ArLin

In case you go to the Philippines, you can swim with the whaleshark for $20 US dollars. This was when we went in 2018

gaobest

sorry to distract - Grand Wailea was about $700/night plus $700/cabana per day plus meals since we ate brekky and luncheon on site. I like the cabana. Not cheap and without it, I’d never find chaise. It’s a pain to try to reserve 7 chaise (us and our friends) on my own at 7a.
But the real key is that we only can go during April break from school when lotsa families are on April break so there’s high demand. At least flight cost to OGG is less than MLE - some trade offs.
sorry to distract from WA in Maldives.

agjil

I have done it back in March this year.
We did see a couple of whale sharks several times (they come and go) during our excursion.
I thought the price was very expensive, but I have no regrets - it was one of the most spectacular moments in my life seeing a gigantic whale shark up close in nature.
I know in Asia the same excursion is much cheaper, but that doesn't matter to me...seeing a whale shark in the Maldives is something I will never forget.

yolie

Talking about excursions, what is one excursion you guys do recommend?

thanks!

ffman999

My family will be there for 9 days in July. If you will too and want to meet up, send me a DM. I had a great time meeting fellow FlyerTalkers when we went last September!

sam_goh

We will be there June 29 to July 8th. Looking forward to returning. Happy to meet any FT'ers there, we were able to meet one couple last year!

yutaka12131415

We will be there from July 23 to July 28!

koyo23

I haven't been able to find any 5days slots for points redemption. Is it just me not being fast enough? or have WA not been releasing slots?

ffman999

Yes. It opens up but gets snapped up quickly.

Wozza2404

The next batch of dates to be released will be for late June 2023. When the hotel releases these dates, it will be possible to get a 5 night redemption; but the availability will be snapped up very quickly.

The chances of finding 5 consecutive nights for dates prior to June 23 is close to zero.

Wozza2404

We recently stayed here for just over a week. I figured I'd give my views on the resort.

Arrival was smooth. We were greeted by name as soon as we approached the guy holding the WA sign - which meant we knew we would have the transfer to ourselves. I can't stress enough how the yacht transfer is a much smoother experience than a seaplane. No mini bus to a remote lounge to wait (often hours) for the seaplane departure. We were leaving the dock under ten minutes from walking out of baggage reclaim - champagne in hand.
The snacks on the boat are little cakes - the same as come in the jars each evening with the turndown service. Nothing special. Frankly given the quality of the breakfast pastries (exceptional) I'm not sure why they don't just have a basket of those for each yacht journey.
The champagne served on the boat is Veuve Extra Old.

Arriving at the resort is a dream, and check in is done in room and doesn't take long. Our host had made reservations for dinner for the first 4 or 5 nights just so we had an option booked. We kept all but one of them.

We had an anniversary cake in the room which was a nice touch, plus the bed was decorated for us. We had the usual Diamond fruit basket and bottle of red wine (a £20 bottle of Bordeaux which was perfectly pleasant). People had mentioned the little jars of sweet treats given at turndown service each evening - but we found these to be - frankly - naff. Generally half stale little cakes, or unripe dates. Nothing to get excited about.

The room itself is exceptional. I think most people know this by now so I won't dwell too much, but it really is breathtaking. We were in reef villa 502 - and I think we were very lucky with the allocation and positioning. The villa is a reef villa but due to the position, 502 constantly has water underneath it. The Grand Reef Villa next door and the other villas moving down the row are dependent on tide - and sometimes have beach underneath them. This means at night the waves can crash onto that beach. From our villa we could hear the waves crashing underneath next door and it was quite pleasant - but I'd imagine from inside that villa that noise would have been LOUD. You may think this sounds amazing, you may value a little more tranquility - but it was something I noted.

