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St. Regis Maldives Vommuli Resort [Master Thread]

St. Regis Maldives Vommuli Resort [Master Thread]

Old Mar 25, 2019, 6:06 pm
  #2626  
 
Join Date: Oct 2018
Programs: Bonvoy Plat
Posts: 153
Originally Posted by bluestrudels
We have 5 nights award stay at in a GV during Nov, been actively researching and I stumbled on this..
It's from a blog that I frequently follow - Loyaltylobby.
Honestly, I always appreciate his straight forward comments towards all hard products in his reviews, but I wasn't expecting the StR Vommuli to be so bad that he's calling it garbage, and he basically cut short his stay from 5 nights to 2.

You guys can be the judge watching his review video, but if I were to pay up to $2k in cash per night for a BV, I would definitely not expect the pool shown in his video..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBfPDTVcMxE
"Entitled travel blogger expects an upgrade and then throws a tantrum when the hotel is unable to provide one" would be a more accurate title for the video. Am I missing anything here?

There are lots of examples of people being Bonvoy'd by Marriott and its hotels. This is not one of them.
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Old Mar 25, 2019, 7:29 pm
  #2627  
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
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That villa is a Beach Villa, not a Garden Villa. I have stayed in 307 right next door in the past and loved it. Currently staying in an Sunset Overwater Villa and loving it too. The stay has been great.

A minor update, there is now an 8 table restaurant at the Whale Bar, very difficult to get a table so reserve early.
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Old Mar 25, 2019, 8:09 pm
  #2628  
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Originally Posted by LovetoTravel83
That villa is a Beach Villa, not a Garden Villa. I have stayed in 307 right next door in the past and loved it. Currently staying in an Sunset Overwater Villa and loving it too. The stay has been great.

A minor update, there is now an 8 table restaurant at the Whale Bar, very difficult to get a table so reserve early.
That's true, the 300s should be beach villas. 100s are the GVs. Looking at the map, there are some BVs that are further from the beach than most
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Old Mar 25, 2019, 8:16 pm
  #2629  
 
Join Date: May 2013
Posts: 38
Can anyone comment on the "Beach Bonfire Grill"?
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Old Mar 25, 2019, 8:17 pm
  #2630  
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Originally Posted by CPH-Flyer
He booked the GV most likely as he was there on a point booking, and counting on his status to get him an upgrade. As you said he lost his bet.

Apart from his comment about the out door shower, I did not really find any comments of value about the room. Sure there is no water view, but that would have been obvious if he looked at the room before booking. He was even unhappy with the toilet, what the devil was that about?
I think it's just a matter of Paris syndrome. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome)

When your expectations are titillated to the extreme in every single travel blog, promotional video, influencer instragram, etc. and you show up and see that it's really not that special it's an understandable reaction.
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Old Mar 25, 2019, 9:12 pm
  #2631  
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: KSA
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Originally Posted by icec
Can anyone comment on the "Beach Bonfire Grill"? https://www.instagram.com/p/Bu-IVzDnOpT/
if it's the buffet at Alba, it was ok. Nothing special really. I would take the menu at Alba at anytime. But then again I don't like buffets at all.
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Old Mar 25, 2019, 9:56 pm
  #2632  
kkl
 
Join Date: Feb 2010
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Originally Posted by LovetoTravel83
That villa is a Beach Villa, not a Garden Villa. I have stayed in 307 right next door in the past and loved it. Currently staying in an Sunset Overwater Villa and loving it too. The stay has been great.

A minor update, there is now an 8 table restaurant at the Whale Bar, very difficult to get a table so reserve early.
is that the new grill bar that opened late December ? Meant to be for Dec - May only
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Old Mar 26, 2019, 12:08 am
  #2633  
 
Join Date: Jan 2017
Programs: EK Plat
Posts: 244
Originally Posted by icec
Can anyone comment on the "Beach Bonfire Grill"? https://www.instagram.com/p/Bu-IVzDnOpT/
This was mentioned in my review. Would be interesting for someone else to try it to see what they think... Menu attached for your reference.

