“If you want perfect holiday in Paradise this resort will provide you with everything you need and more. I never stayed in better place with fantastic staff who treat you like a VIP. Special thanks to Gasim and Jaleel who went always an extra mile to make all wishes come true. We tryed 3 restaurants-Steak house, Sushi and International. All of them were amazing. I have nothing to fault in this island. Organisation on this Island is very professional, they help you with the travel transport and PCR test to make your trip as smooth as possible. We have tried both villas. Over water and private beach. Both of them are great. Just depends on your preference. For us wasmore special Over water as you can not get this in many places. My only little suggestion could be to have chill music by the pool. Thank you JWMarriott for wonderful experience.”
— Katarina Farinicova
“My husband and I went here for 5 nights for our honeymoon. TLDR version that I’ll detail more below: this hotel is beautiful and the service is great, but I won’t be returning because of the food.The good: it is a magical country. Literally so pretty. We were upgraded to an overwater villa duplex (I’m lifetime gold with Marriott) and it was incredible. Once in a lifetime accommodation. Arey, our butler, was very attentive, as was every employee at the resort. Although the villas were further away from everything (some restaurants and activities clear on the other side of the island), I’d still recommend them. Can’t argue against ocean access off your back dock and (what felt like) a decent amount of privacy. The entrance you get when you arrive is AMAZING! They immediately make you feel so special and sweep you off to your room to check in there.The bad:1) although the resort has 6 restaurants, they are not all open all day. I might have missed something in my searches, but I didn’t realize that. My husband is not an adventurous eater, so we wanted to make sure we booked somewhere with enough options. We thought we did. One restaurant is open for breakfast (Aailaa, it’s a flat rate/day buffet). Three restaurants are open for lunch (Aailaa, Kaashi, and Fiamma). Three are open for dinner (Aailaa, Shio, and Hashi). Aailaa, at all meals, has a pretty diverse menu, but it’s all very blah (with gold status, we got 15% off food here). Kaashi (Thai) and Fiamma (Italian) are the best two restaurants on the island, but only open for very small lunch window (huge miss I think). Shio (steakhouse) and Hashi (sushi) are pretty expensive and Shio gave me food poisoning (exactly what you want on vaca, right?). I wish I had known our options and timing would be limited when booking. Worst of all, there was no recourse for food poisoning, just reassurance quality checks are in place. Maybe it is just me, but when I am at a category 8 hotel - I expect the food to reflect that. Please note, I am NOT complaining about the prices, those you’d expect in the Maldives / at a nice steakhouse. We did do a destination dining package… $$$$$ but it was the nicest meal we had all trip. Highly recommend if you are considering!2) Also worth noting, there aren’t very many activities on the island. No volleyball, etc. We “rented” (its free) snorkel equipment and hung out in our villa the whole time. No beach cabanas, no activities. The activities sheet we were given at check in was a few daily workout classes. Maybe you could get paddle boards or something like that somewhere, but it wasn’t advertised or provided so I’m not sure how. It was fine for us, but worth noting if you are the kind that doesn’t like to lay in the sun or pool. We saw baby sharks and manta rays while snorkeling! The bars close early (Rum Baan at 6pm) and Horizon at midnight. We rarely saw people when we would stop for a drink. Horizon bar does have a nice DJ, just no people around to enjoy the tunes.3) check out was a shitshow. We flew at 11am from Male. We were given a seaplane departure time of 740am and a bag pickup of 640am. We had to order breakfast to the room. Our bags weren’t picked up until 7:15am with no communication. Shortly after, our butler came to get us and to process final payments. He was rushing us because we were cutting it close time wise (we were ready at 640am) and he almost charged us an extra $1,000 USD! Thank goodness my hubs is a morning person LOL. We didn’t receive our COVID results until 7:15am either, so we were a bit worried that’s why we hadn’t had our bags picked up.Despite our accommodations and the service and given how many choices you have at this category level in the Maldives, I think I’d take my chances at a different resort next time.”
— Olivia Danenhauer