thrylos

The response from the hotel confirms that the transfers ARE part of the fees. They are NOT included in the room price.

SantiC

The seaplane transfers ARE included within the "Local Fee". Your "Local Fee" should actually be $1,438 which is equal to ($695 x 2) + $6 x 2 x 5. The latter being the seaplane transfer cost pp of $695 and the former being the $6 pp per day in government taxes.

SantiC

As a couple of people have noted, I would also be interested in any extra activities you did (boats, scuba, etc) and what a reasonable budget would be per day on food / drinks (~$1,000) ?

Thanks!

kkl

If you are ppe 1k will be plenty with the free breakfast

caimaster

It really depends on what you do and how you eat. Everyone's definition of frugal and splurge is different. $1K per day per couple might be on a high end for someone that just want to chill by the pool/beach, do a group snorkel trip, skip lunch and only have a light dinner with no/cheapest wine. $1k a day can also just be entry level if you want to dive 2 tanks a day, have a 3 or 4 course dinner with medium priced wine and throw in a spa day here and there.

Prices of all the restaurant, activities and spa are listed in wiki or a simple google search. You can almost map out your meals and activities for the entire trip. Don't forget to add 23% service fee/tax to the menu prices.

escape4

The budget per day will depend heavily on whether you intend to do any special dinners or not. If you eat at Alba every night (or order room service) then you can get by quite cheap, but why go all the way to St.Regis Maldives and not enjoy dinner at Decanter and/or the private beach dinner which will be about $1k per couple.

tygran37

Yeah you can look up Spa, Restaurant and Activity menus with prices before getting there. If you want fully up to date ones then email the resort and they will send them to you.

I personally did not go way out of my way to get roundtrip first class airfare and the OWB on points to get all frugal once I'm there. I'm looking at it as what I do and what I eat/drink are *all* I have to pay for and I do not care what they cost. I have spa treatments, a diving excursion and 5 dinners booked already including the wine dinner at decanter. It might run me $1k a day or even more and I just don't care for this one, it's a dream trip for me and I'm going nuts.

I do realize everyone is different with different budgets but I guess I'm viewing it as if there was ever a time to completely cut loose this is it... I also realize a lot of people aren't doing points reservations but I imagine more are than typical with the recent merger pricing.

PS: dunno if this has been posted but my wife was very excitedly showing me this article the other day:

http://maldives.net.mv/28110/st-regi...ld-spa-awards/

NYCroots

With all this talk of how the seaplane transfer fee is being displayed to everyone differently now, what is the status of how this fee codes as far as earning Marriott points? I'm guessing it won't earn, but will count as travel for credit card spend?

upgrade.me

I did 1 tennis session with for an hour, that was about $140, my GF did an advance dive for about $170, we had a 60min. bamboo massage at approx $320 for both of us, then the shared blue hole treatment at $65 per person. That was the extent of our extra activities. Otherwise we were on par for about $150-$200 for drinks and shisha at Whale Bar for sunset, and $250 after for dinner. The tab was $3k outside of the seaplane for both of us very comfortably for everything mentioned above for 5 days. The free Plat breakfast spared us about $800 for the trip.

I skipped the Maldivian buffet dinner ($165++ per person) at Alba after the first dinner was meh; and they scheduled me for the dinner/ wine tasting at Decanter, but I canceled once I learned it was $395++ per person and not being that big of a fan of wine tastings

wilsonnyc

Yeah with the seaplane factored in, our Cost-Per-Day over 6 days was just north of $800 and that was with the Decanter dinner, spa session for 2, 2 scuba trips, seabob, drinks at whale bar a few times, Cargo dinner, 2-3 runs to Crust, coral gardens snorkling trip, etc. I don't think we ever felt like we were depriving ourselves on anything at that number, but certainly didn't go overboard with wine and food at every turn.

