Shangri-La's Villingili Resort & Spa, Maldives — Hotel in Addu Atoll

We chose the resort expecting the quality of service that makes Shangri la’s renowned in the world as one of the highest standard hotel chain’s. Once you approach the island the feeling is that the resort is as expected but it takes very little to face reality. The premises are in general very badly maintained, overall common areas are dirty and attention to the clients is poor. Other than the check in being made once you arrive, the general feeling is that you are a bit left on your own and no real follow up is given to the clients. Our villa host is a lovely man who surely knows his job but the feeling I had, of him but also of most of the professional staff with experience, is a sense of resilience to some sort of general discontent and unprofessional management. Those that are actually trained and capable of doing their job have to deal with a group of apprentices (the majority of the staff) who have no idea of what the service in a 5 star premises is like. This lowers the quality of the service and the feeling we had is that it makes those who are professionals feel hopeless to make any real difference and frustrated because they are not put in the position to do their job as they should. The management in general is very poor, employees are kind of left unsupervised with no direction by whoever should be in charge and the lack of leading is highly felt. We ended up waiting 35 minutes for a plate of pineapple and mangostin at breakfast.. Tables in the restaurants were often dirty with previous guests food rests not properly cleaned up, we even ended up one day sitting for lunch at the same table where we had breakfast to find that our plates and cups were still there, we are talking about 3 hours later... most efficient and prepared waiter is an indian boy named Javeed, he is the only one that has been able to give some service which did resemble what you would expect from any 5 stars hotel, for sure he did try his best, unfortunately he was not helped too much by the rest of the staff nor by the ones in charge. But this is about it. With the rain the transport to the villas and restaurants became an issue, to the point that we had the restaurant calling 4 times to follow up our request and after again more than half an hour we decided to go by walk to our villa, I do have a 1 year old child with me though.. the living room of our villa smelled horrible because it wasn’t probably opened for a very long period of time, at our arrival just after the check in we opened a drawer to get a glass and found a scorpion alive in it.. big insects dead under the main table and sofa in the living room were there too upon arrival and did not get removed untill we requested it specifically 4 days Later... the kids club employees are very nice and the dive center is also working well but thats about it. In general the service is not up to the standard, the premises are kept in very poor conditions and staff is basically not motivated nor directed as it should. I was given a complimentary night upgrade in Laaluu villa, very beautiful indeed but once again terribly maintained. I did wonder where the general manager was and where each sectors responsibles too, i have indeed paid for a 5 star hotel to find myself in a bad maintained and organized premises receiving the service of a 4 stars, really not impressed with it. Food wise, the buffet was a joke also not up to the standards required, small variety not refreshed to the point that even rice would end up looking like a bad version of sticky balls; would be better to stick to a la carte menu if affording a proper buffet ends up being a too high cost. This is just a resumee of what we experienced, i did love the island and wish things would change to enable us to go back and enjoy its beauty. Hopefully something...

Where do I start, this resort is a like a dream. You almost don't feel like you are in a resort as the development was kept to a minimum and the island was brimming with live. We stayed in a water villa over near the golf course, it was very quiet over there with crystal clear waters. I will always remember sleeping under the stars on the over-water swing bed. If I get another chance, I would like to stay at the whispering palms where there are more fish to see during snorkeling.

The food was quite good overall, with some mixed experience. Breakfast was quite nice with great variety and quality. Lunch at Javvu was quite good; the tuna sashimi and kun pao chicken were memorable dishes. Dinner at Javvu was somewhat mixed, the buffet had good quantity but I guess lacked the fine dining experience. We also had A La Carte dinner, the entree and soup was really great, but the mains were forgettable - we ordered coral fish and lobster. Especially the lobster was a bit too tough, I guess I had been spoiled with the quality of lobsters here in Australia.

