Our Goal of this Trip:
We wanted to have a relaxing trip to a good resort island with pristine beaches at the end of a stressful year.
Orga & Arrival:
Seaplane Transfer from Malé airport to Meedhupparu was organized by the Resort. We simply had to walk to their counter at the airport and were carried to the Seaplane carrier's lounge at the seaplane terminal from where we departed to Meedhupparu after an hour of waiting time with snacks and drinks.
After arrival, we were driven to the reception by a golf cart with a short explanation of the island's facilities on our way. At the reception, we received a warm towel, a drink, we had to sign a few things and were told about tours we could book (some for free since we stayed for more than a week). Afterwards we were ready to get to our room (118).
The room:
We booked a Deluxe Beach Villa and received Room No. 118 at the northern part of the island. These Deluxe Beach Villas are basically one of two units within beach bungalows. Five of these bungalows (therefore 10 rooms) usually form a half-circle ensuring every room has direct views and access to the beach on the one side and good access to the "main island street" from the entrance. Fortunately, the room next door in our bungalow was free for the whole time of our stay, which is why it was usually pretty quiet resulting in good sleep. However, I can imagine it might have been different if the room next to ours would have been occupied since the walls did not appear to be that thick.
The room itself consisted of three parts:
- A main room with high ceiling, a big bed, a desk with fridge/mini bar (free of charge since premium all inclusive), some chairs, a coffee table, a nespresso machine, some build-in storage (which smelled a bit funny why we kept our clothes in our suitcases) and an AC on the wall (which could stay on during the whole time).
- Seperated by a door was the outdoor bathroom (with a regular toilet, two sinks, a huge mirror, a regular shower, an additional outdoor shower and some hangers for towels. No worries, even though the bathroom was outdoors, there's a high wall built around it making it impossible for others to have a look.
- At the beach side of the room, a wooden deck with two chairs, a table, a hanger for beach towels and a water basin for washing your feet after staying at the beach could be found. Also two beach chairs with ingraved room numbers which could be pulled to anywhere on the beach. That way, there was no fighting for beach chairs since every room had two of their own.
If I were able to chose any room on the Island for a next trip, I would again opt for a room on the northern side with Numbers 118 - ca. 130 (nicer beach with less concrete than in the south, less traffic, nicer calmer water, way less people and better access to the reception/bars/restaurants while being far enough away to not beeing disturbed by crowds, sounds or smells.
Room Service & Amenites:
Room service came twice a day making up the bed, cleaning the room from sand and making sure new toiletries were given if needed (toilet paper, shower cap, tooth brushes, tooth paste, shower gel,...). Also, the mini bar was always refilled and new water bottles were given if one or more had been emptied. We also received a bed decoration twice in the evening.
The Island itself:
The resort Island is rather large for a resort island in the Maldives. There's a sandy beach all around the island which can be used for walking all around the island withing ca. 20 minutes (except for the small strip of beach exlcusive to the overwater bungalows). When walking around the island, there are just a few spots which require walking through shallow water during high tide or "climbing" up two or three steps/sandbags. During low tide walking through water is not required.
At the "outside" part of the island (where the beaches are), all the guest rooms and bars have been located. At the inside of the island, the Spa, Kids Club, reception and the staff village have been installed. Instead of walking around the island at the beach, you could also follow a ring road that circles the island between the guest rooms and the staff village. This is a convenient path providing quick access to all facilities without having to get sandy feet.
Since the ocean is eating parts of the island, a few concrete barriers have been installed into the beach at every part of the island - however, most of them are on the southern side. Additionally, huge walls of stone have been created at some corners of the reef to protect big waves from coming in. Again, most of these walls can be found at the southern part.
Also, all around the island walls of sand bags have been placed at the beach and in frotn of palm trees for protection the sand and palm trees from being swept into the ocean by big waves. In some parts of the island these bags are pretty visible, in others they are not that apparent. Again, the section with rooms 118 - 130 still have a quite pretty beach without very obvious walls of sand bags.
Our general impression of the island was, that it was very well maintained, clean and that the staff really cared.
Also, during our stay only 275 guests were allowed to be on the island for making sure Christmas felt special. Generally, more than 500 guests could be on the island.
During our stay, the island felt pretty empty for most of the time (also since many people stayed at the pool and main bar instead of at the beach). However, Towards the end of our stay (Checkout on 27.12.) more and more people arrived and the beach and also breakfast, lunch and dinner were way more busy.
Food / Beverage Options:
As mentioned, each room has a mini bar which gets refilled twice a day with soft drinks, bottles of water, some beers and some chocolate.
In addition, the island offers 5 restaurants:
- the main restaurant close to the main pool where huge buffets are presented for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There was always fresh fruits, bread, basics like pasta, lots of grill stations (fish and meat), different kinds of currys and an amazing and changing selection of sweets. Usually, it's easy to find something delicious for every taste.
