St. Regis Maldives Vommuli Resort [Master Thread]
Mar 23, 2019, 6:45 am
#2597
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Homeless
Programs: Hyatt Glob; Hilton Dia; Marriott AMB; Accor Dia; IHG Dia Amb; GHA Tit
Posts: 4,835
Right. If a reviewer says breakfast was great but dinner at a couple of restaurants was disappointing in their opinion, I can accept that as a fair and balanced review. But if someone like @Lkaroo has mostly negative things to say about most topics, including breakfast, then I question whether the review is biased. Unless that reviewer only has been to hotels with an even better breakfast than St.Regis Maldives but I would like to see this list.
Mar 24, 2019, 1:35 am
#2598
Join Date: Jan 2017
Programs: EK Plat
Posts: 244
Right. If a reviewer says breakfast was great but dinner at a couple of restaurants was disappointing in their opinion, I can accept that as a fair and balanced review. But if someone like @Lkaroo has mostly negative things to say about most topics, including breakfast, then I question whether the review is biased. Unless that reviewer only has been to hotels with an even better breakfast than St.Regis Maldives but I would like to see this list.
Our main issue with breakfast was the quality of service. The buffet consisted of a wide spread of cold cuts, cheeses, yoghurts, cereals and some hot food although I do not believe quantity necessarily equates to quality. The selection of fresh fruit was very good. I have eaten significantly plenty of better hotel breakfasts in London, in particular at Claridge's and Chiltern Firehouse. While I have not stayed, the Ned does an excellent breakfast too.
If I had to highlight one positive, it would be that the St Regis staff at Male airport ensured that, despite a significant TMA flight delay, we were able to check in our bags for our EK flight more than 20 minutes after check in closed - but this may have been an exception rather than the rule. Our Bentley driver also demonstrated speed and commitment to rival Michael Schumacher in his prime to get us between the seaplane terminal and main terminal.
Mar 24, 2019, 2:28 am
#2599
Join Date: Jun 2016
Posts: 6
Perfect Vacation
We are staying here right now, and almost everything has been phenomenal. We have been fortunate to travel throughout the world to many luxury properties, and the breakfast here is one of the best (if not the best) we have ever had.
Mar 24, 2019, 6:36 am
#2600
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: SAN
Programs: DL DM, Marriott LT Titanium, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 351
Here now as well and the place is pretty much perfect - with the exception of our butler who the GM is switching out thankfully.
Last edited by ab_initio; Mar 25, 2019 at 3:22 am
Mar 24, 2019, 7:04 am
#2601
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Homeless
Programs: Hyatt Glob; Hilton Dia; Marriott AMB; Accor Dia; IHG Dia Amb; GHA Tit
Posts: 4,835
I am not sure what you mean by biased..? I am Titanium with Marriott and would have gladly written a positive review had it been the case. For instance, my feedback of EK on FT has always generally been positive.
Our main issue with breakfast was the quality of service. The buffet consisted of a wide spread of cold cuts, cheeses, yoghurts, cereals and some hot food although I do not believe quantity necessarily equates to quality. The selection of fresh fruit was very good. I have eaten significantly plenty of better hotel breakfasts in London, in particular at Claridge's and Chiltern Firehouse. While I have not stayed, the Ned does an excellent breakfast too.
If I had to highlight one positive, it would be that the St Regis staff at Male airport ensured that, despite a significant TMA flight delay, we were able to check in our bags for our EK flight more than 20 minutes after check in closed - but this may have been an exception rather than the rule. Our Bentley driver also demonstrated speed and commitment to rival Michael Schumacher in his prime to get us between the seaplane terminal and main terminal.
Our main issue with breakfast was the quality of service. The buffet consisted of a wide spread of cold cuts, cheeses, yoghurts, cereals and some hot food although I do not believe quantity necessarily equates to quality. The selection of fresh fruit was very good. I have eaten significantly plenty of better hotel breakfasts in London, in particular at Claridge's and Chiltern Firehouse. While I have not stayed, the Ned does an excellent breakfast too.
