We've just returned from NH Collection Maldives Reethi Resort, and it was very, very good.
The room surprised me: it was much better than the photographs. In my experience the pictures are almost always better than the reality — true even at properties like the St. Regis Maldives and Anantara Layan — but here it was the reverse. The rooms and common areas both looked better in person than online. It was very comfortable and well done, with high-quality interiors and really good linen and towels. I'd booked last minute on my travel agent's recommendation without much thought, and by the time I noticed the website photos looked underwhelming it was too late to change — so this was a big win.
The food was excellent, with a big shout-out to Shahid, Majid, Vishal, and Mayank, who looked after us at meals and pulled out all the stops. Two of my children have a gluten allergy, and they made gluten-free bread, muffins, and desserts for them. Overall quality was very good and the wine was exceptionally nice. The Italian specialty restaurant was closed, so they served all of that in the multi-cuisine restaurant, Jumla, where the chicken dishes were also very nice. The Asian fish restaurant, Kaiyo, was exceptionally good — they threw open all manner of seafood, and whatever we wanted (lobster, shrimp, oysters) they made happen. They were also very open to off-menu preparations, happy to curate dishes exactly how we asked.
The service was very, very good — I'm still quite stunned at the level, and it was excellent in every aspect of the resort. Staff anticipated our needs, learned our preferences quickly, and were usually a step ahead: my favourite wine would arrive the moment we sat down, and my children like vanilla shakes, so those appeared too. A strong recommendation for Nasir and Diana at the front desk. The kids' club was excellent — I'm sorry I didn't catch the name of the lady running it, but she was brilliant with the children and did a wonderful job; the kids wanted to go back again and again. The spa was excellent too, the therapists lovely, and when I had some sunburn they happily suggested remedies and gave me aloe vera gel.
The clinic was good but a bit under-equipped: the doctor recommended an oral steroid for my sunburn, but they had none. The topical steroid cream they gave me helped, but it was surprising a clinic wouldn't stock basic medication like an oral steroid — something I'd strongly recommend management look into.
The dive centre was excellent. All of us tried scuba for the first time — my ten-year-old and I did Discover Scuba, my eight-year-old did the Bubblemaker programme. Meredith helped my eight-year-old and was excellent: she explained things clearly and, more importantly, made him extremely comfortable going down with her — which matters a lot when you introduce someone to something as unnatural as scuba. He was very happy to go into the ocean with her and had a lovely session. For my ten-year-old they planned six metres, but because his ear wasn't equalising well he went to four instead. He still had a lovely experience, and the important part is that the dive master, Sharwan, was perceptive enough to see he wasn't comfortable and not push it — a bad first experience tends to put you off. Both kids came back wanting to do it again.
Sharwan was my instructor too. I was more comfortable and equalising properly, so he took me all the way to twelve metres; on the way up there was no need for a decompression stop, but he still paused at six or seven metres for about five minutes to be sure there'd be no discomfort later. We also did the manta snorkelling twice — once my son and I on a rented speedboat, once my wife. Both were very good and the sightings incredible. We spent forty-five minutes in Hanifaru Bay, and on the speedboat trip my son and I were pretty much the only people there, swimming with a manta for about five minutes. Sharwan came in with me and the boys with a big ring tube; the kids are small and there was a current, so they couldn't swim properly. Without being asked, he did much of the heavy lifting — paddling us from point A to point B while the kids held the tube and kicked — and never made a thing of it, but he made that experience possible. Full marks to the dive centre.
The water sports centre was equally good, largely thanks to Saif. We reef-snorkelled with him twice, did a jet-ski tour looking for dolphins and mantas, and the children did the tugboat twice. He was extremely professional and very sensitive to his group. The first time, snorkelling with my young children and me, he was careful to avoid strong currents and choppy water — his whole focus was on keeping it comfortable and smooth, and the children really enjoyed it. Without our asking, he took my GoPro and free-dived to film things we could see but couldn't capture ourselves. The second time, without the kids, we went to two areas with much stronger current; he assessed my swimming first, then we went the whole hog out onto the reef and saw a lionfish, a moray eel, and blacktip reef sharks. On the jet ski we couldn't find dolphins but did spot mantas, and Saif was very accommodating — I wanted to film a manta with my drone, and he made it possible. For the kids' tugboat he also let me take the drone out, and we got some very nice footage of the children on the tube — a memory we'll treasure for a good long time. It was very nice of him.
Highly recommended, especially for families.
