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[ARCHIVE 2014 to 2017] Conrad Maldives Rangali Island {MDV}

[ARCHIVE 2014 to 2017] Conrad Maldives Rangali Island {MDV}

Old Apr 23, 2017, 9:59 am
  #4231  
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Back in Hell
Posts: 4,178
Originally Posted by silvergirl
I don't snorkel or dive and have no interest to do so, but I have been to Rangali 3 times (plus a further 2 stays in other Maldives resorts), each time around 10 days and I have never had any issues with being bored. It depends what you are looking for though - personally I am going there to relax and recharge after a lot of long hours at work and work travel, so I enjoy doing nothing, lounging around, spending time with my other half. We didn't even do any excursions or activities (unless you count the champagne and lobster BBQ) on the last trip and still enjoyed 10 days. I understand other people may feel different.
Can't wait to go back again end of this year again for 10 days!
Reading this I thought I'd relay something interesting I heard from the staff. I recall a couple of years back talking to the previous Director of Rooms, Karin, and her saying that, on average, most non-Asian guests felt that the ideal time for a stay at a (large) resort like Rangali with so many F&B choices, was two weeks. Maybe I should set up a poll on this thread.....

Damn, no polls on FT. WTH?!

Last edited by MaldivesFreak; Apr 23, 2017 at 10:24 am
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Old Apr 23, 2017, 10:29 am
  #4232  
 
Join Date: Feb 2014
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I just got the following rates for my stay in July. Likely doing 4 nights upgraded to Deluxe Water Villa for the pregnant wife. Any suggestions otherwise?

Beach Villa to the Deluxe Beach Villa - USD 200.00 per night + 10% service charge + 12% TGST tax
Beach Villa to the Superior Water Villa - USD 160.00 per night + 10% service charge + 12% TGST tax
Beach Villa to the Retreat Water Villa - USD 280.00 per night + 10% service charge + 12% TGST tax
Beach Villa to the Deluxe Water Villa - USD 360.00 per night + 10% service charge + 12% TGST tax
Beach Villa to the Premier Water Villa - USD 800.00 per night + 10% service charge + 12% TGST tax
Beach Villa to the Sunset Water Villa - USD 1960.00 per night + 10% service charge + 12% TGST tax
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Old Apr 23, 2017, 11:27 am
  #4233  
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Programs: HH Diamond, BAEC
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Originally Posted by MaldivesFreak
Reading this I thought I'd relay something interesting I heard from the staff. I recall a couple of years back talking to the previous Director of Rooms, Karin, and her saying that, on average, most non-Asian guests felt that the ideal time for a stay at a (large) resort like Rangali with so many F&B choices, was two weeks. Maybe I should set up a poll on this thread.....

Damn, no polls on FT. WTH?!
Yes, when we went we stayed just under 2 weeks both times. I think a week or less is way too short. If I stayed for a month, I would still be unhappy to leave!!
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Old Apr 23, 2017, 11:49 am
  #4234  
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I did 4 nights PH and 5 Conrad, could've used a day more at PH and a day or two more at Conrad. We didn't have enough time at either to get the full breadth of the house reefs. (My SO, OTOH would've probably preferred no more at Conrad and 2 or 3 more at PH).

Meanwhile, we ran into a guy from China who was at PH alone, and he left early- too bored!

What do you do for 10 nights+ though at a single resort?
3 or 4 snorkel/dive days, a sunset dinner cruise, private dinner on the beach, spa day, lunch or dinner at Ithaa still is only 8 nights if you did one activity a day. I like snorkeling enough, but more than 4 days of it? And Whale Shark snorkeling, of course!

I guess moving rooms once at each resort also consumed a good bunch of time. Also, since I like to blog, I did a lot of filming/photography.

Random rant of the day.
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Old Apr 23, 2017, 1:51 pm
  #4235  
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Back in Hell
Posts: 4,178
Originally Posted by joecool1885
What do you do for 10 nights+ though at a single resort?
3 or 4 snorkel/dive days, a sunset dinner cruise, private dinner on the beach, spa day, lunch or dinner at Ithaa still is only 8 nights if you did one activity a day. I like snorkeling enough, but more than 4 days of it? And Whale Shark snorkeling, of course!.
I can understand if the place is a tiny island and where there are 2, maybe 3 F&B outlets. At Rangali it's huge and there are so many places to eat at, walk around, laze on the beach at. The time just goes so fast. You sleep 8 hours, get up, wait for the OH to get ready; you know how long it takes the ladies to dress and do their makeup and whatnot and she's not exactly quick by any standard, i.e; really sloooooooow! Something like this.....