Positioning of the villa was good. From the pool, you look out and you can see some OW Villas and then open ocean. If you lean out and look to the left you'll see Maafushi - but the light from the island at night isn't intrusive. I've put a night photo below and you can see it's just a twinkling of lights in the distance. This is in STARK contrast to the other side of the island - where the light from Male is exceptionally bright. I was absolutely gobsmacked at how bright it was on that side - to the point where you couldn't see any stars in that direction. Now, people may be looking at this and thinking I'm being a bit precious - so I took a photo from Zuma across the bay and you can see the light from Male on the other side. It really really took me by surprise just how bright it was and it would have seriously detracted from the tranquil evening vibe on our deck had we been in a villa on that side. The one downside of this villa (and any in a similar position) is that you do hear the buggies coming on an off the bridge (a rumble strip kind of noise). The villa also looks out at the little sand island with the swing on it (Insta Island) so you do get a steady stream of kayakers, folk on pedalos, etc. heading to the island to take their 'shots for the Gram' but by late afternoon it's deserted again.

Getting around the island we always did on bikes. the buggies are a nuisance during the day and they're downright dangerous at night. We cycled to and from dinner each evening and there were multiple occasions where buggies - travelling at speed - were forced to sweve into the foliage or emergency brake to avoid hitting us - this is because whilst most of the paths are wide enough to have two 'lanes', the do narrow significantly in certain places and the buggies barrel along as a serious pace. Frankly I'd say it's only a matter of time before someone walks out of their villa pushing a pushchair and a buggy colides with it coming around the corner. Buggies on the bridge at the Conrad were the one significant negative I had at that resort and buggies in general were a significant negative here as well. I will say that is another plus for the positioning of our villa - 502 - we never felt we needed to call a buggy - even going to Zuma (the furthest restaurant from us) took just 15 minutes on the bikes.
NB - The bikes now have villa number tags on the back of them so you know which are yours.

Water is provided FOC in the villas, and it's provided free at Nava beach club if you head down there. They'll also give you bottles to take with you if you go out on a pedalo, etc. House water is available at all restuarants but if you don't specify then you'll get a $12 bottle of Evian. House water has a charge of $5. Frankly given the nature of the resort I'm not going to get worked up over a $5 charge on a $400 bill. Others may disagree.

Food I'll give a brief overview of where we ate below:

Breakfast - Well covered in reviews upthread. Best breakfast in the Hilton world? Probably up there, yes. Free flow Tattinger. The Maldivian egg dishes on the a la carte menu are well worth trying.

Yasmeen - Nice setting. Food was plentiful and some dishes were excellent. Ultimately it's bread, salad and grilled meat, though and it's nothing you wouldn't get for a fraction of the price at a decent Lebanese or Middle Eastern restuarant back home. Bill was approaching $400 all in which was the set menu plus a few beers. Worth doing and a nice experience but we wouldn't have gone back.

Tasting Table - We had the seafood platter here one evening sat on the beach and it was probably one of the best value meals we had. Whole lobster, very large prawns, a reef fish, scallops, etc. and we also ordered some noodles and a rice dish. Few beers and the whole thing came to $300. This is where you want to be eating if you need a budget night - you could do dinner for 2 here for sub $150 here - and nowhere else on the island. Menu is extensive - a little bit of everything. We ate here twice.

The Ledge - We said this was the best food on the island - and that would have stayed true if Zuma hadn't opened whilst we were there. Some really excellent dishes - the beef marmalade starter and the smoked potato puree being stand out dishes. The reef fish was also exceptional here. A couple of poor items as well - in particular the caesar salad which was just 3 cups of lettuce with shredded lettuce, cheese and what I think was bacon dust in them - and it cost £30GBP after the ++. I've put a photo below purely for the lols. However, outrageously priced lettuce aside, this place is unmissable. It was $300 for two with a couple of drinks (would be a chunky amount more if you went for the wagyu beef). We ate here twice.