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Old Mar 26, 2019, 12:20 am
  #2634  
 
Join Date: Jan 2017
Programs: EK Plat
Posts: 244
Originally Posted by escape4
Thanks for the additional feedback.

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.
While I take your point, surely your argument would equally apply to those who only describe their stay as "perfect" and fail to highlight any negative aspects? In any event, I stand by my review of the property; I plan to try the W later this year and hopefully the stay will be better.
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Old Mar 26, 2019, 1:33 am
  #2635  
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
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Originally Posted by kkl


is that the new grill bar that opened late December ? Meant to be for Dec - May only
Not sure really
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Old Mar 26, 2019, 2:10 am
  #2636  
 
Join Date: Mar 2018
Posts: 11
Originally Posted by LovetoTravel83
That villa is a Beach Villa, not a Garden Villa. I have stayed in 307 right next door in the past and loved it. Currently staying in an Sunset Overwater Villa and loving it too. The stay has been great.

A minor update, there is now an 8 table restaurant at the Whale Bar, very difficult to get a table so reserve early.
Were you upgraded by the hotel to SOWV or booked for yourself it? Thanks!
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Old Mar 26, 2019, 7:00 am
  #2637  
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Originally Posted by Lkaroo
While I take your point, surely your argument would equally apply to those who only describe their stay as "perfect" and fail to highlight any negative aspects? In any event, I stand by my review of the property; I plan to try the W later this year and hopefully the stay will be better.
Absolutely. While I can understand someone being in love with the resort and glossing over the negatives, I think a fair review should be objective and no hotel is perfect. I pointed out in my review a few months ago that I thought a hotel of this caliber could have 1.5 bathroom instead of 1, I mentioned about water leaking on the floor in the morning when raising the blinds causing the wood tiles to show some wear, the very slippery deck going into the ocean from the OWVs leading to my injury, etc.

I am looking forward to your review of W and how it compares to St.Regis. As far as I am concerned later this year I will split my stay between St.Regis and Waldorf Astoria to compare these two.
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Old Mar 26, 2019, 11:35 am
  #2638  
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Originally Posted by helvetic
I think it's just a matter of Paris syndrome. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome)

When your expectations are titillated to the extreme in every single travel blog, promotional video, influencer instragram, etc. and you show up and see that it's really not that special it's an understandable reaction.
Yea, I agree with your POV here. Not of a lot of people (me included) have been to such exclusive properties priced at 2-3k per night. Having to factor in the property only opened during late 2016, shy of only 3 years but had already garnered so much attention, I thought it would be interesting to share his perspective and actual the video of the room that he filmed which actually looks VERY different from glossed photos from certain IG and bloggers reviews.

It all boils down to perspective and how one perceives value, I personally for a fact would never shell out $2-3k per night for a BV based on the what is shown in the video, given what other luxury resorts in the location offer, you can score those crazy pool villas with water slides on another island for the price. That view of the private pool and garden also looks something like a villa I can get in Bali or Thailand for probably 1/10 of the price. Though it might be in a really exclusive location and definitely is a destination to experience once in a lifetime, we perceive more value if you get options to venture and experience local food and cultures. Then again, we might probably just pay for OWV upgrades before our arrival. I don't think we would want to stay in a landed villa after seeing the video on the hard product it offers.

I also do get the feeling the blogger does sound like he has a sense of entitlement expecting more upgrades or higher premium freebies other than the free champagne bottle he received. But I have to point out, the Maldives is targeted mostly for honeymooners or families, if I were to stay in a private villa for 5 nights on my own without company, I would have been bored out of my mind. Well, anyway I personally think it would be interesting to see him write a post about his experience.
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Old Mar 26, 2019, 12:01 pm
  #2639  
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
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we stayed for a couple of nights in BV 307 and thought there were some really nice parts about it (ex: the beach access is actually much nicer than appears in that video), but was glad when they were able to move us to a SOWV for the last part of our stay. I will agree with the above comment that if you are solo and don't dive and are there for 5+ days on points, I can see the place getting a little boring. Another commenter noted that the Maldives isn't for everyone; I agree and I would put that reviewer in that category...me, not being in that category (Scuba certified, with a companion), I found this property to be exceptional in many ways. Had high expectations going in, and they generally were met.

