OBLU SELECT Sangeli

Excellent service, all the staff are very friendly. Not once did I see a staff member pass by without smiling at me and showing their goodwill. Its location, service quality, delicious food, rooms cleaned twice a day, and the staff constantly asking about satisfaction… I have never received such good hotel service before. Especially the guest relations officer Mika and the staff member named Fainan, from whom we received photography service, carry out their work with an outstanding customer satisfaction approach. If you come to this hotel, I recommend getting one of the photo packages and meeting Fainan. Read less

It took us 5 years to eventually get here, no it wasn’t all travel time but our first booking back in 2020 for our honeymoon was cancelled due to a certain virus! Anyway, here we are 5 years later and it’s not quite the place we expected or how it’s advertised in the UK. This has always been advertised as an ideal resort for honeymooners and couples but with some facilities for families, what we found was a very busy resort of mainly large family groups and a lot of children, not quite the quiet and relaxing time you may expect. We’ll start from the beginning and give you a full overview of our experience. Arrived at the airport after a very long travel day, we used Kuoni so they were waiting for us at arrivals and escorted us to the Oblu stand. They took our details and a photo (which I’m guessing they sent through to the resort), labelled our luggage and then escorted us to a waiting area. There was a wait for other passengers on other airlines coming but this was expected as you can’t run a boat service for each arrival! The 50 minute boat ride, well it was about 50 minutes which was fine but the overwhelming stench of fuel in the boat was awful, and oddly no drinks were available. Check-in was great, Mika really helpful and advised our room wasn’t quite ready so took us to Sangs for a drink and snack. About 15 minutes later our room was ready and a short buggy tour/ride and we were there. There is a room tour video on my Youtube channel for those interested. One Power Nap later……. Off to dinner on our first night, we’d seen videos so kinda knew what to expect, except none of those videos showed it when it’s busy and so many of the other guests have no concept of personal space, queuing or waiting their turn, but so be it. Buffet food with a variety of options, always something to satisfy but be warned some items seemed to cool down quickly but everything was generally replaced quickly. Tip - Try the very small sandwiches/rolls, they are very good! The kebabs cooked on demand in the outer section of the restaurant, well these were cooked…on the outside, completely raw on the inside so they were a no go. Breakfast and lunch again always had plenty of options, including (which surprised me) pork sausages and pork bacon - The turkey bacon was the best along with the chicken sausages and bao buns, but that’s cause I love bao buns so these for breakfast were great! If you don’t have kids then I highly recommend going over to the adults only island for lunch and/or drinks - some much quieter and try the fish and chips. We had a meal in JustWok and JustGrill - JustWok was amazing, could have happily eaten every meal there (although you can’t unless you pay extra!) but JustGrill was JustOK which was a shame as the menu came across better than the food. Spa - we have a 45 minute session each and this was excellent, and the prices for other options were excellent. Sunset fishing trip - the weather played a massive part in this so only 1 person caught a fish, but thats the weather! It also had an impact on the House Reef Snorkelling tour too, quite choppy waves and a fair amount of sediment in the water, but again it’s weather. Now the not so great things…… The weather, now I know this can’t be controlled and it does have an impact but there are things that can be. One the 2nd night there was a massive storm which lasted a few hours, our bathroom was flooded out, so at 1am I was making a safe pathway to the toilet on the floor as the tiles were soaking, but that happens. There was also a leak in the main bedroom area, so again at 1am and not wanting to have issues I placed a bath towel and the 2 bins to try and prevent the leak from spreading. This was reported the next morning and the ‘fix’ that was done….they replaced my bath towel with a bath mat and that was it. So overall an OK resort to go to, was it worth the money we paid - No, probably about 70% of the cost if I’m honest. Would we go back, no. Is this where it ends? Sadly not. On the very last day, after checking out and about to board the boat there was an incident, something that could have easily been avoided and from all accounts I wasn’t the first person to have this. I slipped on the top of the deck and bounced down all the steps just as we were heading to the boat. Yes a member of staff helped me up and then we were ushered onto the boat. I assumed I had just twisted on my fall but didn’t notice until I got on the plane at the airport but I had actually sliced open the back on my leg near the ankle, I then spent 10+ hours on the plane having to readjust my seating position using cushions etc to help thinking it was the twist. It was only when we got back to Heathrow and the hotel that I discovered I had in fact bruised my lower back and had a lovely deep purple stripe across the one side. This was reported to Kuoni who contacted Oblu several times but not much has come from that. It has taken 2 weeks for the bruising and swelling to go, and 3 weeks for my leg to start healing but it looks like I may have a scar to remember it by! We’ve been back well over a month and Oblu seem reluctant to actually provide any update as to their ‘investigation’ and how they intend to prevent it from happening again. Read less