It's a struggle to get to breakfast before 10AM! After breakfast (11:30) you want to relax and let the food digest. By the time said food has digested, half the day is gone! The only time we have to do stuff is after her afternoon nap and before dinner (we live in a 40+C/105+F summer climate which lasts almost half the year, she naps for an hour (after breakfast) but I don't). I always say that we're gonna spend time at The Quiet Zone (one of my favourite places at Rangali) but never really end up spending more than an hour there in total out of our average of 7 nights/8 days.

In the afternoon you want to go snorkelling but then there's the option of afternoon tea (and maybe Happy Hour at Vilu afterwards). If we snorkel there's no time for that so it's one or the other. Or you might want to have a spa treatment but you can't really do it in the morning or at night (hence they're booked solid from 11AM through 5PM) so there's only the afternoon. God forbid you should do some kind of excursion as that will take up a whole afternoon, LOL! Seriously, there's no time left in the day. If we go in the water then every evening she has to wash her hair (there must be a million strands and it alone takes an hour to wash and dry ) and then another to dress and makeup so the two hours before dinner are gone. After spending 40 days there it feels like we've actually spent less a week actually snorkelling and relaxing properly. That's why we're planning on a 30-day or 35-day trip either the end of this year of end of 2018. At least we won't have that horrible feeling you get, the one where you realize that you're already 3 or 4 days into your 7 night stay and that you have to leave soon. Ugh!

But hey.....that's just us! End of rant!

Last edited by MaldivesFreak; Apr 23, 2017 at 2:52 pm
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Old Apr 23, 2017, 1:51 pm
  #4236  
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
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Clearly you don't love snorkeling enough.. :D

Originally Posted by joecool1885
I did 4 nights PH and 5 Conrad, could've used a day more at PH and a day or two more at Conrad. We didn't have enough time at either to get the full breadth of the house reefs. (My SO, OTOH would've probably preferred no more at Conrad and 2 or 3 more at PH).

Meanwhile, we ran into a guy from China who was at PH alone, and he left early- too bored!

What do you do for 10 nights+ though at a single resort?
3 or 4 snorkel/dive days, a sunset dinner cruise, private dinner on the beach, spa day, lunch or dinner at Ithaa still is only 8 nights if you did one activity a day. I like snorkeling enough, but more than 4 days of it? And Whale Shark snorkeling, of course!

I guess moving rooms once at each resort also consumed a good bunch of time. Also, since I like to blog, I did a lot of filming/photography.

Random rant of the day.
Snorkelled at least once every day of our 12 night stay, most days in the water for 3 hours. Had we stayed for twice that amount we might have had a day off lol!

Could easily have stayed another week. In my recent review I touched on chats we had with the regular repeat guests that we bumped into, most of them were on 15+ night trips on points..

If we had more time...
Laze by the 2 pools reading a book.
We'd would have probably done a boat trip if Whalesharks had been sighted.
I'd have done more than one mornings diving as well.
Would have liked to take a catamaran for a spin too.
And the Jet Skis looked fun..
And maybe pinch an ebike to take for a spin from the SWVs to the RWVs.

SR
http://TripRep.WordPress.com

Last edited by ScubaRoo; Apr 23, 2017 at 2:06 pm
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Old Apr 23, 2017, 2:22 pm
  #4237  
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Back in Hell
Posts: 4,178
Originally Posted by ScubaRoo
Snorkelled at least once every day of our 12 night stay,
Could easily have stayed another week.
Tell me about it!

Originally Posted by ScubaRoo
If we had more time...
Laze by the 2 pools reading a book.
We'd would have probably done a boat trip if Whalesharks had been sighted.

