then, but no big deal.

Checkout took unusually long. It was just not as smooth as everything else on the island and they seemed somewhat understaffed for the number of people checking out around the time we were. They know in advance who will be checking out at exactly what time (they arrange the flight back to Male and tell you the departure time the night before) so I do not see why it was so inefficient. Due to this we missed our breakfast as well.

They took our luggage and we did not see it until we were at the curb at the airport. The transfer back to the airport was very efficient and smooth just like the earlier transfer. We were handed our return tickets and that was the end of our short trip to the Maldives.

If someone is interested in pictures, I could email them. Or if someone wants to host them or wants to tell me how to do it, then I am willing to share as well. Or I will try to figure it out on my own but later.

ROW2Aisle

If award stay how easy was it to get the award? How far in advance did you have to make the arrangements for the local seaplane transfers and did you make the transfer arrangements with the hotel?

Was the UL portion a seperate ticket or combined with your USA-DEL flight?

zakami

It was a paid stay for the cheapest room (Beach Villa). We made arrangements for the seaplane with the hotel (I don't think there is an independent way to do it).

UL was a seperate ticket. We were already in Delhi.

CountinPlaces

What did your food expense average each day? I am trying to plan a full trip budget so any financial details people can provide would be helpful.


Thanks!