agreed. In hindsight wish we would’ve been told about some of the specialty options ahead of time. That being said our butler had a few of the harder to get dinners prebooked. That being said we’ve got a 4 year old in tow so it’s not too hard to get the 6:30 spots

Only one we missed out on was the seafood bbq which was fully booked two days before we arrived. Orientale was quite good, doing Cargo in a few days. Crust pizza was awesome. Skipping on Decanter.

The maximum baggage allowance per person age 2 years and above is 30 kilograms including hand luggage. Excess baggage will be charged an additional fee of USD 5.60 per kilogram. Please be advised that the linear dimension of any of the luggage pieces must not exceed 158 centimeters.



We regret to inform you that if the Surf Board exceeds 158 centimeters, we will not be able to bring it by a seaplane ideally because the seaplane is very less spacious.



Should you require any further assistance, it would be our pleasure to assist you.



Kind Regards,

I was there two weeks ago for a four night stay with my wife to finish up our honeymoon. This thread was extremely helpful planning our stay there and I wanted to pay it forward. I can also answer questions.

We were lucky enough to reserve an OWV at the old 85k / night rate. I am Platinum and we were upgraded to SOWV. I noticed the upgrade on the Marriott app two days before arrival. We were given villa 537 and it was perfect. Going into it, I was a little worried the resort / location was over hyped. It wasnt. I thought the resort was awesome, service was great, activities were fun, and food was good. The room itself is incredible. While there were plenty of people we met who were there for much longer than us (6 - 9 nights), 4 nights was enough for us and we were glad we didnt do more. One thing I will come out and say right away, if snorkelling is your number one priority, this is not the property for you. The coral is still bleached and theres not a ton of color, but we did see a ton of fish, a shark, and a stingray. I will also say this was our first time in the Maldives so don’t have other resorts to comp it to.

Our butler was Ismail and he was great. Regarding the coffee and fruit basket, prior to arrival I requested iced coffee to our room at 3pm everyday and also requested the fruit basket to be filled when empty. The coffee was great and it was all complementary. We changed the delivery times two of the days and had no issues. The fruit basket is very big and we got through probably two thirds of it. Hard to see how you would get through the whole thing in one day. That said, I am sure you could request for it to be re-filled for free. We also got a complementary bottle of prosecco on arrival because it was our honeymoon.

Villa 537 was great. We had plenty of privacy and a warm pool. I know some people had commented the pool of their SOWV was cold but we didnt find that at all. It was the perfect temperature to cool off from being in the sun or hang out to have a drink. The porch didnt get sun until around 11am and the pool around 12pm or so. That just allowed us to take our time at breakfast and go to the beach for a couple of hours. One thing I would point out for those really hoping for an upgrade to an SOWV or looking to spend the cash for the upgrade, if you get the upgrade thats great, if you dont, Im not sure I would pay the cash for it. Though the weather was great while we were there, there were a few clouds in the sky around the resort and a lot of clouds each day where the sun was setting. In other words, we had beautiful sunsets but we had seen better ones at the Conrad Koh Samui in Thailand just one week before. Also, each day we went to the Whale Bar to watch the champagne sabering (get a free glass of champagne) and watch the sunset. This was a perfect location and Im not sure you absolutely need to be in your villa to have a much different experience. Really the big differentiator would be privacy. You can definitely see the inward facing OWVs from the beach and when you are walking in and out of the island, but you would have to really stand there or use binoculars to be able to see exactly whats going on inside. There are also people snorkelling around the villas so even at an SOWV, we saw a couple of people right in front of our villa.

Another thing I would point out regarding the SOWV, some people had said they thought the waters were rougher versus OWV. I can tell you there is very little difference, if any. The waters are relatively rough all around the resort. For some context, I was a D1 swimmer and swimming against the current and dealing with the waves was tiring after a while. We did one snorkelling session without our life jackets and my wife was pretty tired afterwards. Definitely would recommend you bring your life jacket. In general, the snorkelling was good enough for us and we had a great time doing it.

