Six Senses Laamu review: exceptional villas, imperfect execution

Context

We had the pleasure of visiting Six Senses Laamu this past March for 8 nights. This was our 14th unique island visit in the Maldives.

Going into this trip, I was a bit apprehensive of Six Senses given some alarming aerial shots that showcased poor beaches and a scary looking black lagoon. After coming back, I can say that some of worries were over exaggerated, and we ended up having an absolutely amazing time at six senses given the lovely villas and amazing atmosphere. This, however, doesn’t take away from the fact that some aspects of SSL were underwhelming and ideally would need to be addressed before considering a return trip given the high prices.

Rooms

The rooms at Six Senses Laamu are - in my opinion - a work of art and represent some of the best villas we’ve experienced in the Maldives. They are not the flashiest nor the largest nor the newest villas in the Maldives, but they fit in perfectly given the vibe SS is crafting. We had the pleasure of staying 6 nights in a Sunset Laamu Water villa followed by 2 nights in an Ocean Beach Pool villa and we feel that this was a great combination of the two best possible room categories six senses sells.

The Sunset Laamu Water pool villas have some of the best views on the island (although the name of the room category is a misnomer since very few of them face the sunset), easy access to snorkeling & the sandbank, and totally unobstructed views. With that being said, I cannot imagine, nor would I recommend, staying in any of the other overwater villa categories (minus the sunset Laamu water pool villas) as the rest either have obstructed views (meaning they face other overwater villas), sit on top of poor, unusable seafloor (jetty C), or have a view of all the seagrass which is very unsightly. Given the high prices of even just the entry level category, you’re better off going somewhere else that offers better views for a lot less money.

The ocean beach pool villas at six senses probably rank as my favorite villa in the Maldives. While the views may not be as phenomenal as from our sunset Laamu water villa since the garden area is sheltered, the privacy and sheer size of the garden, outdoor bathroom and general room is beyond impressive. The room is very in tune with nature and designed so tastefully - I could have easily spent 2 weeks in this room without having gotten tired of it. Similarly, to the water villas, beach villa category selection is critical. The lagoon beach villas are greatly inferior to the ocean beach pool villas because the beach is totally eroded in that section of beach, and the views are not nearly as pleasant nor unobstructed.

Food and restaurants

We had a chance to eat in all the restaurants and our favorite restaurant was by far Leaf. The design of the venue is also impeccable making the overall experience of eating at leaf just extraordinary.

Unfortunately, leaf is not open every night and when it was closed (about half the time), we had to have dinner at either Zen, chill bar or the longitude buffet when it was open. Zen was okay (again, amazing design) with the sushi just being totally average sushi that you can get at your average sushi restaurant in any US city.

Chill bar is their most casual dining option and has the same menu for lunch and dinner. The menu is large and inspiring, and the prices are affordable. This is a very good option if you’re not trying to drop a bag on dinner each night (can eat for less than 70ish USD pp with two courses if choosing average priced options).

Overall, menu items at all almost venues are super reasonably priced by Maldives standard, which is something we really appreciated. Unless you’re getting HB complimentary, I would not recommend upgrading it as spending 300 USD per couple just on food, at any restaurant except leaf perhaps, is quite the feat unless you’re really hungry.

We did feel, however that 120++ for the buffet was a bit much so we never ate there.

Reef

The reef at Six Senses exceeded expectations. This is a typical southern Maldives reef meaning that its full of live corals and… not so full of fish. But the coral regeneration on this reef is super impressive. There are areas where coral coverage is around 80-100% which is so nice to see after years of snorkeling totally dead reefs. You can find lots of table coral and stag horn coral of all colors and sizes.

We snorkeled all the way from the overwater restaurant to the reef behind the sandbank and the coral is consistently great throughout.

In terms of fish life, while we always saw fish and at least one exceptional sighting on each snorkel (exceptional meaning, turtle, shark, ray etc.), it felt more desolate than other reefs we’ve snorkeled. The amount of coral we saw more than made up for the lack of fish however for those that are looking for loads of fish soups and tons of sharks… I don’t think this reef is for you.

Service

Service at SSL was great and huge honorable mention to our amazing butler Ravah who was amazing and super pleasant to be around. He’s one of the best butlers we’ve ever had and is a huge factor to why we had such an amazing holiday at SSL and would ever consider returning.

Sandbank

The sandbank at SSL is divine. No other word to explain it. Its remote, accessible, and incredibly blue with all the shades of turquoise you could ever imagine. It is just a short 15-minute swim from the end of jetty A and generally is empty. We went to the sandbank just about every other day and it was totally stunning spending hours laying there, listening to the waves and being surrounded by absolutely nothing other than some uninhabited islands in the distance. This ranks as one of my favorite spots in the Maldives as it is to totally stunning.

