scwam

Well said. But where can I I find this statistical information you said about staff to guest ratio? They have such info? And I thought I was overkill on checking details.

jphripjah

Stefano Ruzza has responded on TripAdvisor to the 1* reviews bashing the resort for the cruise ship visit. I'd say these responses are lacking in substance, as he doesn't really acknowledge they did anything wrong, nor does he defend the practice of allowing the cruise ship.

MaldivesFreak

Canned responses (from his assistant I guess). I can see they have made a few differences in the format but mostly the same. And yes, not admitting anything is not going to get him in anyone's good books, that I can assure you. I see someone has posted that PS'd pic that was talked about a few pages back. The HMS Horde in the background is real and judging by the title you know why they added those birds and whatnot. LOL.

pineapple_09

Splotly

Nstaskey

I contacted the sales team as I have a stay in Mid May; they said they have no current plans to renovate the OWV's as of right now.

Suppachark Oan

Hi, the sand castles mission is possible at beach villa fronting east beginning on room 237. I had similar mission for my 3yo daughter.

WV 328 West Side has still and shallower water that more suitable for kid, unlike 407 family villa we stayed earlier which has constant current coming from mandhoo side and rough sand floor with sharp stones.

The 328 we staying could have some bug outside at nights, probably due to calmer wind and wave. Overall dirtier than the Family villa side.

Abidjan

Good to know. I'll be there a few weeks later and hope that's still the case.

MaldivesFreak

Have you tried posting something HMS Horde-related there? See if it gets deleted.


Yes, as mentioned, next to The Quiet Zone (towards Vilu and on the other side too) has the best sand and it's not busy at all at those 2 spots although the beach on the way to Vilu is much larger and better for your little one to play on. The DWV beach on the eastern side has pretty good sand too but as you get further towards the DWVs it gets coarser.
BTW, has anyone seen better sand than at Irufushi. It's really like flour there and miles better than Rangali's (except for reception, Rangali Bar & Atoll Market of course). Must be pretty rare. Shame it's not a Hilton anymore.

brodielayne

The sand around 227 on the sunrise size is pretty solid as well. It gets coarser the closer you get to the rooms, but is nice and fine about middle of the beach to the water.

jsteinberg

Hi All,

Just posted a review on Tripadvisor...(its pending review)...I figured I would share here as well, happy to answer any questions I can. Not adding the review pics, as they have been shared previously here by multiple people:


Spent 5 nights at the Conrad Valentines week. Overall, the service was inconsistent, and the resort allowing a cruise ship to tender hundreds of people to the island already at 100% capacity ruined an entire day. Previously stayed at the Park Hyatt Maldives which excels substantially in overall service, luxury, attention to detail, and host interaction. Below are some overall takeaways:

PROS:

Food: Good to very good. Prices on par with other Maldives properties. Dined at Rangali Bar, Sunset Grill, Mandhoo Spa restaurant, Ufaa. Dinner service was consistently good, and food was fresh and well presented

ROOM: This was hit and miss...we started with a positive...We had a renovated Deluxe beach villa for the first 3 nights. The room was nice, very well redone. Our room was on the lagoon side (room # in the 100s) as opposed to the 200s (reef side). Would recommend reef side if you like to snorkel as there are no chairs on the reef side other than those for the villas on that side. As a Diamond member, we had a few pieces of fruit (not refilled during the stay), a bottle of red wine, and a small box of chocolates. Overall room was clean, and we enjoyed it. Worth the fee spent to upgrade from the standard beach villa to deluxe.

HAPPY HOUR: 50% off at the quiet zone. We were there every day. "Shark" greeted us every day and remembered our names by day 2. He was the highlight of the service for the week, and made the 5-7pm happy hour wanting us to return each day.

WHALE SHARK TOUR: really cool seeing Manta Rays...we did not find any whale sharks the day we went. As a back up plan they took us to an additional reef to snorkel. While an expensive trip, we enjoyed it, despite not seeing any whale sharks. We were told it had been 1 week+ since they had spotted any.


