MaldivesFreak

I wouldn't say quite a few, at least if you are talking percentages. You'll find that most folks like to experience both. Since you have never been in either I would strongly suggest splitting your stay and doing either 2 or 3 nights in a BV first, then moving on to the WV for the remainder, just so you can experience both. Most folks prefer to do it in that order, too.


Maximum occupancy has always been three, either 2+1 or 3 adults. Rollaway beds can sleep either an adult or a child.

MaldivesFreak

It takes decades to fully recover. The house reef will be a lot healthier in another 3 or 4 years so don't expect too much. The major difference is the increased amount of marine life around the dead coral due to all the algae that has grown all over it.

manneca

gnomey

I was thinking the same too. But I think if you want to be safe (as you cant make up your mind yet), then just book WV throughout. I would think it's easier to 'downgrade' to BV later on or on the day of arrival, rather than to 'upgrade' to WV, based on the 95K redemption rates

Well, unless BV is completely sold out on the days you are there...

Fly2Where

Thanks for sharing..... unfortunately i've booked nonrefundable fare retreat water villa... i thought it was cheap at that time... now if i knew water villa became standard, i will probably just book award due to flexibility.

MaldivesFreak

I would definitely not recommend this strategy. It's more likely that there will be no BVs available. I've had a think about this and what I think they may be doing is (due to WVs having a possibly slightly less than desired occupancy rate) trying to market BVs to a particular target market and if this is so they will a) have none left and b) be upgrading nearly no-one from BV > WV. The majority of upgrades you will see will be BV > DBV since they will have all the WVs filled up by Hilton regulars & elites.

jasdou

Neither Hilton Reservations or Conrad Rangali were able to break down my five-night stay into 2 nights in a BV and 3 nights in a WV because it's an award stay with the 5th night free. Breaking the stay in two would mean that I would lose the 5th night free benefit. So I decided to switch the whole stay to a WV since this seems to offer a pretty unique experience!

bwh3m

That seems odd. I'm doing six nights and broke mine up across two categories (WV and SWV) without forfeiting the 5th night free. It shows as two, three night reservations in my profile. The only difference for me may be that they put all the points redemption value in the first three nights and then attributed the cash upgrade cost as the "price" for the second three nights. Given you don't have a cash outlay on either the BV or the WV, you would not be able to do that, and hence the problem.

Dsm2m2

Reporting back after just completing a 6-night stay with the girlfriend. As most have already said, we are already talking about returning in late 2018 after having an incredible time.

Our stay was booked entirely on points in the standard beach Villa, and decided to upgrade the last three nights to a Superior Water Villa for $375++ per night.

Positives / Data Points:

- Arrived in Male around 10:30a, in Conrad lounge by 11-11:15ish, and were put on Seaplane by about 12:30p. We made one stop to another island to drop off another couple before arriving at the Conrad. In total I think the trip took about 45 minutes with the stop.

- All pre-booked reservations / villa requests were correct / granted. Asked for a Beach Villa in the 200's as well as Superior Water Villa 338, 339 or 442 and received #216 and #339 respectively. No additional upgrade was asked for or given as a few others have reported. We booked 3x dinners and one excursion in advance as well and all were correct.

- Of the restaurants we tried, Mandhoo was my favorite, while Sunset Grill was my girlfriend's top choice. We did opt for the Atoll Market buffet one night and while nothing on the island is considered 'inexpensive', I thought Atoll represented the worst value / quality for the money at $95++ / person before drinks. We split breakfast between Atoll and Vliu and found this to be the only time the resort felt 'crowded'.

- We decided on the 'cocktail hour' at Ithaa, which we thought was a good decision after the fact. The experience / photo opportunity is what we wanted and received. They threw some bait in the water and we had multiple reef sharks going by which was great to see. We discussed afterwards about having lunch or dinner here and determined that the novelty of the place wears off after 30 minutes and you are then just having an extremely expensive dinner. We would most likely not return here upon a second visit.

- Booked the Whale Shark tour prior to arrival but it was suggested to switch it to 'Adventure Snorkeling' on arrival as our concierge thought we would experience more as he said whale sharks were very hit or miss at this time. We did ended up actually seeing one whale shark for about 2 minutes at the beginning on the excursion, which is what were mainly wanting to see anyway. This also ended up being $50/person cheaper. Truthfully we saw more wildlife around the resort than we did on the snorkeling excursion (multiple baby reef sharks near beach everyday, sea turtles and sting rays outside the water villa one morning, Mantas on the last night under the bridge, etc.) so if you are looking to save money on excursions there is definitely still a lot to see just by wandering around.

