Nala Maldives Resort — Hotel in Faadhippolhu

Navigating through reviews is not easy and...despite is a great tools, reviews remain subjective and strictly related to your profile as a traveller, your expectations and benchmarks. Maldives is likely one of the world's most expensive destination and it is still incredible to me how you can get, even in a normal hotel, same or better products you normally get on dry land. I will try to be factual and set expectations. I put 5 stars as my expectations were met and the experience was good. Neverthelss you need to understand what you will find. We stayed 2 weeks at Innahura and before arriving we screened around 60 resorts. The offer received for 2 week half board 2 pax were between 2K and 111k. Innahura is very close to the low end of this. I doubt that at the Soneva you will get 30 times better product than what we got. Here is what Innahura wi give and what you will find.

The island is pretty, well maintained, offer nice pictures and has a maldive feeling most of its corners. the sunset side has a nice beach with soft sand, much nicer than the sunrise side. the sunset beach faces a very scenic island with two palms on it. You can take gorgeous pictures anytime in the day. The lagoon in-between can be literally walked trough. Shallow water. Very cool swing in the middle. The island is a cash cow for the resort. They offer private dinners, weddings, private cinema at extra cist. So they need to prevent nature to erode the island and protect it with (not too invasive) cement barriers. Result is that the water in the lagoon is not as crystal clear and shiny as the water outside of the lagoon. Less water circulation, more algae (properly removed from the beach 2 times a day) smelly sand, almost zero marine life. 1 Baby shark, 1 mini sting ray and 4 fishes in 2 weeks stay. Dont expect exceptional marine life. You can book snorkeling excursions for extra 60 Usd pp 2.5 hrs where you have more chance to see marine life in a better place. So don't expect magic swims at your doorsteps. Rooms in this hotel are called villas. 2 meters far away from eachother but in most of cases separated by mangroves that give you the feeling of privacy in most of the cases. Sunset villas are much hotter but worth the extra cost as for their position and quality if vegetation around. Especially those between # 225 and 235. Room are just big enough but nothing special in term of size. renovated and not renovated are equivalent of a 3 star hotel. In some cases a good 3 stars in other a cheap 3 stars. Some doors and walls have cracks some walls are dirty, door handle stayed in my hand a couple of times. Airco was working well, the floor of the bathroom for both renovated and non renovated villa is super slippery. Really dangerous. Furniture is stained, floor is cheap. Our villas (we received a much appreciated free upgrade to the sunset side after the first 4 nights) have been serviced (cleaned) 9 days out of 15. The staff is passing by and asking if you wish the room to be cleaned or not. This was below expectations. I have reported this after they missed the cleaning 4 days in a row and situation has changed. Staff is overall nice and helpful. With some nicer than other staff members (aleef at the restaurant, shubarah at the reception) but again...essential and never over the top and nothing remarkable. Overall cleanliness can be rated 6- . 2 towels and a cup stayed in front of a beach villa for 2 weeks. Nobody bothered to remove it. The restaurant deck has never been brushed. Some cigarette remains stayed on the ground 2 weeks,face masks for days on the sand, dirty napkins or small plastic trash on the paths and doorways for days.Not remarkable disaster but still noticeable. 11.Food buffet is decent and offer enough variety.Nothing to complain.You can feel sometimes quality of ingredient is just enough. A cave in the nearby island had very bright light across the full night.Forget romantic nights at the beach. A nice no-frill resort.Happy to get what I found for a fraction of a...

Paradise!

Where do I start...

First of all, this was the most relaxing Holiday I have ever had in my life.

My wife and I visited for 10 days for our 10th Wedding Anniversary. We have looked at many Islands in the Maldives, but decided on this one as it's a New Island resort. They have celebrated their first year of being open as a resort while we were there!! ( March 2020 ) We have stayed on the Sunrise side of the island. We have chosen an All Inclusive Holiday. (Recommend it! )

------Location / Beach: The water is as blue and clear ac you see on photos. While we have stayed on the island, we have not worn any shoes or flip flops. Barefoot holiday. AMAZING! Even the Restaurant has sand on the floor, so you can feel that holiday "Sand between toes" feeling all the time. The Sea is so lovely and warm, that you can sit in the water for hours and not get cold. Perfect for Snorkeling too. If you have your own kit, bring it with you. If you don't have any, you can hire snorkeling kit for a day for a reasonable price ($11 as of March 2020)

You can walk all the way around the Island within 20-25 mins (slow stroll). We have done this at least twice a day. The colour of the sand is lovely white. (see photos uploaded by me and many others.