CONS:

The glaring issue we had was on Valentines day. People go to the Maldives to detach, unwind, relax, and have some peace of mind. This was impossible on Valentines day. The Conrad, in what appears to be a money grab, allowed a large private yacht to use the island, and had tender boats running all day (at least 12 hours) of hundreds of people in addition to already being at full capacity. We witnessed people from this ship flying drones over villas, being loud and obnoxious with selfie sticks running all over the island, to the point we moved from our beach chairs to our private pool. Shortly later, we had 2 cruise ship people coming up our path while we were in our pool, with their go pro recording. Upon calling our host, he was sending "security". After this, there was no additional contact or messaging from management. (Pictures below)

What's crazy about this whole debacle, is the guests at the hotel were not even notified that they were allowing additional people to use the island for the day. Not that it would be acceptable even if that were the case, but it essentially felt that the cruise ship guests were get preferential treatment to those who were paying to actually stay on the island, with no notice to the paying guests.

Additionally there were limited dining venues available on Valentines Day, as the Conrad appeared to hold space for these cruise ship people. We were able to only secure an 8pm dining reservation as the outlets were "very busy" when we booked 2 days prior. However, upon showing up for our 8pm reservation, there were several tables already seated with cruise ship passengers. This was easy to identify, as we observed the staff bringing credit card machines table side at the end of their meals. Other guests we spoke to ended up at Rangali bar (no reservation required) on valentines day as other outlets were full.

The short story here, is having a cruise ship tender passengers to the Conrad completely degrades the experience for those paying dearly (in excess of $1000+ a night for a room) which is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE. This simple fact would prevent us, as Hilton Diamond, from ever returning to the Conrad Maldives. There are far too many resorts, as well as new competition, to roll the dice with having the peace and tranquility you expect when travelling so far just to get there.

There are so many stories of peoples experience this week in reference...both in recent previous reviews here, as well as lengthy reviews on the Conrad Rangali thread on Flyertalk. (google it)

2nd ROOM: We moved to a standard over water villa for 2 nights...I would recommend against this. The room is outdated, showing wear, and the water around the villas is so shallow it is not really practical for swimming. We never saw anyone swimming around their water villas in our 2 days there. Stick with the beach villas.

BOTTLED WATER: Maybe this one is just me...but in your room and at breakfast there is free Conrad filtered water....but at other meals (every dinner we had) the only option is expensive imported water...were talking $15 for a bottle of Evian...While it's nice to have that option for people who want that, clearly this is a money grab for water. I would be ok paying a small fee for the Conrad bottled water, but they will not provide it. You are forced to spend $15 for a bottle of water at meals, to me this is nickel and diming at a property people are already spending thousands just to get there and for their stay.

DEPARTURE: Organized chaos is the best way to describe this. We had a 6:30pm flight from Male. We were told to be at reception at 3:45 (2:45 Male time). We were initially told we would depart around 4:15-430. Around 4:15 we were told our plane would leave at 4:50. The plane didn't arrive until 5, we departed around 5:15pm. at this point we were waiting an hour and a half. I get why they wanted us there early, but waiting for 90 minutes seems excessive. Additionally, since we didn't leave until 5:15, we didn't arrive to Male until 4:50pm (with the 1 hour roll back)...and by the time we got our luggage and made it to check in, it was 5:15pm. Had we not arrived by 5:30 we wouldn't have been able to check in for our flight....this whole situation created unneeded stress to end the trip, and we were consistently getting conflicting sea plane information on departure day from the Conrad.

HOST: I'm not sure what the host is supposed to do at the Conrad, as I only can compare to my experience at the Park Hyatt, but this one is night and day. I am not sure what they are expected to do, but I saw/heard from my host when I arrived, and the day I departed. The only other time I had contact was when I called with the cruise ship people walking up to my Deluxe beach villa pool. Overall they are useless (my experience)

OVERALL: The overall trip was enjoyable 4 of the 5 days at the property. However, my overall rating reflects the value of this property compared to all the excellent properties in the Maldives, and for the price one spends on this type of vacation, there are clearly other properties that I'd imagine provide more personalized service, pure relaxation, and not make you roll the dice with what experience you will receive, as well as if they are making a quick buck to allow other visitors to use the island for a day while you are there.

NightFury1

jsteinberg

Base beach villa (cheapest room there)

Snorkeled around the water villas, much better depth and snorkeling nearby

headforflights

currently on 11 days stay (10 award+be my guest) (5nights beach villa-6water villa)
on arriving we got upgrade to 236 Deluxe Beach villa, I don't know is it renovated or not but overall inside area for me was poor in comparison to Beach Villa so we request to move to 110, little room inside for kids and much more close to breakfast and kids club, but5 even hard we didn't got any upgrade from water villa so now staying on reef side which is more quite

marcmsj

Just got here and love it so far. Thanks everyone for all the tips