Would have liked to take a catamaran for a spin too.
And the Jet Skis looked fun..
Ditto! I want to learn how to sail and seabob and go on a few jetski safaris and she wants me to make a movie of our trip (thanks to inspiration from jonparr, still watch your video mate, it's great and thanks a bunch!). There's no way I'll have time to do all that when we stay there a month. Having said that, I think I'll be spending far less time snorkelling on future trips, at least for the next decade or until the coral recovers. It's hard having been there when it was all alive and spectacularly colourful and now that it's dead I have to admit I've lost interest somewhat. Please don't beat me over the head with your flippers for saying that, SR! LOL!
And there's the cooking classes that I want to do in the kitchen. Prabu said no problem so looking forward to that immensely. Damn, looks like I'm gonna need two months..... Anyone got a couple million points they wanna give away?!
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Old Apr 23, 2017, 2:37 pm
  #4238  
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
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Oh, and did I mention the idea of watching a Bond flick; one a night for most of the month. That would be awesome but it's probably not gonna happen. It would mean instead of a leisurely dinner from say 7:30 to 10PM and a stroll/relax on the sofa beds in Rangali Bar afterwards and then a shower before bed, it's gonna put bedtime back two hours which means either sleeping less or practically missing breakfast the next morning or hurrying to finish dinner then shower then watch them before our normal bedtime of around midnight. Oh, and did I mention she's a.....




She's gonna kill me when she sees these posts.....

Last edited by MaldivesFreak; Apr 23, 2017 at 10:26 pm
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Old Apr 23, 2017, 3:33 pm
  #4239  
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Originally Posted by ScubaRoo
Snorkelled at least once every day of our 12 night stay, most days in the water for 3 hours. Had we stayed for twice that amount we might have had a day off lol!

Could easily have stayed another week. In my recent review I touched on chats we had with the regular repeat guests that we bumped into, most of them were on 15+ night trips on points..

If we had more time...
Laze by the 2 pools reading a book.
We'd would have probably done a boat trip if Whalesharks had been sighted.
I'd have done more than one mornings diving as well.
Would have liked to take a catamaran for a spin too.
And the Jet Skis looked fun..
And maybe pinch an ebike to take for a spin from the SWVs to the RWVs.

SR
http://TripRep.WordPress.com
"Snorkelled at least once every day of our 12 night stay"... and you want an equitable detailed comparison of the Park Hyatt reef from me!?!? :-D ... I didnt see 99% of the things you saw at Conrad, I snorkeled the house reef at Conrad a single day and a single day at the Hyatt. At Conrad I saw some spotted rays and manta rays and a single turtle. Reef sharks as well (when they were chumming them). At Hyatt I saw none of that except non-chummed Reef Sharks swimming in bait balls of fish. So frankly I was more enthralled at Conrad. But my SO is a diver who's been all over. She noted as MF noted the deadness of coral at Conrad vs beauty at Hyatt (she also dove both house reefs).

I am very, very white, and I sport a goatee.. and my sinuses are poor in general. Snorkeling is nice for me here and there, but Ive got a lot going against me.

Not saying re the amount of time that I couldnt go back (definately want to hit both resorts again) but 10+ nights all at once in the same small island might be too much for me.
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Old Apr 23, 2017, 11:14 pm
  #4240  
 
Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: Sydney, Australia
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even using points for the room we still spent USD$6k during our 10 night stay without any room upgrade costs, and without any beach dinners!
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Old Apr 23, 2017, 11:25 pm
  #4241  
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Back in Hell
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Easily done.

Hint: To save money, make sure you catch a nasty virus on the inbound flight to MLE. That way on the second day you'll have a raging fever, be cooped up in the room for at least a week and have no chance to get out and let those greenbacks fly! You'll spend less than a third of what you normally would per day, guaranteed!
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Old Apr 23, 2017, 11:27 pm
  #4242  
 
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Originally Posted by diningdecadence
even using points for the room we still spent USD$6k during our 10 night stay without any room upgrade costs, and without any beach dinners!
We just came off a 10-night stay in February. We only spent about $1,500 USD not including the airfare, which my company covered. Had an unbelievable time. Ate a lot and ate well. Spent a lot of time snorkeling and just watching the larger fish swim by our RWV. Can't wait to go back next year
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Old Apr 24, 2017, 12:23 am
  #4243  
 
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Originally Posted by joecool1885
"Snorkelled at least once every day of our 12 night stay"... and you want an equitable detailed comparison of the Park Hyatt reef from me!?!? :-D ... I didnt see 99% of the things you saw at Conrad, I snorkeled the house reef at Conrad a single day and a single day at the Hyatt. At Conrad I saw some spotted rays and manta rays and a single turtle. Reef sharks as well (when they were chumming them). At Hyatt I saw none of that except non-chummed Reef Sharks swimming in bait balls of fish. So frankly I was more enthralled at Conrad. But my SO is a diver who's been all over. She noted as MF noted the deadness of coral at Conrad vs beauty at Hyatt (she also dove both house reefs).