Nava Beach Bar - I had lunch here a few times.
Pizza - done in the wood oven. Had a salami one. Was it worth forty quid (yes, that's pounds)? No. I can do better in my Ooni at home. But it's fine if you want a quick snack.
Chicken Burger - Actually very good. Fried chicken thigh with a spiced slaw and pickles on a very light brioche bun. Worked well. Almost seemed reasonable at £35 compared to other options.
Burger - Cost over £60. Annoyingly it was absolutely outstanding. Smoked beef patties and a really good burger cheese. The chips let the dish down (at this price point just throw on the truffle fries instead of chunky McCain home chips). In my top ten burgers ever - though you'd expect it to be at that price.

Li Long - Erm.... Bit conflicted here. Location wise it's one of the best places to eat on the island. Right on that deck looking into the water we saw sting rays and nurse sharks and schools of jacks hunting and loads of cool stuff. The food... well it was very average Chinese food. My soup was tepid - not hot. The noodles were a little dry. My seafood was bland in the XO dish. Like it wasn't terrible by any means but certainly if we hadn't been sat on that deck we would have probably been disappointed with it overall. We didn't return. $375 I think.

Zuma - Oh, Zuma. Immediately, from the moment you approach it, it's a different level. The atmosphere is refined yet fun. The staff greet you vibrantly. They have proper menus (the rest of the resort still has those naff QR codes - though all restaurants will give you an ipad menu if you ask and don't want to be squinting at your phone). The place sits out over the water and in the centre the chefs are flying around preparing the dishes all in full view. The bulk of the staff have come over from the Dubai one if anyone is familiar with t. That place.
The food is is a cut above anything else we had. Currently the menu is a little more limited than the 'normal' Zuma menu you might be familiar with elsewhere, but the main dishes are present (tempura prawns, miso cod, spinach salad, maki rolls, etc.). This is a supply issue apparently, and the menu will be extended once they have ironed out the logistics of getting the goods there. Cocktails were the best we had anywhere on the island by a LONG way. They were saying they're hoping to have live music each night and make the bar area a destination for cocktails after people have eaten elsewhere - as well as a dinner destination in its own right. Given the proximity to some overwater villas I'm not sure how that will go down with folk in those villas, but that's the plan anyway.
We ate here twice on consecutive nights - not cheap but hands down the best place we ate on the island. Absolutely not even close. $550 and $450, respectively, with a couple of cocktails.

Finally, Happy Hour. This is between 4-5 in Peacock Alley which meant if we wanted to go then we had to pack up off the beach and head down there. Which is a bit of an effort. We made it probably 3 days in total. The drinks are OK but nothing earth shattering. No deviation allowed from the menu (this seems to depend on what staff you have, how busy they are, etc.). The 'snack' is peanuts. You're asked to sign the bill at the end so they're clearly tracking exactly what this is costing each day. Service is slow - with only one bartender - so 3 drinks is about your lot in an hour. Frankly, most days we just stayed at the beach and paid for drinks - at least you get exactly what you want that way. Also at the Conrad Happy Hour everyone was chatting away across tables but everyone kept themselves to themselves here (of course this will vary day to day depending on who is on the island) - as such, we prefered the beach.

Clientele - Well, it's June. Sports seasons are mostly finished. So there were a LOT of current and past footballers and NFL players. Couple of recognisable tennis players as well. Apparently the resort is starting to get a name for itself for privacy AND it has that 'en vogue' instagram quality currently - which is attracting certain celebrities. Then there was a lot of Asian families (quite a few people we spoke to were from Singapore). So lots of children running around at breakfast, playing in the sand on the steps, jumping off the decking, etc. This will either bother you or it won't. We chose to sit away from it after the first day of having kids crawling under the tables.

Marine life - This is where the island falls short. If you've been to the Conrad you'll be disappointed by marine life here. It's coming - but it's not there yet. From the deck of our villa I saw blue spotted rays, triggerfish, jackfish, schools of chromis, squid (very cool), a baby shark (once) but you had to really sit and watch for it - or get lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Compare it to the Conrad where there was a constant stream of critters performing for us off the deck. Similarly the snorkelling is not a patch on the Conrad - there's some cool stuff - I saw a clam, I saw a sizeable black tip off the reef drop off, unicorn fish, moorish idols - and the coral is coming - there are bubble tip anemones, crusting montipora, etc. but it's nothing like the Conrad reef. So if you've never snorkelled in the Maldives then you'll see plenty of fish - but if you've been to a resort with a decent house reef, lower your expectations.

