W Maldives Hotel Review - Not worth the trip!

When planning my second trip to the Maldives I decided to try something different even though I already knew I love the Park Hyatt Maldives. I have numerous regrets in that decision now and wish I had returned to the Park Hyatt Hadahaa. Here’s why:

As an SPG Platinum member I always see the W Maldives advertised on brochures and ranked as one top SPG property in the world. For that reason I choose to stay at the W Maldives. However, after spending a week at W Maldives I was completely disappointed with my stay and regretted choosing it over other Maldives luxury hotels. The hotel needs a lot of work to meet other 5 star hotels in the Maldives. I would not recommend it to anyone who asked where to stay in the Maldives and here’s why.

It started off badly when we arrive for our seaplane from Mali to the island, we were told the seaplane, which we booked in advance, wouldn't be able to bring our luggage with us and it would have to come on the next flight. I wasn't just angry for the inconvenience I was frustrated at the lack of empathy and acknowledgement from the hotel staff. After flying for hours overnight, all I wanted was to get to my overwater bungalow, put on my bikini and sunscreen, take out a book and lay in the sun and relax. It was never my plan to wait over 4 hour for my luggage to arrive after me. They did apologized for the inconvenience upon arrival on the island and we asked since we would have to wait for our luggage to arrive if they could offer us lunch at a restaurant for the inconvenience while we wait. Oh no no they couldn't do such a thing, it wasn't there fault our luggage couldn't fly with us. I am SPG Platinum, 75+ nights a year and they completely dismissed that and didn't care. When an issue arises at the Park Hyatt they fixed it 100% and did whatever they could to remove the bad experience and help us relax and feel welcome. Hello Five Star experience, Park Hyatt knows how to meet expectation of a five star hotel and so much more.

Please don’t get me wrong, I love W Hotels, I have been to W Bali (LOVE LOVE LOVE) W Hong Kong, W London, W Verbier, W Guanzho, W Amsterdam, W Montreal, W NYC.... but this one, which is supposed to be one of their best W hotels in the world, I was completely disappointed by for numerous reason not just the seaplane experience.

One thing which I was very frustrated by was when I went to the sunset bar to have overly priced drinks that don't look anything like what you see on Instagram and if you ask why they don’t look like the Instagram photos they tell us those are only special drinks, I asked which ones and he couldn’t tell me, but that’s another story. While enjoying sunset drinks, the staff that weren’t working, were out in the water in front of us playing football in the water. I understand they live on the island, and they have off hours but other hotels like the Park Hyatt Maldives allow their staff to play in the water early morning as to not affect the guest. I couldn't get over this because I wanted to take gorgeous sunset pictures like most other guests at the bar and had the staff playing football in the water in front of me. It was also there screaming and being obnoxious in front of the guests. I was shocked that a top SPG hotel would allow this type of behavior from their staff.

Another incident is when I went to the Gym one morning. When travelling I always hit up the gym to allow myself to overindulge and enjoy, but I was shocked to see staff has the right to use the gym just like guests do. So mid morning when I went to workout, the staff was using the machines so I couldn't use them. Normally an island location like this offers full dorms with a cafeteria and gym facilities for the staff, they don’t have them sharing with the guest paying thousands to stay there.

The breakfast was ok but really nothing special. If you have been to W Bali this hotel doesn't even come close in terms of a breakfast layout. W Bali is the best of the best, service is top notch, and food is out of this world. W Maldives fell short on everything, services was none existent and it bothered me how they never picked up dishes or checked if you needed coffee, we would have to wave them down staff member should we need anything or just do it ourselves as they stood around and chatted. I will say when we arrived the chef was brand new and had just arrived that day, he spoke with us on numerous occasions about changes he was making so it may be different now. I just feel that the hotel staff were more interested in being social than working.

TAKE NOTE: Please be aware I went in July and they consider it off season, SO they close their restaurants and only have one open for you to eat at, so if you want a barbecue style dinner and only the fish restaurant is open no such luck. But hey you can order yourself some room service and have overpriced pizza, which is exactly what you were hoping for on your luxurious Maldivian vacation. I was so over it when I was told it's off-season when we arrived and asked why restaurants were closed. People don't pay this much for an off season stay to allow your staff to party, lack service, play on the island because you're not full. We had to order room service one night because only the 175$ a person barbeque was being servied that night, after dinner we put our dishes outside and they stayed outside for 2 full days until we brought it to someone’s attention. Unlike other Maldives hotels like the Park Hyatt or Sheraton, the W Maldives really needs to up its standards, how did no one notice dishes sitting there for 2 days?

Another dangerous and major issue is the staff driving the carts; they have NO consideration for the guest. I understand they use the carts to deliver food to the rooms, drive guest to their room or change laundry in the room, but they have no consideration for guest walking on the walk way. I was almost thrown into the water by the cart zooming by on two occasions. Staff really needs to be trained and properly educated on how to service hotel guests. Even when you sit by the ocean on the beach near the main restaurant there is NO SERVICE. They never come around to offer you water, or set out your towels or offer you fresh cut fruit or Popsicle which we offered when we stayed at the Park Hyatt Hadahaa. I was shocked and when I brought it up to the hotel they told me its off season?!?!? I wasn't just frustrated by this response I was angry, I don't care if I was the only person at the resort I paid to stay there and deserve a five-star service and stay. Because of this stay, I questioned my loyalty and why I would ever stay at an SPG hotel again? They recently opened the St-Regis in the Maldives and I don’t think I could ever bring myself to stay there with the horrible experience I had at the W Maldives. When I return to the Maldives I will be booking the Park Hyatt Hadahaa again, as this hotel doesn't deserve to be considered a top SPG hotel let a lone a top Maldives hotel.

#WMaldives #Maldives #SPG #Starwood