Milaidhoo review: a good stay that did not justify the price

Context and value

We recently returned from a 6 night stay at Milaidhoo from 2-8 july 2023. Between day trips and weeklong stays, Milaidhoo is the 25th resort island that we have visited in the Maldives over the last 9 years. We are definitely obsessed with the Maldives 😊

Let me preface this review by saying that we did have a good stay but Milaidhoo is expensive. On the lowest end you are still paying at least 4 figures (I.e., 1K+) to visit in the dead of low season. That is a lot of money given that the weather might be unstable (you may be unlucky like we were and find yourself locked in the room for 2-3 days out of the entire week), which will make the hefty price tag feel like a waste of money. In the main season, rates soar to 2-3k per night which I do not think are reasonable in the slightest for a property of this caliber. Again, my opinion only.

Bluntly, I could not really wrap my head around why Milaidhoo was so expensive prior to visiting and I am not really sure I have a much clearer idea of the price tag now other than it really is a lovely place with great service, great service, and nice villas.

What worked

1. The island is quiet. Yes there are a lot of islands in the Maldives that build their entire ethos on seclusion and “quietness” but here you really feel at peace. The fact that there are no kids under 9 helps, but also the clientele that frequents this resort is very relaxed and is most likely visiting to have a chilled out holiday. We visited Soneva Fushi after Milaidhoo and the difference in vibe was quite striking! 2. The reef is phenomenal. I had heard amazing things about the reef at Milaidhoo prior to visiting but there is something to be said about the fish life of this reef. The sheer quantity of fish soup is not something I have seen on any other reef I've snorkeled in the Maldives. I also saw a lot of lemon sharks on nearly every snorkel, which made it more exhilarating. Rays, turtles, black tips, white tips, eels, were also frequent. I snorkeled this reef 2-3 times per day for our 6 night stay and I never got bored. 3. The service is second to none. The service at Milaidhoo is extremely refined without being overbearing. Honorable mention to our favorite waiter, koko, who was beyond amazing and made every dining experience wonderful. As well as our butler hussy who answered every single one of my WhatsApp messages before I even had time to press “send”. 4. The breakfast buffet is scrumptious. While this is not the most expansive spread of breakfast I've seen in the Maldives, the breakfast here is amazing! Its a mixture of a la carte + buffet but everything is very meticulosuly prepared and very delicious alongside soneva’s, jumeirah’s and Amilla’s breakfasts, I think that that the breakfast here at Milaidhoo is one of the best in the Maldives 5. The beach villas are great. The beach villas at Milaidhoo are lovely. While they are not very large for what they cost since they do not even offer a separate living area which I would have expected to see at this price point, they offer perfect indoor/outdoor living. The windows on each side of the room open up fully. More importantly, this is a great low season villa since there is a lot of covered patio area including a covered swing. This means that even if it rains, you can sit outside rather than being locked within the walls of the room. The views from the villas are also quite nice since there are several villas with no vegetation in front of them, providing uninterrupted views of the beaches & lagoon.

What did not

1. The HB plan. I think this is my biggest point of criticism towards Milaidhoo. Bluntly, I think the $65 HB plan is just silly. I understand that this is an issue across a few universal properties and not just Milaidhoo, but the $65 credit for shoreline and baa’theli covers a soup. So, again drawing back to the VFM of this place, its kind of crazy that there is not a true dine around, especially since the menu at Ocean is not that expansive and there are just a handful of appetizers. I’d love to see Milaidhoo provide a more generous dine around option as the current one is extremely limiting. 2. The arrival experience. I found it very bizarre that Milaidhoo does not operate its own private seaplane lounge. Quite literally every other resort in the Maldives that charges 1K+ per night and $800+ for their seaplane transfers offers a private lounge. My understanding is that the owner of manta air is the same as the owner of Milaidhoo so they are defaulting to a shared lounge but this is a very poor cost cutting measure. It is also a bizarre experience since the lounge has a kids play area, which is not at all what one might expect to find in their lounge when visiting an 9+ property like Milaidhoo. Moreover, we were also promised an upgrade on arrival to a beach villa subject to availability. It was weird to see that we were not given the upgrade despite like 80% of the beach villas being free upon our arrival to the island. So I had to remind our airport rep to check this for us despite having discussed this with the reservations department & with my travel agent no more than 2 days prior to our arrival… 3. The beaches. Quite frankly the beaches at Milaidhoo are not the resort’s strongest point. A few years after opening, Milaidhoo decided to build these very invasive groynes to help protect the beaches. While I understand groynes are important and I am thankful that they did not resort to sea walls, these are down right hideous and in desperate need to some repair. Other islands have adopted much less unsightly groynes made from rocks (look at jumeiarah’s, for example), but unfortunately the ones at Milaidhoo are made of cement and look like they are falling apart and are suffering from discoloration. I urge the team to renovate these groynes so that they look better and are less of an eyesore cuz the current ones are very bad and ruin the beauty of the beaches. 4. The water villas. While I loved our beach villa, I unfortunately cannot the same about the water villas. While we did not stay in one (we had a chance to tour one), the water villas here not very spectacular nor are they large nor are they very well spaced out. Seems like Milaidhoo wanted to maximize their revenue per rooms. the spacing of the was is more akin to what I'd find at a 4 property than a 5.5-6 charging over 1k per night for these villas in low season. 5. Charging for water. $13++ for a bottle of water at all meal times other than breakfast feels a bit like taking advantage of your clients given this is a captive market. Most other resorts offer some sort of house water alternative, but when I asked the team whether it was possible to have water that costs less than 13, they said this was the only one available (despite having free bottled water in the rooms or by the pool or at breakfast).

Would we return?

Bringing it back to my original point… Milaidhoo is very expensive. While Milaidhoo is an island that in the future I would maybe repeat since we did have a nice stay, I do not believe that it is worth such a premium over other 5 properties that maybe offer 10% less at a much lower cost (cocoa, Vakkaru, Ayada, six senses, halaveli). So whereas in isolation it is hard to deny that this property is 5, contextualized with the rest of the market I am resorting to a 4* rating for Milaidhoo.

And while I understand that Milaidhoo is uniquely positioned in the market in such a way that it is (a) pseudo adults only and (b) with possibley some of the most personalized service you will find in the Maldives which allows them to raise the price, that is not the only thing that I look at when evaluating whether a resort in the Maldives is worth the price tag.

So, in sum, I think that Milaidhoo is an island that we would in the future return to, but I do not feel like this is a resort that qualifies to charge 4 figures in low season so lets see how pricing evolves in the next 2-5 years.