The nurse shark snorkelling trip, however, is one of the best things I've ever done. It's heavily priced at around $475 all in per person, but to get that close to 10ft nurse sharks - and huge numbers of them too - was insanely cool.

SPA - I didn't go. My wife did. She said it was very pleasant and relaxing but she was in no real rush to go back again. Said she'd much rather do a day spa at Champneys in the UK (no idea what that means but I imagine it's going to cost me money).

Few other bits and pieces - the adult only pool looks very smart but it's falling apart. You'll be pulling tiles up by the fistful. And you can see where they've tried to use waterproof filler to plug the gaps. Poor considering the age of the resort.
The overwater villas - IMHO - don't have the same kind of wow factor when you walk in as the reef villas do. The beach villas are insanely private. But if given a choice (not including Stella Maris or Private Island) I think I'd take a Grand Reef on the non-Male facing side over any other option.
Wear slippers on your deck or you'll be pulling splinters out real quick.
Mini bar beers are $10++ - which seemed almost reasonable compared to everything else on the island.
You MUST try the smores at The Ledge when you go for dinner.
Despite being June, we had one afternoon where it rained. Otherwise the weather was absolutely stunning. However they did say that just a couple of weeks before we arrived they had weather so bad for 3 days there were periods you couldn't get on or off the island - so I guess you take your chances this time of year.
Despite my moaning about the prices (I knew what I was walking into but some things still took me by surprise) my overall bill was actually lower than anticipated.

EDIT: We didn't eat at Terra or The Rock. We spoke to a number of people who had done Terra whilst we were there and all said that the presentation and service was amazing but the food was just 'OK'. At over £700GBP before drinks we decided we were better off having a second night at Zuma. The Rock we would have likely gone for if it wasn't private - just us two doing a wine tasting isn't our thing, but with other people it would have been fun. Conrad does the wine cellar dinner where you sit with up to 5 other couples and it was one of the best nights we had on the island - but it wasn't our thing at the WA.

Photo 1. That's not moonlight, that's Male-light. The light from Zuma is making it appear fuzzy but you get the idea of how bright those lights really are.
Photo 2. Maafushi lights just visible in the distance from the deck at twilight.
Photo 3. A £30GBP caesar salad.
Photo 4. One of the may little bolt holes tucked away just off the paths that offer little 'easter egg' viewpoints around the island.

pzpa

Thanks for the thorough review - some informative datapoints for our upcoming stay!

alanslegal

Thank you Wozza2404 for your comprehensive review. Lots of useful information to take away for our return visit shortly (We'll be there 13-23 July, so happy to catch up with any other FT'er who will be in-residence).

Almost three years on (we stayed in the first week the resort opened), our sentiments are similar to yours. Most dining options on the island are a try-once but you would never logically go back for the second visit. Apart from The Ledge, I recall many people raving about Li Long or Yasmeen and while it is a nice ambience, the food is not wow or great esp. if you have grown up (for eg. in Australia) surrounded by middle eastern or chinese food made by refugees/migrants of those countries. That said, we'll likely try those places again because it is part of the novelty factor (like who eats plenty of food, within a middle eastern village, set on an idyllic maldivian island?) and we'll worry about the costs later.

Wozza2404

I think that's exactly it - for most of the restaurants it's ambience that takes priority over the food.

At the Ledge, it's the other way around - the ambience isn't anything special (tucked away behind the pools) but the food is a cut above.

Zuma is a breath of fresh air as they hit both - a better ambience than anywhere else on the island and better food. But you pay a premium for that.

ne0ven0m

Re: lights at night.

So my hopes of seeing the Milky Way from the Maldives are dashed, right? Just not possible given the light pollution? Or is it a mater of which villa you get?