ADVICE: Do bring a pair of sea shoes with you as there is a fair amount of broken Coral as you get in the sea for a few steps ( Especially the Sunrise side ) You only need these if you are going for a swim. Just to make it easy to get in the water.

-------Room: We had a Sunrise Bungalow. Check out Pictures for room set up. You have WiFi in your room free of charge. Fast enough for Netflix. ( Just tested, did not spend much time in room apart from Sleeping and getting ready for meals.

Large flat screen TV in room with limited TV channels, but the biggest FREE selection of movies I have ever seen in a hotel.

Mini Bar: Charges apply as any other places do. Kettle to make your own Coffee/Tea in the morning. These are also supplied for free and restocked every day.

Air conditioning and a Ceiling Fan to keep your room as cool as you wish.

We had a large bed ( King size or a bit larger in UK size) and a sofa bed.

Digital Safe to store all your passports and other valuables.

The bathroom is at the back of the room. Open top, so you are outside!! With Cover for facilities. ( I loved it) You are still private of back of our bathroom.

So all in all, the room was rather nice!

------ Restaurant / Bars: We love our food and flavours. We love trying new food and that we certainly did. Be aware, if you are like us, you will eat a lot even if you just try a tiny bit of everything at each meal time as the food is amazing! They really looking after you in the restaurant. Water on table topped up every time you have some. You can order alcoholic drinks to your table at dinner time. The chef walks about while the service is on and asks if everything is ok. They would do anything to keep you happy with their restaurant. ( One morning we have arrived a bit late for breakfast and all the nice bacons were gone. The chef walked up to us and asked us if we like our bacon more done? We said yes and he offered to cook some fresh to our taste!!! )

In our All Inclusive package we had 3 meals a day. Breakfast/ Lunch/ Dinner

The main Restaurant right next to the main bar is a work of art! Such a huge space. Even when it's full, you feel well separated and private at your own table. Lovely and relaxing.

Main Bar: A good selection of Mocktails ,Cocktails on the AI menu. 2 type of beers and Red, White, and Rose wine included. Also soft drinks. Juices, coke, water.

"Olhu Bar" ( small bar on the other side of island) Same selection of drinks.

------ Swimming Pool: Perfect water and not crowded. Amazing view from the infinity pool edge

------ Staff: Super friendly. No issues are too big or too small. Chatty and friendly. Very approachable and helpful.

MUST DO FOR MOVIE LOVERS: Private Cinema on your own Private Island. We have watched "Cast Away"

Run out of words so must end...

The location, the beach and resort services are very good. We even enjoyed the convenience of the lounge facilities at the seaplane terminal which the resort provided us as part of there service in order to make our .waiting time as pleasant as possible

The problem was the poor coordination of the domestic seaplane flights which caused us to lose a day stay out of three days.

We arrived at the resort only at 6:10 pm and had to leave by 9:00 am on the last day (keep in mind that you should start your schedule to take the 9:00 AM flight at about 6:00 AM). All this happened even though we asked in advance to schedule an afternoon flight. The resort manager very kindly explained us that during the holiday season, we were lucky that we managed to get an internal flight on the seaplane from the Resort back to Mala Airport. On the return day there was another flight scheduled for the afternoon to which other guests at the Innahura Resort were scheduled. For some unclear reason and although we did make an early registration request for a afternoon flight the Resort told us there is no place for us at this flight. Our explanations that my daughter received sunstroke and dos't feel well, that we arrived very late to the resort due to the seaplane late schedule and that we asked well in advance an afternoon flight didn't help us.

We lost a third of our holiday we've been planning for six months. When we talked to the Resort personal Some of staff tried to give us incorrect information about flight times as to try and give us the impression that the afternoon flight did not fit the timetable by which we asked to coordinate with them. Three different receptionists at the hotel explained to me that if we will take the afternoon flight we will miss our upcoming cruise. This information turned out to be incorrect and misleading. The only purpose of it was to mack us think that morning flight was our only option (maybe it was only with good intent but we felt it shouldn't have been like that).

At 8 am, the hotel's roomkeeper arrived and asked us 'when are we planning to leave the room?' as he said "He was asked to prepare the room as soon as possible for the new guests that should arrive early in the morning and they should get our room. We deduced from that that the resort did not intend to allow us to leave at a the time we asked as it was fully booked and needed our room as early as possible( They told us it is a very busy sunday before Christmas) The Resort manager explained to us that we were interpreting everything wrong and that he can't do anyting to help us as it is a very busy period and he can't do anything since everything depends on the airline and that it is not him to...