W Maldives review: a strong island let down by the resort

Context and short verdict

My friend and I had the opportunity to stay at W from December 19-23rd for 4 nights in a Fabulous Overwater Villa.

Including W, I have visited approximately 12 Maldivian islands, primarily in the 5 and 5+ segment, so I do have quite a bit of exposure as to what constitutes a high end property on a solid Maldivian island. Unfortunately - at the time of this review - W is in my opinion not in that league… or at least not fully.

The TL;DR of this review is that while W is located on a really beautiful island and may very well have been the “IT” resort when it opened its doors in 2006, it is currently seriously trailing behind its competitors in the department of general upkeep, food, and especially service from a management standpoint.

Please read along to learn more about our stay, our mishaps, and what in my opinion urgently needs to be improved in order to consider this property a proper 5* resort worthy of its price tag.

Transfer and lounge

Our stay started off with our W representative meeting us outside baggage claim and escorting us to the TMA counters for check in.

Upon checking in, I was pleasantly surprised/slightly skeptical to hear that our seaplane would be leaving in the next 45 minutes and that we would need to hurry over to the lounge in order to finish check in procedures and board. Anyone who has been to Maldives knows that seaplane wait times can exceed 3-4 hours…

We made it to the W branded seaplane lounge about 5 minutes later and I was slightly in awe of what I saw (and not in a good way). The lounge was dark, dated, with limited food options (covid related I presume…or at least I’m sure that’s the excuse), and most importantly lacked any sort of natural light or windows or views onto the picturesque seaplane landing area. This is a stark contrast to all other private resort lounges I've made use of in the past and totally clashed with the so called “island playground” vibe that is plastered on every brochure or angle of the W Maldives website. For comparison, even the public Manta Airways shared seaplane lounge is 3 notches above this one… I hope this will drastically improve when the new seaplane terminal goes into operation.

Villa assignment

Upon arriving to W, I was informed that we had been assigned villa 223. And this is where things started to go downhill.

Prior to arrival, I had made it extremely clear to management that whatever room I would be assigned (ocean or lagoon side, should there have been one available for upgrade to the latter), I would have wanted it to have a little bit of sand under the room as I love seeing the contrast of the electric blue sandy lagoon and the darker patches of coral reefs. This was literally my one and only request and because of this, I had given management around 4 rooms to source from for utmost clarity. Room allocation has never been an issue at any other property we’ve visited (I’ve always gotten the exact room I requested), and I figured this would be the case here.

Room requests are extremely important to me as - IMO - they make or break a holiday. And because of this, I personally reminded them of this ask nearly twice a month for 4 months, as did the agent I booked with. Seems like overkill - I know - but I guess even that wasn’t enough!

The fact that the Front Office team assigned us a room that met 0/1 of my requirements - and used “private” and “highly requested by other clients” as the main reason for why we were assigned to it, should tell you everything you need to know about the “personalized” the service at W Maldives… not once in any of my emails did I ever mention “privacy” or “popularity” as my main criteria.

After complaining through 3 different channels, not a single person reached out to me to provide any update and offer any alternative rooms for our entire stay. Even my agent was floored to see some of the responses FO gave to us, which would have been laughable even for a 3* property, which W is clearly not marketed as.

Since we were staying just 4 nights I decided to let it go and not create a big fuss and just enjoy my stay… but seriously, this was totally unacceptable and an embarrassing response for such an expensive property that prides itself in excellent service. I would rate this a 0/10 in terms of effort or resolution… because no effort or thought was given into finding a solution. Suggestion: a serious FO management would have looked at rooms coming available the next day or even later that afternoon, and shuffled arrivals around until we found a room that met my expectations. From what I saw and was told by my room boy, turnover at W is crazy with around 4-6 seaplanes arriving per day during most days when we were there, so this would have been totally feasible.

Villa upkeep

The next topic I would like to address is that of upkeep of the fabulous overwater villa. Let me preface this by saying the room layout has so much potential. There are some caveats that cannot be changed without invasive construction such as the size of the bedroom, but regardless: it is rare these days to find properties where almost all entry level rooms have unobstructed views of the horizon, with limited islands obstructing the view, and amazing, huge, expansive railing less decks.

However, sadly this potential is completely hindered by the upkeep and state of the room. When you charge nearly 1k a night for an entry level villa in low season, and upwards of 1.5k in main season 2022 (when booking direct), your room cannot have the following issues: - multiple patches of rust in the pool floor - scratchy pool floor that you cannot comfortably walk on - beach chairs that are so old that the original coloring of the chairs is now 3 different shades of discolored brown - wooden window frames across the entire front of the villa that are suffering from the same discoloration issues as the beach chairs - completely scuffed/ruined deck flooring that is in dire need of either panel replacement or hefty staining - numerous cracks and severe blue to white discoloration on the side of the pool - privacy dividers that are discoloring from brown to white in multiple areas - roofs that are losing all their thatch - from an environmental standpoint: single use plastic for lotion, shampoo, body wash and all other bath products (!!!!!)