If I had to highlight one positive, it would be that the St Regis staff at Male airport ensured that, despite a significant TMA flight delay, we were able to check in our bags for our EK flight more than 20 minutes after check in closed - but this may have been an exception rather than the rule. Our Bentley driver also demonstrated speed and commitment to rival Michael Schumacher in his prime to get us between the seaplane terminal and main terminal.
What I meant with "biased" is that if someone goes to a hotel, and there are 5 positive things from their stay, 5 negative things from their stay, and the reviewer comes on FT and only talk about the 5 negative because he's upset, then in my mind it's biased because the 5 positives are not mentioned. That's not to take away that the 5 negatives should have been fixed by the hotel and perhaps were not, but an unbiased review would not fail to mention the positives. Your additional feedback makes the review more balanced indeed, in my humble opinion.
Originally when you talked about breakfast you had mostly negative comments; while I could understand some aspects of the hotel being not ideal, breakfast would be a hard one to criticize. They have an a la carte menu in addition to buffet, omelets with lobster & caviar, free flow prosecco, delicious Maldivian style eggs benedict... I have visited hundreds of hotels from various hotel chains and for someone to claim this breakfast is below average could only come from people who exclusively visit cream of the crop hotels on this planet. If you are Marriott Titanium you must have visited lots of Marriott family hotels and it's unlikely that you could find more than 100 of the 6700 Marriott hotels in the chain which have better breakfast than St.Regis Maldives. It must be top 25 for sure, if not top 10.
I do believe that breakfast has not only quantity, but quality as well so our opinions differ. Also my experience about the service was opposite to yours, as mentioned in my review the chef would prepare orders off the menu specifically to cater to my wife's tastes after he got to know us starting day 3 or so. This is excellent service as far as I am concerned.
Mar 24, 2019, 8:13 am
#2603
Join Date: Mar 2019
Posts: 19
Mar 24, 2019, 8:19 am
#2604
Join Date: Mar 2018
Posts: 11
Mar 24, 2019, 10:26 am
#2605
Join Date: Mar 2013
Programs: Aeroplan, Amex AeroPlat
Posts: 977
after talking to a few friends and people here, seems April is still a peak time for the resort and we paid $1230USD to upgrade from GV to OWV. Absolutely cannot be stuck on land for a week in Maldives. As titanium, we are hoping for an upgrade to SOWV.
Mar 24, 2019, 2:21 pm
#2606
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: YYZ
Programs: Marriott Titanium Elite, Accor Diamond, AC 35K, National Exec, Hertz Gold
Posts: 376
Mar 24, 2019, 2:30 pm
#2607
Join Date: Sep 2018
Posts: 22
But I ended up not tipping the butler at all because she really didn’t do anything for us besides driving us to our villa at arrival, then driving us back to the seaplane for departure...
Mar 24, 2019, 2:46 pm
#2608
Join Date: Sep 2018
Posts: 22
On a side note, some people said the seaplane transfer didn’t count towards the eligible spend for them? But it did for mine... so I got 10 points for Marriott spend, another 5 points for being platinum elite and another 6 points because I used my spg card!
Mar 24, 2019, 3:26 pm
#2609
Join Date: Mar 2018
Posts: 11
And what about food and activities?
Mar 24, 2019, 4:16 pm
#2610
Join Date: Sep 2018
Posts: 22
The food and activities posted as well, however, I was still missing about 300 dollars in spend and I wasn’t sure why. I called the spg line and asked for them to break it down for me, but they weren’t able to pull the folio due to the resort being outside of the US/Canada, so the rep just asked how much in total did I spend while I was there and he manually adjusted it for me.. he was very knowledgeable (thank goodness) unlike most of the Marriott reps that I’ve spoken to.