That said, I'm still trying to how anyone had bad things to say about the (free) breakfast, which seems to me to be one of the best parts of staying there
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Old Mar 26, 2019, 1:17 pm
  #2640  
 
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We returned to this property earlier in the month and had a fantastic time. Stayed in the exact same OWV we had on our previous stay, 510, and have a few comments/opinions/advice on things that have changed and/or posters have been arguing about recently on this thread.

1) Breakfast (food) was again fantastic. Service (this time) was far worse-- maybe a result of the resort being full, but it was easy to wait 20-30 minutes without anyone coming to check on us, take our orders, refill water/prosecco, etc. Best plan is to flag someone down and order all food/drinks at once if you plan on spending less than 90 minutes there. They could really use more staff at breakfast.

2) Snorkeling (house reef) was better in Mar 2019 than it was in Dec 2017. The sand on the main beach was also a bit softer. We went from the dive center back to our villa multiple times, and found the best snorkeling just to the dive center side of whale bar.

3) Diving is not great (relative to other locations in the Maldives). If you're headed to the Maldives for the diving, stay on Ari Atoll instead.

4) Our pool was still not cold. It had sun all morning-- we preferred not to have direct sun, so we usually came back to our villa from beach/diving/crust/etc between noon and 2 and spent afternoons on our deck, where we at least had shade on the top part.

5) Download WhatsApp and use it to communicate with your butler. We did this on our second day there, and it worked quite well. Otherwise, trying to reach your butler, arrange buggies, change/confirm reservations is a huge pain.

6) Make dinner reservations in advance in high season. They will confirm dinners a week in advance of your arrival, but you can email them well before that, and they'll make a note of it. You can always change into something else available once you're there, but it can save the frustration of choosing between a 9:30pm dinner at Orientale and another dinner at Alba.

7) Our Whale Bar dinner was our favorite we had on either trip to this resort. It's expensive, but it's small and the only place you can sit and eat out over the water (without room service). Wagyu steaks were awesome.

8) The wine dinner was a lot less fun, and had less free-flowing wine than our last trip. Atmosphere was uptight, and the tasting felt routine.

9) I thought the pizza at Crust was good. I wouldn't replace any of my local pizza restaurants with Crust, but I thought it turned out tasty pizzas on the beach and wish it stayed open past 4pm.

10) People stress WAAAAY too much about seaplanes, and I believe there is some very bad advice floating around this thread from people with 1 or 2 visits to the Maldives, who happen to have missed their seaplane and found it to be stressful. Under no circumstance would I plan an overnight in Male if my flight were scheduled to arrive by 3:30pm, especially in high season, unless you have business to attend to in the capital or you really enjoy the pool scene at the Hulhule. We arrived a half hour late on EK 660 (scheduled 3:30pm, landed 4pm, deplaned 4:15pm.) We were through customs with our bags and to the seaplane check-in desk by 4:45pm. We were the only passengers headed to the St Regis from our Emirates flight, though there were 2 couples from an earlier Qatar arrival and a few staff heading to a nearby resort who joined us on our plane. We had over a half hour in the St Regis lounge, and didn't take off for Vommuli until 5:45pm. The staff member who met us in MLE told us that over 90% of EK 660 passengers make a same day seaplane. He said they had a great relationship with EK and the seaplane company (as well as SQ incidentally). Of the 7 nights we were there, we noticed at least 1 seaplane land at the St Regis after 5:15pm on 5 of them. May have happened more, but we weren't always in our room (paying attention). If you can live with a 1 in 10 chance you'll have a forced overnight in Male (or preferably Hulhule), I think you're doing yourself a disservice by wasting a night of your life near the airport.
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