Transfer

The transfer from Malé to Six Senses was quite frankly absurd. We’ve taken many domestic flights in Maldives but this one topped the cake as the most ridiculous, time-consuming transfer ever. To put it in perspective, we landed in Malé at 7am and didn’t get to Six Senses until 3:40pm. Yes… that’s more than 7 hours just to get from Malé to SSL (after our 30-hour international flight). Unfortunately, this is a common issue with SSL (they never have flights before 12pm to KDO) and IMO this is something needs to be resolved between management and Maldivian/island aviation ASAP. That there are so many international flights nowadays that land before 8am (QR x2, EK x2, UL, TK, EY, Gulf, AF… I could go on) so there is literally no reason for the first flight to the resort to be past noon. The 2022 summer schedule has just been released by Maldivian and again, first flight is at 12:10pm…this is probably our main deterrent from coming back as we cannot waste 1 day of our holiday sitting around in the domestic lounge waiting to catch a flight when we could go to another resort and be there 3-4 hours earlier. Maldives are too far and costly for this to even be an issue the first place.

Seagrass

I know this is a touchy topic given six senses’ involvement with seagrass conservation so I will try to be as politically correct as possible without offending anyone.

I fully understand the importance of seagrass (oxygen production, marine life habitat extension, erosion prevention, etc.) but as with all things, too much of a good thing is never a good thing especially when there has been a sudden surge of seagrass all over Maldives in areas where there is ongoing construction or where construction has occurred as of late to build resorts. It was very upsetting to see that in the eastern lagoon, there is hardly any blue left close to shore as it just now one huge, black, seagrass patch.

I have spoken to several marine biologists across all Maldives, and many have mentioned that dredging, construction, and water villas can cause (unnatural) proliferation of seagrass in lagoons due to foreign nutrients and more stagnant water (this latter can be caused by water villa jetties).

This is evident when looking at aerials of islands 5-6 years ago vs now, including aerials of Olhuveli island before SS Management took over (and similarly crazy when looking at Jani, Kanuhura, Gili, Cocoa, etc. in 2015ish vs now). Lots of lagoons are turning from blue to black which is not in line with (a) the marketing these resorts are promoting and (b) the image that Maldives is pushing overall when it comes to tourism.

There should always be a healthy balance between conservation of natural elements such as seagrass and aesthetics (just like there is with everything else SSL does). For example, SSL employs gardeners to ensure that the landscaping above ground is perfectly manicured. Grass is cut regularly, as are tree branches and flowers, to ensure that pathways are not overrun with foliage and guests can access and freely walk/bike around the island. Vegetation above ground should be no more - or no less - important to the natural environment as is seagrass, however nobody would argue that manicuring trees and grass is "un-environmental".

I am not saying remove seagrass entirely; however there are several areas, namely in front of the ocean beach pool villas as well as well between jetty A and B and between jetty A and the overwater restaurant, where a “manicure” of seagrass should definitely be taken under consideration in order to beautify the area and make to more accessible for swimming and pleasing to the eye - after all, many of us travel all the way to Maldives for the pretty blue lagoons that are still plastered on the SSL website.

Beach quality

There is dire need of a beach and lagoon clean up in this general area in front of Jetty C and between villa 83-90. I can’t really understand how Six Senses has gotten away with leaving this beach so unkept as anyone who has been to a proper Maldives beach (or really… any beach in the world) would consider this unacceptable. It is unattractive and unusable, and impossible to access the beach and water in this general area, even with water shoes, given all the seagrass, algae, washed up dead coral rubble, and stones. There are a lot of beach villas in this area so essentially all these beach villas don’t have any accessible beach. This is a very low effort, low-cost beautification initiative that could really improve the accessibility of the beaches at six senses overall, given that half the beaches on the eastern side are already eroded and unusable leaving just the sunset beach as a proper accessible beach.

Marketing and management

One big piece of feedback is for the marketing department to update images on their website. I don’t think images been refreshed since 2012 and some parts of the island no longer look like they do in pictures. For example, the Laamu and ocean water villa categories showcase a selection of pictures of shimmering blue lagoon views when looking at the accommodation section … I can confirm this is 100% no longer the case from any of the Laamu/ocean water villas since they all sit on top of black seagrass or coral rubble. I knew this because I did a lot of research so levelset my expectations accordingly, but I if I had not done outside research and based my expectations on what I saw on the SSL website, I would have been entirely disappointed.

I would have loved to provide some of this feedback in person. Unfortunately, other than when we arrived, the GM never did any rounds during dinner or lunch, so we never got a chance to properly meet her and tell her how much we were enjoying our stay. We also would have loved to have a general chat about six senses, but alas never got the possibility to do so!

Final verdict

Overall, despite the above pieces of feedback, we absolutely enjoyed our stay and addressing the above points of consideration would probably make Six Senses our favorite resort in the Maldives… but until some of those pieces are addressed, it will remain in our “top 5” list (which is still quite the feat!).