Dining at Fashala was a fantastic fine dining experience overall. Loved the location, perfect spot to see the sunset and also it wasn't as windy as Dr Ali. For the food, I'd say you really need to pick carefully to have the best experience. For entree I'd highly recommend the chicken wing risotto, that IMO is the signature entree for this place. The actual signature mahi mahi was a bit too sour for our liking. For the main, the signature dish was spot on however, the Coral fish was simply exquisite. Interestingly, for such a great entree in the chicken wing risotto, if you ordered the spring chicken or seafood risotto for the main, you might be surprisingly left a bit disappointed with the high expectation set by the entree. Lastly for desert, again you cannot go wrong with the signature rocky road. It will leave you in a really good mood. Overall, Fashala the best dining experience on the island for me!

We also tried the chinese dishes at Dr Ali, in hindsight maybe we should have tried the Arabic food there. It's not bad, but as I have a chinese background we've probably had better chinese food in China. Probably not too wise to travel all this way to have chinese food.

Lastly onto the activities. for me the most memorable one was the turtle quest snorkeling tour. Just a unforgettable experience swimming so close with turtles. Second was the snorkel at Whispering Palms, I saw so much fish whilst swimming near the edge of the cliff that it felt like swimming in a fish tank. I also enjoyed the Addu City tour, which really was an opportunity to see how the locals live. Unfortunately the guide's wife was away, so his house was too messy for us to see, that would have been the cherry on the top!

Finally, the Star Service Award for me goes to Chrystelle from the diving centre, and a Nepalese lifeguard at the Whispering Palms (sorry forgot his name). Although I didn't find the scuba dive offered as much value for a non-certified diver like me (you pay 190 instead of 60, and you can't take photos/videos during the dive), but Chrystelle was impeccable in terms of her coaching in the classroom and also her guidance in the water.

If there is one thing that will stop me from going back, it's the tyranny of distance. The trip into Male was ok, but the fact that the island is on the southern end of the Maldives meant we had to take a 90 min domestic flight to Gan. The engine noise was really loud on this flight and the extra 90 min trip on top of a long travel into Male was challenging. I'm not sure if the resort can do anything about this though. I'd suggest maybe taking an extra stop in Sri Lanka and take a flight from Colombo to Gan to bypass the...

Overall, our stay at the Villingili Resort and Spa was very enjoyable and I would definitely recommend it . The only thing that let it down was the way I was treated when I had to make an unplanned visit to the medical centre. We had already called service to tell them i would like to see the doctor and to request a buggy to take us there but when we arrived the centre was in darkness. After the doctor arrived and had examined me and diagnosed a gum infection he prescribed me with two types of antibiotics and prescription painkillers. We asked him for a receipt so that we could claim off our medical insurance when we arrived home and he assured us that it would be waiting for us at reception when we checked out on the coming Sunday. He then called for a buggy to take us back to our villa and asked us to wait outside for it to arrive and started turning off the lights. Outside I was shivering with cold even though it was 28degrees and I was wearing a wooly cardigan and leaning on my husband for support. Luckily, one of your lovely resort staff came and asked me if I was ok and I said that I felt unwell and had just been prescribed medication by the resort doctor and was waiting for a buggy to take us home. The lady told us to come back into the medical centre and take a seat while we waited for the buggy to collect us and also chased up the buggy which had still not arrived. When we came to check out on the Sunday we asked for the medical receipt only to be told that the doctor had not forwarded to the reception and would we mind waiting for it?. We agreed as we had an hour before our taxi to our next accommodation on the main island of Gan/Seenu had been booked to collect us for the journey. After forty five minutes of waiting the very helpful man (Ashrav?)on reception happened to mention that the general manager of the resort was in the nearby bar so I went over and explained the situation to him. He was great and organised drinks for us and refunded all the money that I'd spent on the medical bills and also explained to us that the service provided by the medical centre has to be outsourced to a private provider. Ashrav also phoned up our accommodation on the main island and explained that we were running late and organised the boat to leave immediately without having to wait for anyone else. Overall, our stay at Villingili was definitely one to remember. All of the staff were friendly and very helpful, it's just a shame that the service at the outsourced medical centre let your reputation down. We would definitely recommend the resort to family and friends, just hope that they don't require the services of the...