Took the family on a 5-night vacation at the St. Regis Maldives. Here are some thoughts on the experience.

Check In

Upon arrival at MLE, you're escorted to the St. Regis lounge to await the seaplane flight to the resort. This was surprisingly one of the most fun parts of the experience, with amazing views and a direct view into the cockpit. Our pilots were having some fun with it, for a while flying just barely above the water and overflying other resort islands at just 50m or so of altitude.

We were welcomed by the resort managed and introduced to our butler, who'd be taking care of us for the rest of our stay.

Room

Booked a 2br overwater villa. The villa was beautiful, though not without a bit of a design issue in that the main bedroom also happened to be the main living room area, with direct access to the deck, pool, and water. If you'd like to have a master bedroom with privacy, don't expect to get it here. The lack of shade in a sunset villa made it quite hard to enjoy our deck in the afternoon.

The island is, as you'd expect, absolutely gorgeous. The beautiful white sand that never gets too hot to walk on, the jungle, the turquoise water… exactly as you'd expect. Idyllic.

Service

Service-wise, it felt very high-end and extremely well rehearsed. However, anything that slightly deviated from the norm that they're prepared to execute led to frustration. It's clear the staff is not empowered to get creative and expects to follow a strict plan. We asked for an umbrella to get some shade, and it took two days and management approval to make it possible. It was also frustrating getting restaurant reservations — we arrived without any set schedule or plans and that basically made it impossible to get a reservation to anything. They told us our only option was basically room service on the first night. Eventually, something became available. And the pattern would repeat every other day — with them telling us where they expected us to eat based on their availability, and eventually allowing us to eat what we wanted when they realized their restaurant were all half empty. It's frustrating to not have the flexibility to eat what we want when we want on what's supposed to be a relaxing vacation.

They did leave gifts on a couple occasions — champagne and fruit for Ambassador welcome, women's day chocolates, and birthday chocolate strawberries and a cake.

Activities

We ended up only doing one activity — a dolphin watching tour on a private boat for the four of us. Cost us $600 for two hours. We did find dolphins in the wild and followed them while they swam under our boat and jumped around. Great experience overall. We also went kayaking off the dive center. It's free and a fun activity, though there's not much to see and you're restricted to the area between the dive center and the 2br villas (up to whale bar)

The reef is atrocious. After a couple times I just stopped bothering to snorkel. The coral is covered in a layer of sand and is not showing any signs of life. There is some good sea life however, and we regularly saw sharks, rays, flying fish, and all kinds of other fish.

Dining

The food ranged from average to good, but was horribly overpriced. I tried every restaurant on site. Here are some thoughts:

Breakfast was a highlight — with free-flow champagne, a willingness by staff to cook you anything, and some truly wonderful dishes. My favorite was the duck (sans waffle) which was to die for. The steak was tasty too. The menu is a-la carte, with a fairly extensive buffet offering as well. There's even ice cream and sushi.

We ate at the bi-weekly "beach bbq market" at Alba twice, where we could select fresh seafood and eat it on the beach. This overall was quite good, especially on our second visit when the fish was absolutely delicious.

We ate at the middle eastern restaurant Cargo. It's secluded in a sand clearing in the jungle. The food was just average.

We ate at Oriental (which has Japanese, Chinese, and Indian sections) and opted for Indian dishes. This was absolutely the right choice. The Dal Makhani was amazing, so much so that I ordered a second portion which came on the house.

I had some tacos at craft/crust which were lackluster.

We ate at Alba once when it was set up as the regular restaurant. Somehow I can't find any pictures.

Spent most evenings at whale bar enjoying drinks and shisha. Also attended the sunset sabering, a St. Regis tradition and a good way to get a free glass of bubbly.

Overall

The costs — 5 nights here ended up costing me 340k points and $1250 for the upgrade to the villa. In total, I ended up spending close to $8,000 after food, one activity, and seaplane transfers. I have absolutely no regrets treating my family to such a nice experience, but do have to note I feel like the high costs lower the value of the experience relative to other possibilities.

Overall, I'm comparing this in my head mainly to the Ritz Langkawi, which was a similar experience quality, but for a fraction of the price. The St. Regis Maldives was lovely, but I know where I'm more likely to return. When I can pretty much get the same quality experience for $300 a night… it's a no-brainer.