- the Indian restaurant (close to the main restaurant) with an Indian style buffet
- an à la carte restaurant (only lunch and dinner) offering mediteranian food (pasta, grill, lobster,...). Reservations are needed and this is not included in the all inclusive package,
- a 24h restaurant/bar offering basics like burgers or wraps
- a restaurant exclusive for guests staying in one of the overwater bungalows.
Times for breakfast are 07:30 - 09:30 (if you miss it, a reduced breakfast section can be found at the main pool bar from 09:30 - 10:30).
Lunch is served between 12:30 and 14:30.
Dinner is served between 19:30 and 21:30.
Also, the resort offers multiple bars all over the island which are open throughout most of the day offering a huge selection of drinks (also including quality brand spirits). However, always check if your glass was properly cleaned. In two cases we still were able to taste the previous drink in a glass when we ordered plain water.
If wanted, ice cream is offered all day at the main pool bar.
Resort Facilities:
- The resort offers two piers. On each of them, seaplanes and boats can land and depart. At each of these piers, water sport equipment can be borrowed (snorkeling and diving mostly in the south, Jet Skis in the north). Some of the equipment can be borrowed for free (snorkeling masks), other costs money (e.g. Jet Skis).
The northern pier is exceptionally good for snorkeling, too, since the house reef there offers plenty of corals and fish (corals sadly mostly bleached).
- For sports, there's a Gym, a beach volleypall field, a tennis court, a futsal court, the main pool (swimming is only possible in a few areas and only if other guests are not blocking that area while drinking cocktails in the pool), a billard table,... There resort also hired a trainer that usually invites to some matches or into sports sessions at the beacch or in the pool
- for relaxing, the spa offeres several treatments.
What could have been better?
- Handling of Food Intolerances / Allergies: better double-check ingredients and food preparation in case of dietary needs (e.g. in case of lactose-intolerance: cards at the buffet were supposed to indicate allergenes, but they sometimes did not list everything (e.g. dairy was not listed for the currys even though they were prepared with butter). Also: at the pasta station, they usually offered multiple sauces (some free of dairy products). However, they mix pasta and sauces in two pans. And since they used both pans for mixing all sauces and pastas, the initially dairy-free sauce was not dairy-free anymore since it was mixed in a pan that was also used to mix pasta with carbonara sauces. This problem would be easily avoidable.
- My wife turned 40 during our stay. We know from other resorts that they usually offer a cake, some bed decoration or something similar in these cases and the resort also knew about it and they even approached us about it in the morning. However, they did not do anything until late at night even though others received a fruit platter for their birthday that day - which made her feel like they did indeed forget about it. Since that was also the only day during our stay where she was not able to find proper food for lunch and dinner (see the dairy-problem from above), that day was quite disappointing for her.
- Checkout was a bit chaotic since the information about the schedule we received the night before did not match to what happened on the morning of our checkout. Plus, our luggage was picked-up an hour before we had to hop on pur boat to the next island, but it was not at the pier when the boat was supposed to be there. Instead, the luggage was still in the car that was collecting/delivering luggage from/for all guests. This was basically a miscommunication (the resort tracked the boat and knew it was a bit late (but did not tell us) and we as Germans were aiming to be ready on time).
What to consider / keep in mind?
- The resort uses an own time zone: The island time is one hour upfront of Malé time. Meaning: If you arrived at Malé airport at 7:00 am, it's already 08:00 am on Meedhupparu. This is important to consider when you need or want to reach the Island in time for breakfast/lunch/dinner so you won't miss it. Therefore, think of adjusting your watches to the island time zone to not miss your first breakfast or you will have to stick to the reduced breakfast (not that this happened to us... ;-) )
- Every morning at 08:00 and every afternoon at 18:00, an employee walks around the island ring road fogging the island with something for keeping mosquitos away. This works really well but I'm not sure this stuff should be inhaled :-D Therefore, keep these times in mind when you want to dry clothes in your outside bathroom or if you want to use the shower/toilet during these times. But don't worry, you'll hear the fogging before they get to your room (and then you'll also see the white cloud).
What was exceptionally good?
The absolute highlight of our stay was Christmas Eve (24.12.): The whole Island was packed with lights, a huge coconut-shaped christmas tree was built on the beach, employees dressed as Santa and elves arrived at the beach singing songs and handing out presents to kids followed by the most insane Buffet I've ever seen in my entire life. I've seen plenty of resorts, I've had many buffets and good food and I've seen quite a few Christmas celebrations all over the world. But this really stood out and will be very hard to beat! Plus: For Christmas only 275 guests were allowed to stay at the island, while more than 500 would be there for new year's eve. If you want to go there: Do it for Christmas. You will not regret it!
Conclusion:
We would definitely book that resort (and even that room) again. Except for some minor flaws it was a truly exceptional and relaxing experience.
To make it even better, we would try to communicate our needs more directly (dietary needs) to avoid misunderstandings. We would also definitely try to avoid New Year's Eve or times when the island is fully booked - cause then the feeling of having most of the island and beach to yourself will most likely be gone due to too many people.
And better come here as soon as possible since the number of sand bags to protect the beaches and palm trees from being swept into the ocean) might unfortunately increase.
