jphripjah

Yeah I just heard from someone else on Facebook who booked a water villa standard redemption in mid-March. I guess they're not blocked until April, they're just limited or mostly sold out.

Airfan

We're booked with an award OTW redemption for March.

G-CIVC

Then it is a pity that this is discouraging repeat business to begin with. In fact service has been the major low of what otherwise has been a fantastic eight days here. Apart from rude/disinterested staff (notably Atoll Market - but to do justice the managers/senior staff have been exemplary in general), I would never expect the villa door to be opened immediately after ringing the bell when the DND sign was hung outside at an FHR property. I loved the food and facilities/amenities but my SO is rather insistent that if there is a next trip it will be at the WA instead...

MaldivesFreak

I guess because their clientele is becoming wealthier and wealthier, never come back twice and almost never write trip reports or do reviews on TA (I'm talking about mainland Chinese), they figure they can accept the negatives of also charging TROTW for water.

jphripjah

This is a pet peeve of mine in certain parts of the word, in my experience in Asia and the "developing" world, DND signs are a mere suggestion not to be taken literally by hotel staff.

I do recall during my first stay I had a buggy pick up time for like 11 a.m. for check out and at 11 a.m. The staff came into the the room at that time and I didn't even hear them knock. Invasion of privacy is a particular concern in beach villas where the shower is not enclosed behind any kind of door. Not to mention that honeymooning couples sometimes have sex from what I hear.

I know on at least some of these CR villas, the DND sign is a sliding piece of wood off the side of the door and it's probably easy for someone to walk out of the villa and accidentally forget to slide it to "clean my room" or "enter as you wish," even when they really do want their room cleaned. And then they may complain in the afternoon that their room has not been cleaned.

As for staff doing the quick "knock and enter" like cops serving a search warrant, it may be because the villas are large and many guests hang out on the back deck and can't hear the knocking anyway.

The bottom line is that the "room boys" at this property do sort of act like they are your longtime personal staff who have the run of your residence like a live in butler would.

MaldivesFreak

ROFLMAO. May I ask on which planet this is not the case?

Majuki

Mrs. Majuki and I had good experiences with the housekeeping staff. The person who serviced our room every day seemed to be accommodating on the time. We enjoyed waking up early, going to breakfast, and returning to a clean villa (often before 10 or 11 am). In the evening, we'd come back from dinner with turndown service having been completed.

jphripjah

Yeah, my guy was good on the timing too, we'd go to breakfast around 9:30 - 10:00 every day and the room would be clean when we came back. He was just a little too chummy for my tastes. Addressing me by name, making direct eye contact, how dare he!

MaldivesFreak

They only have 3 villas each to maintain so they are pretty damn good at knowing when you are in and when you are out.

jphripjah

Really, wow? I had no idea. The standard in Las Vegas hotel rooms is 15-17 rooms per day per housekeeper. I remember that from the union negotiations years ago. Obviously the CR villas are a lot bigger, but I had no idea they only did three a day.

I do remember being surprised returning to my villa one day and seeing my shirtless house boy in the water cleaning the outsides of the villa or the wooden posts holding up the villa.

MaldivesFreak

Do they do evening turndowns in LV?

jphripjah

Not at the grind joint I worked at.

Majuki

We had assumed they only had a small area to service considering we always saw the same housekeeper around our cluster of villas. We always asked for extra towels for swimming off of the back of our villa/drying clothes. It got to the point where there would be a stack of 10 full sized towels every morning after we returned from breakfast. No, we didn't use nearly that many, but it was great to have options. For 3 or 4 nights of our stay the villa next to ours was unoccupied, so I imagine our housekeeper didn't have much to do.

I left $5 each morning as a gratuity, but I don't know if the preference is for USD cash or to sign in any gratuities as part of the bill. (I also noticed a line for gratuity upon checking out.) We were staying on points, so they weren't seeing a service charge from us like they typically would. I don't know how this is reconciled on the back end. Is one treated better on a paid versus points stay?

MaldivesFreak

Whatever you spent on F&B, spa, excursions etc has 10% gratuity on it and is divided up evenly.....so you did tip.

No, definitely not.

Majuki

Well, compare to someone who's paying full freight for a stay at whatever the going rate for a water villa is would be generating a 10% service charge on top of that base amount. We were paying none of that as it was a points stay.