Le Meridien Maldives Resort & Spa

Our family spent 5 nights here during the X'mas holiday when the resort was in full capacity. Regardless, we didn't feel crowded in the pool, on the beach or in the restaurants. In fact, we bumped into more staff members than guests on the island. We later discovered the staff to guest ratio is almost 1:1 as the resort prepared for the busiest time of the year. Big kudos to the GM Mr. Schult and his outstanding team in delivering world class service to us. We chatted with the Executive Sous Chef Muthu several times during our stay. We truly appreciated his thoughtfulness in preparing the special meal for my picky kid. You can tell how much time he spends to ensure high food quality at all the restaurants and make sure the guests are satisfied after each meal. We'd particularly like to thank Erma at Turquoise for treating us like her family. My daughter misses her so much and we hope to see her next time when we come back. + Pre-check in email communications was prompt and effective. The team spent time to answer my questions back and forth. This trip was to celebrate our 15 years anniversary. As expected, they prepared a cake and champagne in the room for us. We just didn't expect that they also had juice, chocolates and dessert for our kid. + We stayed in the sunrise overwater villa on the west jetty which is closer to the house reef. Water was calm during our stay. We saw different marine animals from our villa including sea turtles, rays, variety of fish, etc. Our villa was further away from the island, but we didn't find any problems getting their buggy service. You just need to call them ahead of time, like 15 mins. + We tried out all the restaurants except Tabemasu. Food quality was so good that we started out with half board for two days, then upgraded to full board for the remaining of our stay. Velaa and Turquoise are our favorite. You will have to make reservations for dinner. The staff are all happy to arrange that for you. + We highly recommended the Sunset Dolphin Cruise where a large dolphin pod (maybe 200 dolphins?) playing and swimming around your boat. Very impressive and amazing. We also learned a lot from crew member Lalu about their habitat and the uniqueness of the Maldives in enriching marine life. + We didn't spend much time in the Kids Club but big shoutouts to Sandy for her introduction. They have wonderful activities throughout the day if parents want to take a break. + Staff at the Marine Center were friendly and informative. Besides picking up the adult snorkel gears, you can also pick up kid size life jackets and snorkel gears. They are free of charge; you just need to return them when you check out. + We also highly recommended taking advantage of their complimentary 30-min photo session. It comes with one free printed photo. We opted for the $210 package to get 20 photos on a USB with 3 printed photos to bring home. I can hardly think of any cons about this resort. As a first timer to the Maldives, it perfectly fitted our needs and exceeded our expectations in every aspect. We are planning to go back for sure. Read less

A memorable vacation in the paradise Our family spent 5 nights at the Le Meridien Maldives Resort & Spa. It is a memorable stay that we will treasure forever. Maldives is well known for its “one hotel, one island” concept. This was experienced at the Le Meridien Maldives Resort & Spa. The entire island is exclusively reserved for the use of the guests and the staffs (which resides in apartments that are built away from the view, with area marked with associate only sign). We were also told that some staffs reside in the local islands nearby, and they use boat to transfer to/from hotel each day. It seems that the guests all transfer to/from hotel via seaplane transfer. Le Meridien is located at Thilamaafushi island of Lhaviyani Atoll, which is about a 35 min seaplane ride from Male. For transfer to Le Meridien, we were informed the Seaplane check-in time only at 9pm the day before, and we checked in at the Male Airport at 6:45am (quite tight schedule to get you prepared for an early morning departure). The hotel associate (at counter C-17, which is also shared by Westin Maldives) assists you with the Seaplane check-in, tagging of the luggage, bus transfer to the seaplane terminal, and escorted you to wait at the Le Meridien/Westin lounge before our seaplane departure. The seaplane departs around 8am, and stop by at another island, before arriving Le Meridien at 9am. You will be greeted with songs and a ceremony by the Le Meridien staffs, who then give you an island tour before you are escorted to your room. Your luggage will also be brought to your room. We stayed at a two-bedroom beach Villa with swimming pool at the Le Meridien. We have found the rooms to be clean and spacious. You are offered free coffee pods, premium tea bags, and ample waters. There is a life vest in the villa for each guest, and you can rent snorkeling gear for free during your entire stay from the dive center (nice feature). I particularly appreciate the private swimming pool, the concept of outdoor (under the star) showering, and the private nature of the beach areas. Many times, our family felt that we have had the entire beach to ourselves. Le Meridien is a relatively big resort. The entire resort, from one end to another is more than 1km. It does provide a buggy to help to transport guests from one place to another. The one disadvantage of the big resort is the extra green tax (you are charged USD 12 per person per night, instead of USD 6 per person per night for the small resort). There are ample activities to keep your occupied at Le Meridien. I did a number of snorkeling by my selves. There are a number of small reefs close to shore, which was interesting to visit and seeing fishes around. Sometime, the fishes (and sting ray) comes to the above water villa. The hotel also sanks some cages under end far end of villa, which gradually grows corals and attracts fishes (I have seen puffy fishes and lion fishes in there). There is a water activity center, where you can rent kayak or stand-up padel board for one hour free each day, and there are other water activities (charged). There is another diving center which sells two tank diving (always in the morning from 8am – 11am), or reef diving. The activity is relatively costly, e.g., a two-tank diving will set you back around USD 320 (including tax and service charge). It did include all gear rental though, and the diving site has very good visibility. For Le Meridien, the breakfast is held at the Turquoise buffet restaurant. The breakfast buffet is at a good value (USD 40 per adult), and include a noodle station, a porridge station, an Indian food station, a waffle/pancake/crepe station, an egg/omelet station, and a coffee/fruit station. There are ample choices for the breakfast, though most items stay the same each day (with the exception of one special item each day). The lunch is available at Velaa (usually hot dog/barbeque) and Riviera Tapas and Bars. The dinner can be held at all the above restaurant, plus the Tabermasu Japanese restaurant (only open for dinner). For Bonvoy Platinum Elite members and above, the Turquoise breakfast buffet is offered as an elite welcome gift option, which is valuable. The Elite members also had an afternoon tea set as a welcome gift, and are also invited to a champion party, which is nice. We are informed our time of departure around 8pm the day prior to our departure. Our scheduled check-out time is 1pm, and our seaplane is scheduled to leave at 2pm. A buggy is sent to our villa, bring all our luggage and us to the hub, where we settled our bill, and then leave for the seaplane flight. When the seaplane arrived at the seaplane terminal at Male, another associate came to transfer us from the Seaplane arrival terminal to the Male Airport Terminal. Read less

I highly recommend the resort. I will give it more than 5 stars. The whole environment was very relaxing. The staff were friendly, respectful and courteous. The room was cozy and clean. We fell in love with view from our room. The food at the Turquoise restaurant was the best. Huge thank you to Ali, Riyaz, Vanz, Abby, the ladies at the Explore Spa and Hadey. Read less

My wife and I stayed at Le Méridien in January for our honeymoon and it’s the best resort in the Maldives hands down. The staff was always smiling and the head chef Pradeep at the Vella restaurant was amazing. My wife is a vegetation and Pradeep made sure that her dietary restrictions were acknowledged. He personally came and explained the menu and the vegetarian options. He also gave the options to customize it to fit our needs. Will visit and recommend this resort to all my friends and family. Read less