Our random thoughts on maximizing your experience without completely blowing the budget, (based on advice found here and our time there)
- Take advantage of the free activities. we thought they were generally well run and were different enough day to day to keep it interesting.
- As others noted, have a long and late breakfast. I don't think I've ever lingered longer over breakfast than here, but it definitely puts you in the right mood for the day.
- If you just want to chill on your OWV for sunset/have an early dinner/drinks, have your butler order some wine from the sommelier (we got to know the somm fairly well after out second night there, when we did the Decanter dinner) and do room service, or better yet, order a pizza-to-go from Crust before they close at 4 pm. That champagne and room temp mushroom pizza sunset dinner out on the deck was oddly one of the nicest meals we had because a) it wasn't as late as the other meals we had there, b) we weren't being doted over by a bunch of ppl (to be fair, though, the service was generally excellent). And it was a fraction of the cost of the other "dinner" restaurants.
- Ask your butler if the weekly manager's happy hr at whale bar is happening when you there. Free wine/food for an hour+, get there right at 5 to ensure you get a seat (it was full by the time the happy hr started at 6)
- I personally found the whale bar cocktails a little too sweet and involved (and not terribly boozy) for my taste, but if you want something simple (i.e. a gin and tonic), the mixers are free and the per-shot cost of booze is generally pretty good. Beefeater and tonic was $10 compared to the $25+ for the specialty cocktails. Woodford was something like $12. We generally enjoyed those more than the speciality cocktails, but that's just personal taste.
- If you do the Decanter dinner (which I can't recommend enough), try to do it on the front end of your trip (it's on Wednesday nights and Saturday nights). Great way to meet other guests, the somm, chefs - all ppl you will undoubtedly run into over the course of your stay. Yeah it's a splurge, but I think you actually get good value out of it, esp if you enjoy food/wine. There were quite a bit of "extra" pours and bottle openings beyond just the usual half-glass pours you get in a traditional "wine pairing".

upgrade.me

Just received my points from the stay and yes, I was minus the points for the seaplane cost

SantiC

Thank you! This is extremely helpful. I am also not a big fan of sugary cocktails so the mixers and shot drinks sound like a great option.

Is Decanter dinner $395 pp? Also what did you think of your 2 scuba trips (given the commentary on here about the coral), the seabob (which seems kinda short), and the coral gardens snorkeling trip?

wilsonnyc

Decanter dinner: yes, I believe that was the cost + taxes/service. was just north of 900 for two if I remember correctly. As I noted, however, it's not just "1 food course + 1 pour of wine", then onto the next thing - there was lots of extra pours/extra bottles getting brought out, so I felt that for a "wine dinner in the middle of Indian Ocean" it was a good value-to-quality experience. Those who were left standing (just 4 of us!) even got a nightcap glass of champagne sent out to the Whale Bar. Beyond the wine and food, though, it was just a super fun evening, and i'm generally skeptical of those "forced interaction with strangers" type group dinners. We had a lively group so that may have helped.

Scuba: overall, good stuff - 2-to-1 (or 1-to-1) guest to instructor ratio. Relaxing experience, calm/warm waters. If you are certified, or are interested in diving and want to do a resort certification, you def owe it to yourself to do 1-2 dives. Many of the dive spots are within 5-15 mins of the hotel, which was nice compared to other dive spots i've been to in the world. Full disclosure, it's the only Scuba diving I have done in the Maldives (have done Indonesia, Thailand, Hawaii), so I don't have much to compare it to in the area in terms or coral health where we dove, but it certainly was not as rough as it was in the reef around the property. Same goes for the Coral Garden trip. Basically, my vibe was that if you want to see a healthier/more alive reef while on your trip, the snorkling trip and Scuba dives are your best bet.

SeaBob: I mean. It was fun no doubt. Glad we did 15 mins. Would I do it again? Prob not there. Your basic, "glad I did it, but don't necessarily need to do it again" type activity.

Jon Kraynak

t0nyy3ung

How soon in advance should we make reservations for dinner? Do we just tell our butler when we arrive or should we call months ahead?