For activities, we did a massage, the complementary Blue Hole experience (I wouldn’t recommend paying for that), did a morning group tennis class, and rented the seabob. The seabob was a lot of fun and I would recommend it depending on your budget. I would also recommend the tennis class. Tying back to the comments on the sunset, we saw a lot of people taking advantage of the two hour sunset cruise on the yacht but frankly, I’m not sure it would be worth it for $1,000.

For food we did Alba, Crust, Cargo, and Decanter. We didn’t get to try Orientale because it was sold out every night. This was probably the one big annoyance we had during our stay. It’s hard to see how it could’ve been sold out every night, especially when we had heard occupancy was at around 65% for the hotel. The breakfast at Alba was good, not great from a flavor standpoint, but plentiful. The buffet itself at first seems like a ton, but we have seen better. The pastry table was incredible. Also very good in variety and the best we have seen, the a la carte menu. Whether complementary because of Marriott status or paying for it, I would definitely recommend taking advantage of the breakfast at Alba. We had dinner at Alba one night and it was great. Would highly recommend the calamari for an app. Crust food for lunch was good. We had the wings, pizza, tacos, and burger. Generally our lunches were small given we had big breakfasts and had Cargo and Decanter for two of our dinners. We did one lunch at our villa and it was ok. Just keep in mind it’s a fairly limited menu. We got the club sandwich and it was very big. Cargo dinner was very good. I believe we chose the Indulge menu but I can’t be sure. The best food we probably had was at Decanter. To get right into it, is it worth it? It definitely was worth it for us. We had a full night, 12 people, and ate great food, drank a ton of wine, and made great conversation with everyone. In all, I honestly think it comes down to your budget. If you can comfortably afford it, definitely do it.

Alcohol was very expensive everywhere as everyone knows. Generally, we had one or two drinks at lunch and dinner, one or two throughout the day and one or two drinks at the whale bar before dinner. The whale bar had a 20% off offer after 8pm while we were there but we didn’t take advantage of it. One thing I thought worth mentioning, the mini bar prices are the same as they would be at the whale bar or Crust so I would take advantage of it. We had the same bottle both in our room and at the whale bar.

As others are noting, the per passenger weight allowance for seaplane is 30kg. Prior to arrival I requested the Bentley and they told me it was only reserved for suite guests. When we first landed in MLE, the butler there told us we wouldn’t be getting the Bentley but 10 minutes later we got it! It’s nice but again, it’s a 5 minute drive so not much to it. We waited in the lounge for 45 minutes or so. The breakfast menu is fairly limited but it seemed like the afternoon menu was more robust. On our way out, we caught a very late flight at 5pm. We were able to keep our room until the last minute. Our butler and the butler in MLE kept saying how lucky we were to take such a late flight. Normally the latest flight out is around 330pm they said. In MLE on the way out we didn’t go to the St Regis lounge but the international terminal lounge instead.

Regarding tip, we left a $60 tip for our butler, which we thought was more than enough. I think that covers mostly everything. Reach out with any questions.

We just arrived...well, we are in the Great Room and our flight is in two hours. Will report throughout our 8 nights--and some info might be known. Two immediate pieces of info. St Regis guests get 30KG PP plus carryon Transmaldivian. Not 20KG as the airline publishes. This was told to us as we checked in our luggage. Also, the hotel holds a deposit of $500/night plus room rate if applicable. Not unexpected based on the cost of everything and the seaplane transfer.

Apparently the breakfast offerings changed today. According to our serverr. Some options removed. Hard to quantify those. But mimosas and prosseco are no longer included. Those are chargeable now. My wife isn’t happy about that. .

Very sad indeed.

​​​​​​That’s indeed sad news, hearing they cut down on the breakfast. Anything else that changed?
I had them send me the menu earlier this year plus the confirmation that thebreakfast is included (either paying in cash or as platinum amenity). On this menu, Prosecco and Mimosa are listed.
I will be there in 3 weeks and could stand not to get a Prosecco but would be a bit sad if also other items would have been removed/moved to a chargeable list.

I hope that is the only negative so far!!