St. Regis Maldives - Great Room, Better Snorkeling

Below are some comments on the St. Regis. I am a Lifetime Marriott/Bonvoy Titanium member. I used points for a 6 night stay for a garden room (60k/night), and did NOT pay to confirm an upgrade in advance. I was upgraded (for free) a few days before my arrival. Additionally, on the small plane over, I spoke to a Marriott Gold who was traveling by herself that also booked a garden suite on points and was upgraded (for free) to overwater. I was there during Chinese New Year, so it was pretty full. YMMV.

Also made some comparisons vs the 2 Four Seasons properties and the W (I have been lucky enough to have stayed in all of them)

1) The service was really, really good. We really liked the "butler" service, and while all St. Regis' have this, and the Four Seasons has a similar program, the Vommuli resort has the best implementation i have experienced. Our butler, Tom, found us every morning at breakfast, and we would normally see him once or twice more during the day. He gave us his Whatsapp number, which was an AMAZING way to communicate and make requests... We found it was much easier to Whatsapp Tom than to call the general number. He was able to make and change dinner reservations, get more coffee/water for the suite, iron clothes, answer questions about the resort, etc... Tom is a great butler, and we were happy to have his services as part of the holiday.

2) The Internet! was fantastic. They actually encourage you (technology wise) to stream netflix to your in suite TV (if you want to watch anything). The internet bandwidth was great, wifi was prevelant, and they also had a cell phone tower on or near the island. We have Google Fi, and were happily making calls and getting txts (for free) using our normal phones with no additional charges. For some, this may be a negative, but we appreciated the full connectivity.

3) Snorkeling (GREAT) - The W had a house reef that (to that point) was the best snorkeling i have done ever). I have been told that the bleaching over the past decade has significantly harmed the reef (at the W). Likewise, at both Four Seasons Resorts, we found the snorkeling off the house reef to be poor. Our expectations for the St. Regis were low, but we were blown away with how good it was. I've attached a crude map of where we went and what we saw. Note, we are strong swimmers and felt comfortable snorkeling around the outlying overwater suites, but there is NO ACCESS on the jetty except to your own room. If you are staying on the main island, you need to snorkel out, and back... No jumping in from the jetty, or getting back out. With that safety disclaimer, we saw white and black tip sharks every time out, as well as spotted eagle rays (twice), turtles, moray eels, clown fish, and huge schools of various other fish. Im trying to put a You Tube video montage of the highlights. We snorkeled every morning (8-9am) and evening (4-5pm). The best snorkeling was in front of the John Jacob Astor Suite, but it was good everywhere from the far end of the jetty to the Astor Suite (and continuing in towards the Whale Bar).

4) Scuba Diving was disappointing! We were very disappointed with the dive center. Their service, flexibility, and attitude. (note: the dive center is not managed by the St. Regis. We talked to the St. Regis manager, and he was able to intercede on our behalf, but they outsource the diving and watersports to another entity for liability reasons). Specifically, the local dive center has a unique requirement to do a "check out dive". And they make you pay $250 for that privilege. Yes, a dive with rental gear (and the boat fee, which they price separately) is about $250. My wife and I are both advanced Open water PADI divers with dives within the past year. I was only interested in doing 1 or 2 dives, so wanted to do "good ones"... Deeper, currents, etc... They were ok to book the dives, but said my first dive needed to be "easy", and was essentially a check out dive for them to verify your skills. I did not want to waste $250 and a morning of my vacation doing a check out dive, so declined. My wife did 1 dive anyway, and was very disappointed. Not only was the dive lackluster, but her assigned "buddy" was a beginning diver, do the dive master was handholding this novice diver the entire time and didn't point out anything... After we saw how good the snorkeling was at the house reef, we asked if we could dive the wall by the resort, perhaps even just going off from our overwater suite... no need for a boat, etc... They said no. Lastly, the dive center provides all of the complimentary fins for the rooms for guests to use for snorkeling. The fins they provide are "crap". Very low end, beat up, and made my wife's feet bleed. The fins they use for scuba are much nicer, but they would not let us use them for snorketing... We ended up talking to our butler and the resort manager who got her access tot he better fins, but what a hassle. For $2,000 a night, i think it is reasonable to have reasonable fins for snorkeling. All in all, very unimpressed with the dive center, but super happy with the snorkeling.

5) The food. We tried the whale bar (great view, great food, get reservations, but limited menu), Orientale (favorite place, get there at 630 or 645pm for a prime table by the water) and Alba (biggest food selection, but ambiance just "ok"). All in all the food was very good. As everyone cites, it is expensive, but you need to include this in your planning and just go with it... They have a grill next to Alba that does pizza, tacos, quesadillas, etc... But they are only open till 4pm. I was encourage the hotel to open this up for dinner... After heavy dinners all week, we were craving a pizza or something simple for one night.

6) The fitness center was good, but not large. Plenty of weight equipment, but only 2 treadmills and 1 elliptical and 1 bike. One morning, all 4 were used, the next morning, i was by myself... I would suggest adding a second elliptical. I tried the "included" yoga one morning. It was good but not outstanding... Seemed like typical resort yoga... 10 people in the class, and was pretty easy. Location was beautiful though.

7) Children: more than i recall compared to the W or the Four Seasons... there seemed to be a relatively large % of families there. It could have been because we were there over Chinese New Year and there were a lot of Chines families, but i was surprised with the amount of children. The only time you really noticed was at breakfast and because the restaurant was so full, you usually had a family table within 10-20' of you. Not a big deal, but something to be prepared for.

Comparisons to W and Four Seasons:

- We really liked the W, and want to go back someday. I recall it having a "cooler" and younger vibe, less families, and they had free ice cream on the jetty (at least they used to). However, i think the St. Regis has the W beat (assuming same price). The St Regis has better food options, better snorkeling (now), and fantastic butler service.

- Comparing to the Four Seasons... We stayed at both Kuda Huraa and Landaa Giraavaru. The St. Regis beats Kuda Huraa hands down... More remote, better reef, better service, better food. However, Landaa Giraavaru is a great property, and is better in some ways (and worst in others). Landaa feels more "exclusive" and a little more luxurious. Landaa is a bigger island, so has a much larger beach, a small island you can kayak to, and better dining options. While they dont have a dedicated butler (St Regis wins this hands down), they have fantastic service. We also liked the variety of dining options. However, the snorkeling at Landaa was very poor. All in all, the St. Regis and Four Seasons Landaa are both excellent and beat out the W and the Four Seasons Kuda Huraa.