And so on…

Design choices aside (which I also think are showing their age and need to be revamped ASAP I.e the plastic chair in the bedroom), the room does have a lot of potential but in its current state it is not worth more than half of what W is charging at any given season according to their best available “book direct” rates ….. The two amazing things about these rooms however are the daybed which is super comfy and the surround sound system which we used every day.

Food and drink

Moving onto food and beverage…. I am personally not a foodie and food is not even in my list of top 10 important things I look for in a Maldivian property. I personally come to Maldives to experience natural beauty, snorkeling, breathtaking views, luxurious accommodations and most importantly shimmering lagoons.

However, not giving a serious review of what the food was like at W would be doing future travelers - especially those who might place more importance on food than myself - a total disservice.

We were on HB and were able to dine at all restaurants. FISH has an upcharge of around $37 pp net but this quickly becomes around 100/couple when you add water which in all outlets is charged at $15 net with no option to have house water instead 🙃

The general vibe of almost all outlets (especially SIP) is good - with the exception of FISH - which uses a very bare decor scheme and is totally unspectacular for a signature restaurant. And for anyone worried about loud music - don’t fret: we were not bothered by music at any of the venues we dined at.

Overall, food was sadly an issue for us here, and is the first time in many years where food has impacted our stay and not in a good way. Taking VFM out of the question (I’ll revisit this in a moment), the food ranged from very bad to average with just one dish that I truly enjoyed (reef fish tartare at FIRE).

There were a few appetizers (namely the foie gras at FISH, the grilled cheese at FIRE, and the shrimp and pomelo salad at kitchen… do yourself a favor and not order any of these) that we found to be absolutely inedible and quite frankly should have been sent back but we did not want to seem rude or ungrateful so we sucked it up.

The catch of the day at FISH - for nearly $125 net (!?!?!!!) - may very well be the most expensive (and underwhelmingly plated) catch of the day in all of the Maldives… see attached pictures.

We were on HB so didn’t take too much notice of prices while we were ordering, but some quick math puts most of the 3 course dinners we had between $350 and $500 net had we been on B&B…… and that is with with no wine or drinks! Any frequent Maldives traveler knows this is highly exorbitant - even for the most expensive Maldives resorts - and unfortunately was in no way representative of the quality of the food we were served.

Food here has most probably been the most underwhelming of any 5* property we have been to in Maldives. A real shame because kitchen and fire do have an amazing vibe that could only be complemented by better food offerings.

Drinks were in the $25++ range which - just like food - is unacceptably priced (most other 5* price drinks at $18++, or, at most, $20++. To my knowledge only at raffles have I seen higher drinks prices).

Island and reef

On a more positive aspect, there were also some things that we absolutely adored about our stay, including: + natural beauty of the island - above and below ground which at the end of the day are the main reason I visit Maldives so I am super pleased that W did not disappoint in this regard and “saved” our stay. + the wet pool area, the free coconuts and the main beach which was totally and completely relaxing.

W beaches aren’t the most expansive or striking but they are super lovely and the lagoon is sandy around at least the first 10-20 meters of the entire island in its narrowest points, making the lagoon a gorgeous shade of light turquoise 360 degrees. There are several groynes all around the island which make it a bit less picturesque than I would have hoped, but I far prefer them to seawalls. The sand is also power soft around at least half the island which is a big selling point!

We also found the reef to be very good with lots of signs of re growth. Fish life was very abundant which was not surprising since W is known for its iconic reef and has a big reputation to uphold. However, I am not 100% sure that post bleaching this reef can still be classified as “one of the best reef in the Maldives” given just how quickly islands such as Ayada, amari and park hyatt in gaafu are recovering in terms of coral. However, there was significant recovery and fish life was plentiful (we saw rays, sharks and multiple turtles on every single snorkel).

Our favorite part of the reef was the top coral section between fish and the extreme wow ocean heaven, which was surprisingly not recommended to us by the dive center. Be sure to spend lots of time here looking around all the cracks and nooks in top coral and you’ll be astounded by the regrowth and amount of sea life. I was less impressed by the northern reef in front of our room and eastwards m to the arrival jetty as it was mostly coral rubble with no color (although it does get better the closer you to the seaplane jetty). Visibility during our stay was not good, but this was due to the monsoon change.

Also, for anyone expecting a strong “drop off” reef with extravagant coral formations in deeper water, this may not be the reef for you as the strength IMO really lies in the top coral element.

Final verdict

In conclusion, as the title of this review suggests, this is a hard property for me to rate because unless an overhaul is done on food, service and rooms, I can say that a return is looking unlikely at the moment, especially when looking at 2022 prices.

Overall, I wouldn’t say we didn’t enjoy our stay since as I mentioned my main priority is island beauty and reef, and W did meet/exceed expectations in that department. However, we were immensely let down by all the points that should act as USPs and make a property like this expensive and luxurious. I can get a spectacular reef and an amazing lagoon at 10s of other properties for 1/3 of the cost of W.

So why should I pay so much more to come here, if the supposed differentiating aspects of service and food aren’t any better than what you’d find at a mid tier 4*? Some food for thought for management to figure out 🙂