Originally Posted by hopetoflysoon (Post 36932310)

Tomorrow is my last day to cancel my reservation for Apr 3rd and I'm on the fence...

Is anyone else holding the faith?

Originally Posted by RockJaunt (Post 36928092)

Thanks everyone for the insights and posts, no shortage of insight around the W Maldives renovation, persistent delays, non-existent communication, unknown status on paid for transfers being refunded. Posting here to hopefully save others some headache

Planned trip for nearly a year, my wife and I booked on points, and had planned on staying at the W Maldives for a week and then moving to Conrad Maldives the second week.

Putting this out there for awareness - less than a week before departure(we were supposed to fly Monday March 3rd) the W notified us yesterday February 26th the renovation was delayed again and would relocate us to another resort.

No clarity what resort, or quality of room, or really anything, particularly no concern for our experience, just relocate.

Now its past 48 hours since the jarring notification, we are past cancelation window for Conrad, and W Maldives has become non-responsive to a Marriott Ambassador Guest. Did speak to Ambassador support, though of little assistance. Marriotts position is its an equal tier resort, though if its of equal desire, how does it have so much availability to accommodate all of these orphaned guests? No response available to this question. (Later doing some research showed the JW Marriott on average 30% lower cost FYI)

Happen to be a Lifetime Hilton Diamond Member and Hilton has been far more helpful and understanding with one phonecall, opening a case and being willing to work with us. The Conrad Maldives has been absolutely amazing in two previous visits and not surprised here, though uncertain how will impact at this time. (Update - Conrad Maldives allowed us to cancel without penalty, one time exception due to the out of our control issues presented by W/Marriott)

The entire Marriott response is pure disregard. They moved us to a new resort but didn't say which one, share new confirmation, connect us to the new resort, tell us exactly what room type they rebooked us in, didn't proactively make the adjustments needed, and even advised we needed to book the speedboat we have already paid for. All things considered, most concerning is trust has been broken.

Expecting someone to fly nearly 24 hours to a destination with so much uncertainty appears trivial and nonchalant to Marriott - yet, I know as bad as things are here, they could be far worse halfway around the world arriving and learning we now no longer have a reservation, or are in a seriously degraded room versus what we booked. There is simply no way I am putting confidence in Marriott at this time.

Have been an Ambassador Elite Tier barely two months and cant remember a time I was treated so poorly and with such disregard by a hotel. My perspective of how Marriott treats Ambassador Guests is a joke.

Researching, we are not alone. Social media posts and other stories from travelers paint a picture of repeated delays in renovating the W Maldives resort, which tells me the owner, pretty certain a franchisee, is holding out to the last minute to notify guests due to needing to get the dollars rolling in again. What makes this so egregious is it puts the traveler in harms way without any ability to pivot or make changes. Its dirty pool - and puts the traveler at risk and in a no win situation. Not very hospitable.

Originally Posted by hopetoflysoon (Post 36932310)

Tomorrow is my last day to cancel my reservation for Apr 3rd and I'm on the fence...

Is anyone else holding the faith?

Originally Posted by Gr4ssR00ts (Post 36932683)

I was booked for April 13 but this has been ongoing for months and I didn't want to risk getting stuck at the JW Kaafu Atoll which is on a flight path and has no reef

Originally Posted by friedablass (Post 36931984)

Thanks.

Ok guys let's get the ball rolling and send those reports to Google to get this removed. I've reported all as spam.

Originally Posted by Martin999 (Post 36985711)

Anyone has experience with the refund process for seaplane transfer ?

how long does it take to get back to your credit card ? AMEX in this case.

It has been 19 working days since they confirmed they had initiated the refund but I still don’t see it being credited back into my card.

Originally Posted by dangerfish (Post 36999132)

Took just about the full 21 days to get mine. Outrageous considering they collected it 2 months before the reservation.

Also, after the initial offer of points I haven't gotten any replies from the hotel. I went through Bonvoy to file a complaint for compensation since they cancelled less than a week before my arrival. I found out they had closed the case after transferring me to JW Kaafu, so I had them reopen it. That was about 3 weeks ago. Incredibly insulting and I have never been to a five star resort with such awful customer service. Every email (read: 2) I got from them was a canned response.

Originally Posted by Martin999 (Post 37004453)

Thanks for sharing your refund time line, for my case I still have not receive the refund unfortunately and have decided to file a chargeback with AMEX.

Originally Posted by TGC (Post 37080355)

Just back from a weeks stay at the W Maldives, having previously stayed there 5 years back (so pre and post renovation).

We went back to the W as we loved the snorkeling the first time we were there and it didn't disappoint again, we saw plenty of turtles, sharks, the odd ray and lots and lots of colorful fish.

The wife and I stayed in a beach villa, the kids stayed in the over-water villa, we much prefer the beach villa as it provides better shade and quicker access to the best snorkeling, if your staying in a beach villa then ask for one in the 105 to 110 range to get access to the best bit of beach / reef.

Renovation wise they have done a good job all round, everything is updated and nicer without changing overall layouts. The exception being the main pool which has been marginally extended and depended to allow for the slide, prior to our trip I thought who cares about the slide, but it is great fun!

Food and service was consistently good throughout.

Obviously being the Maldives its not cheap, but in a few years when we next want to go to that part of the world, the W Maldives is the only hotel we would consider, as the snorkeling is so great.

One tip on departure if you have a long wait for your flight after the seaplane (we were a 9pm flight out of Male, but a 3:30pm seaplane due to incoming storms), we were able to book into the departure lounge at the seaplane terminal for 3 hours before heading over to the main terminal, which is a much nicer place to wait than the main airport. The W booked this for us at the resort, cost $22 per person, and then after our 3 hours in the lounge they came and got us / transferred us over to the main terminal.