I am very, very white, and I sport a goatee.. and my sinuses are poor in general. Snorkeling is nice for me here and there, but Ive got a lot going against me.

Not saying re the amount of time that I couldnt go back (definately want to hit both resorts again) but 10+ nights all at once in the same small island might be too much for me.
I hate wearing sunscreen, especially mixing it with water, so I don't. I use a thin 1mm full wetsuit which works best, also removed the need for a lifevest in calm conditions.

I'm doubtful you saw a mantas whilst snorkelling on the house reef, especially as you only went in once. Do you have a pic?

I wasn't wanting a detailed review of snorkelling at the Hyatt from you personally. What my post on TPG article said was that rather than you claiming "its pointless to snorkel from your water villa at the Conrad" To make a proper qualified & equal comparison of snorkelling at both resorts I'd expect to be able to see a review of the Hyatt as detailed as my ones of the Conrad.

Clearly as many have read my review, they understand I loved snorkeing from our water viila and drifting for over an hour travelling a mile along the dropoff. It was certainly not pointless. Given I did it at every opportunity also backs this up.

The current health of the house reef at the Hyatt sounds encouraging, maybe I'll visit the Hyatt one day as part of a 2 resort stay, they might like me reviewing the resort and my attention to detail.

Last edited by ScubaRoo; Apr 24, 2017 at 12:45 am
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Old Apr 24, 2017, 10:39 am
  #4244  
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Originally Posted by ScubaRoo
I hate wearing sunscreen, especially mixing it with water, so I don't. I use a thin 1mm full wetsuit which works best, also removed the need for a lifevest in calm conditions.

I'm doubtful you saw a mantas whilst snorkelling on the house reef, especially as you only went in once. Do you have a pic?

I wasn't wanting a detailed review of snorkelling at the Hyatt from you personally. What my post on TPG article said was that rather than you claiming "its pointless to snorkel from your water villa at the Conrad" To make a proper qualified & equal comparison of snorkelling at both resorts I'd expect to be able to see a review of the Hyatt as detailed as my ones of the Conrad.

Clearly as many have read my review, they understand I loved snorkeing from our water viila and drifting for over an hour travelling a mile along the dropoff. It was certainly not pointless. Given I did it at every opportunity also backs this up.

The current health of the house reef at the Hyatt sounds encouraging, maybe I'll visit the Hyatt one day as part of a 2 resort stay, they might like me reviewing the resort and my attention to detail.
Worded that poorly, no I did not see mantas while snorkeling. I saw them while at the Conrad, none at PH.

And to clarify, I definitely don't feel that snorkeling at the Conrad is pointless. My point (again, probably worded poorly or not well clarified enough), was that I didn't see a point to snorkeling directly off the room vs launching from other spots on the island. For someone who wants to swim over to the house reef FROM the room, I can certainly see why you might feel that was worthwhile. But it seems the distance from most of the retreat villas to the reef is greater than if you were to just swim from the beach. It doesn't seem like having any type of Water Villa gives you an advantage in this regard, and for me I'd just as soon swim from the beach if it's gonna be mostly sand to the edge of the reef anyways. Your report shows a lot of great things in the house reef itself, but doesn't seem to drive the idea that snorkeling directly off the room itself is any better than snorkeling from the beach. VS at the Hyatt, the Water villas are practically at the edge of the reef already, and vs their Park and Pool villas, they are at an advantage for snorkeling.
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Old Apr 25, 2017, 8:22 pm
  #4245  
 
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Another quick question...as we are travelling for around 3 weeks (getting married in Dominican Republic, then onto Dubai, then CMRI, then Thailand) we are likely to have a fair bit of luggage.

Trying to keep it down to 32kg each in two cases. I see the extra charge is $5++/kg - is this likely to cause much hassle if cases are overweight?

Will only be $100 for both of us if our cases are around 30kg so that's not a huge problem. I think I read somewhere that overweight baggage might come on a different plane though.
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