For context, we went to another property in the group, Atmosphere Kanifushi, 3 years prior. Naturally, this results in some comparisons between the two. The service at Sangeli was absolutely superb, led by the magical Jenni who just seemed to appear and look after things from nowhere! The service in the restaurants was exemplary, with the Executive Chef and his team always around to check on us and what was going on in the restaurant and make sure that any dietary requirements were catered for. They really cared about us and genuinely wanted us to have the best experience. Similarly with the rest of the resort, from the room guy to the bar staff, everyone was super-friendly and wanted to go the extra mile to make the whole experience brilliant. Our eldest son had a special birthday whilst we were there and they did a fantastic leaf/flower display on the bed without us asking and made a lovely cake for him at Just Grill, again taking into account dietary requirements. They just had a knack of paying attention to things and getting things done - this clearly comes from the top with Jenni the whirlwind! The food in the main restaurant was excellent, good choice for every meal. Special mention to the Naan bread guy and the Pizza/Pasta chef Tore who were always so friendly and lovely and admirably coped with our youngest son’s desire to eat as many naan breads and pasta dishes as possible during the holiday! He reckons he ate over 40 naan breads and they were absolutely delicious. With regards to the other restaurants, we preferred Just Grill to Just Wok as we felt the choice was a little better, but both were lovely. Whilst we went during the rainy season, we saw very little rain which was mainly at night and fairly brief. We may have been lucky on timings as the two days before our arrival were fairly biblical so we were told. Perhaps due to the time of year, the sea did have quite a current and the slide was closed more than it was open due to the rough sea. Temperature was lovely, a steady 28C all the time. Rooms were fabulous with the 2 bedroom beach bungalow being perfect for our family. Having 2 bathrooms is a must with teenage boys. The pool at the bungalow is pretty small and whilst we used it a few times, the proximity to the sea meant that we generally took that option rather than the pool. The main pool is a very good size and we used it quite a bit too. The little bar at The Rock is definitely worth going to for sunset, with a very relaxed atmosphere, lots of fish to see and some chilled music in the background. We had a couple of spa treatments each as part of our package and these were really good, pretty much as expected. One experience that I’d like to share is probably slightly odd, but very memorable! One of the waiting staff told us that he was playing for the Island team in an Inter-island football tournament and we could watch if we liked. So my two sons and I ventured through the hallowed gates of the staff quarters and started watching through the fence of the pitch (which is apparently new and is a great facility). Lo and behold, Jenni appeared from nowhere on her bike and asked one of the staff to take us inside the pitch area and seat us in the dugout. The game was great with Sangeli coming back from 5-2 down to earn a late draw. I was then asked to present the Man of the Match trophy and was introduced as what felt like a local celebrity! It was surreal and totally brilliant and the kids found it hilarious. Looking at what I’ve written, I’ve not actually specifically compared anything with Kanifushi, and whilst they are both great resorts (with Kanifushi being bigger), the main difference is the personal service. We certainly had nothing to complain about at Kanifushi, but the service at Sangeli is simply in a different league, across all of the staff, but of course led by the magnificent Jenni. She’s a leader who literally leads by example and gets involved, rather than managing from afar. A true star that makes this resort special. Read less