- As Hilton Diamond we visited Mandhoo for afternoon tea everyday in lieu of lunch as well as happy hour at Vilu approx. 3-4x. As others have said, we learned very quickly to arrive at Mandhoo right at 4pm as by 4:15 the place was completely slammed. Never had a problem getting an open table at Vilu (however if you want a table directly in front of the beach you need to arrive early). Typical schedule for us was Mandhoo right at 4pm until about 4:30/4:45 where we would then take a buggy over to Vilu.

- There were more kids than anticipated at the resort overall and seemed centered around the main pool as well as the beach near the water sports. Because of this, we spent most afternoons on the beach near our villa or at the quiet zone pool, as both areas were almost completely dead each day.

- Asked for late checkout as our flight out of Male was not until 7:55p. Found out on last night that we were given a 3:15p check out time which was way later than we expected, so that was a nice surprise. We were told the seaplane was scheduled for 4pm, but didn't actually arrive until about 4:30p. We were given Conrad Lounge access at Male. When it was time to depart the lounge, we were escorted from the lounge, through the airport / check-in all the way to customs by a Conrad rep, which was also very helpful / appreciated.

- Girlfriend and I both agreed that the best part of the resort (outside of being in the Maldives) was the staff. Everyone was super friendly, offered advice / recommendations, seemed genuinely interested, etc. We received no hard sells on dinners or drinks (which I expected based on other reports) and really thought everyone went out of their way to make us feel welcome.

Negatives (more annoyances than anything and certainly wouldn't prevent us from coming back):

- Check-in process was pretty cumbersome. Arrived at 1pm and spent about 15 minutes in the small lounge by the seaplane dock getting a short rundown of the resort. We were then escorted to the check-in area where we spent another 30 minutes getting a further run down on every inch of the resort, everything we booked etc. While I do appreciate the detail in this, at one point it almost seemed like they were stalling due to the room not being ready, as some details were gone over multiple times. Once that was done we were told room would be ready in 10 minutes. After another 45 minutes goes by our with room still not ready. While we did not complain, our concierge came over and offered us free lunch at Rangali Bar for the long wait which we certainly appreciated.

- Room Keys. On four different occasions, our room key(s) stopped working (3x at the beach villa and 1x at the water villa) to the point where at all times my girlfriend and I were each carrying a key when we left in case one stopped working. Twice this happened when we were out on the beach outside the beach villa, which meant I had to walk all the way around the beach to the check-in desk. Naturally one of these time was when it started raining, so not the most ideal situation. The first time they mentioned keeping it away from phones, etc. which admittedly has happened to me a few times in the past, however multiple keys not working 2-3x over a 6 day period tells me something else was going on with the system. Were not big complainers and just chalked this up to 'sh*t happens' as the staff was very apologetic to us on the 3rd and 4th time.

Overall, we had a excellent time. The weather was almost perfect (had only one day of rain) and we never felt crowded anywhere we went except during breakfast. We got in to a routine after the first day or two and it was exactly the experience we were hoping for!

Thanks again to everyone (especially MaldivesFreak) for all of the info provided here, it was extremely helpful in the planning and execution of the trip!

Corridor!

Can Anyone give me pricing of beer/ rum and coke? Do they offer an all inclusive liquor package?

goliath

Most beers are USD 10++ = USD 12.32 / half price at happy hour at Rangali bar between 5PM and 7PM

No.

Cynicor

MaldivesFreak

LOL!


@Dsm2m2: Glad you had a great time and that the info was helpful. Interesting about the price for Atoll Market buffet. It went up to $105++ and now seems to have gone back down to $95++. Perhaps this is because they thought that only a $10++ difference in price was not congruent with the extra value and location of Maldivian Night (which I believe is still at $115++).

ironfire

So, the atoll buffet is 95 usd now? what is the Maldivian Night?
the beach barbecue is around 200, right?

tom-schmitt

The Maledivian Night is 165$++, the Beach BBQ is 250$ ++ and the Champagne and Lobster BBQ is 278$++with Ruinardt Brut and with Ruinardt Rose 298$++.