brandonpkt

I would not count on a free upgrade and instead pay for your preference. That being said upgrades are not needed here unless you have very specific requests like an extra bedroom or you want to try an OWV.

All the villas are great here with similar design features and layout. For reference all are better than the Conrad Villas I have tried (I have tried all except Sunset, Premier and Underwater).

Michael19887

There are no reports of any pricing going up. I’ve been to CMR 3 times and just left the WA earlier this week, and there is no material difference between the pricing of food at these resorts as Brandonpkt noted. The difference is that the WA food and beverage offerings are of higher quality.

brandonpkt

I spent some time tonight conducting an investigation of the Nava Pizza Oven. I think The pizza guys were very entertained by the white guy asking about their oven and taking photos (see attached).

The story is: oven from Italy and the pizza looks great. Big enough to share (see it in the photo). I’ll try the Pizza on Monday or Tuesday night and report back. Prices are very good for the pizza considering it can feed two adults.

Famous Italian oven with large pie in front. Not shown: Pizza chefs laughing at the white guy documenting their cooking station

Pizza menu - will try Michaels fav on Monday or Tuesday and report back

brandonpkt

Just had dinner for two at Ledge with two entrees, a shared side dish and tip for less than $100. See menu price in photo - can we put this whole food pricing topic to bed now?

Crazy how long it takes to overcome false rumors.

Michael19887 : I tried the burger, was a very good two patty option. Cooked medium rare but dark in color due to the Australian beef used. Was this how yours looked?

I thought the burger, fries and chicken sandwich were all fantastic. I will continue to follow your dining plan Li long is tomorrow night; pizza the next day.



Ledge menu - very affordable and high quality

Famous Ledge Burger - really tasted great

Michael19887

Enjoy!

NightFury1

Those pizzas look amazing!

Did anyone also try Tangled? I'm a sucker for Asian noodles, but the price is still pretty high and not sure how big the bowls are or if it's worth it compared to these pizzas.

Corridor!

When you order the burger, are the fries inluded in the price or are the fries an additional $12?

captainamerica

I have a 10 night stay in March in the BV. Given the room rate changes I can "downgrade" any of these nights to the RWV or OWV. Privacy is important for me so I'm not too keen on the BV. I'm thinking to do just 3 nights in the BV to experience it and then the next 7 nights in either the OWV or RWV. Which do people prefer? I'm thinking the OWV is more private because you want have people snorkeling in the reef in front of your room? Has anyone tried both rooms?

ScubaRoo

Nice idea MaldivesFreak

Anyone done an extensive review of snorkelling on the house reef, is it any near as good as the Rangali?

brandonpkt - appreciate the frequent updates on the WA, especially in comparison to your recent Rangali stay, have you guys been snorkelling yet?

Cheers

ScubaRoo/TripRep
http://triprep.wordpress.com (my 2 reviews of the Conrad Rangali)

alanslegal

For afternoon tea their food offering is weak but obviously better than the now non-existent afternoon tea at the Conrad.


Did an Italian tech guy from Italy come out to the resort and install it?

Also if you have the time at Li Long, ask how they set it up? I'd love to hear the version they tell you, and I'll let you know what they told me to see if it matches. You know, 'chinese whispers' can happen and before you know it, the story eventually leads to the chinese navy delivered everything. Well the chinese navy stuff is just fictional (I hope).

NightFury1

Managed to find the $298 option for Terra after doing a little digging on the Chinese sites. There were lots of great reviews of the food here.

Was on the border of trying the $388 before, but after knowing theres a $298 option, I'm definitely going there now.

sambo150

Hi I've looked all around this thread but struggling to find where the grand beach villas are located? If anyone knows the room numbers that would be great, also best location,

Another question this time of year the wind is mostly east does the lagoon get choppy with this wind heading straight into the lagoon?

Thanks

The _Banking_Scot

Hi,

I think this excellent map ( in the wiki)

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6894a1311d.jpg

has the grand villas with red dots on them.

Regards

TBS

sambo150

Thanks mate god knows how I missed that!

samuelo

Half-way through a 8 night stay and wanted to share some thoughts/impressions given all the useful advice and tips I got from reading this thread. I'm a Diamond on points stay in a south (lagoon) facing 600s beach villa.

Boat Transfer
I booked when the return fare was "incorrectly" quoted at US$370++ return and emailed the resort months ago when they changed the pricing to confirm they would honour the rate I was quoted. For the price I am paying I am extremely satisfied. The boat we had to the resort was brand spanking new (not the largest boat but still a WA yacht) and since there were no other guests arriving around the same time we were taken straight to the boat and had a private transfer. In fact, people transferring to other resorts by boat were enviously staring at us as we got onto the WA yacht!

I can confirm that your butler does not pick you up anymore and they have concierges dedicated to the boat transfer or at least in our case this was what we experienced. As others have said there is champagne (Delamotte) on board. Once we finished the half bottle of champagne, another was opened to top us up and the concierge told us he had plenty more so to keep drinking! Passports are taken on the boat now (I presume for registration).

Arrival
We were taken directly from the welcome area to our villa and checked in there which involved signing a printed form, being asked for our dietary preferences and having our credit card swiped for a pre-authorisation.

The Villa
I had requested a north facing beach villa (we did not want to be overwater so I neither paid for nor expected any upgrade) but was given a south facing one. Since we have been here it seems to be more windy on the north side so I am happy to be facing into the lagoon and there is not much boat traffic in the lagoon to really bother us. We have been splitting our time between the beach and in-villa pool. As others have commented the hard product is of good quality and our villa has enough foliage that you cannot see into the villa from the beach. This is not true of the 2 and 3 bedroom villas on the same stretch which have poor privacy as the foliage needs to grow significantly more.

Welcome champagne (given we are Diamond members) was Billecart Salmon rose which was a nice surprise given the house champagne seems to be Delamotte.

The Breakfast
I read mixed things about the breakfast but I can say it is hands down the best hotel breakfast I have eaten in a very long time. There is a great selection of dishes and the quality is very high. Items off the menu (e.g. eggs, waffles, pancakes etc.) are included for Diamond members. Delamotte champagne (as much as you want) is also available at breakfast.

The Food
I will not repeat what others have written but we did a special food and Krug pairing dinner at Terra the other night. The food was cooked by the Director of Culinary himself and I thought it was very good. The views from all of the pods are not the same and I would suggest requesting one of the 2 highest pods. We also got there before sunset so we could take photos which again I would suggest.

We also did in-villa dining (club sandwich and satay) today and both were excellent. The reviews I had read previously all seemed to indicate the in-villa dining was of poor quality so this was a pleasant surprise.

We also had the floating breakfast this morning (comp'd by the hotel - see below) which is a good Instagram opportunity but otherwise I would still suggest going to Tasting Table.

The Service
The service is really where the hotel fails for me at this point in time. You have some very good staff members, in particular the Director of Culinary, Assistant Front Office Manager, but also some incompetent and lazy staff members. The senior management has been good at acknowledging our concerns and are really trying their best to rectify/improve our experience but they still have a long way to go in terms of staff training and service delivery for the prices they are charging.

Activities
We did the sunset fishing last night which is highly recommended. The price seems to have increased from US$95/pp (from the July activity brochure) to US$110/pp.