Velaa Private Island

Magical 2 week break. Beach bungalows were beautiful. Amazing value for money. Food was a buffet not brilliant for vegans but overall very good. Staff were lovely. Always so eager to make our holiday perfect. Shame beach bar had no beach but an amazing holiday all round .

Fantastic experience! The Ocean Villa was exceptional, service and private butler fast and effective! Ali thank you! Amenities of the best quality… We tried most of the activities and we had tones of options! Scuba diving and sea-bob snorkeling gave us the best of memories! What a colorful world under the sea… Only the weather let us down… two days of raining but still in this hotel we had plenty of stuff to keep us pleasantly busy… The treatments in the spa and wellness center GREAT! Promise to return in the near future

I have stayed at quite a number of luxury hotels and resorts in Asia, and have had a fair share of experience on butler service. Disappointedly, I think my stay at Velaa is one the most frustrating experience I have ever had, considering the room rate is over USD $3000 per night. My disappointment can be summarized as follows: 1) I visited the main restaurant - Athiri for dinner on 17 Nov. There was a billing mistake and I was charged for something that should not be charged. This set the tone of the stay and revealed the carelessness among the staff members. 2) The butler appeared to be not well-trained. I transferred from Cheval Blanc Randheli to Velaa on 17 Nov 2023, and upon check in, I already felt the butler service was not up to my expectation. The service style was so sloppy and inattentive that it seemed there was not much training offered, regarding proper butler service that is up to the standard of a Forbes five-star hotel. For instance, i) Before my check out, I asked my butler to pack the luggage for me. After packing, he took my luggage to the front office. After he took my luggage away, I discovered that he actually did not pack any of the clothes in my wardrobe (on the left side of the bedroom), and they were all still in my wardrobe! This showed how careless the butler was, even when packing was one of his most basic job! I immediately contacted him and told him about this mistake, but he attempted to blame me instead. He said that during unpacking, he only placed my clothes in the wardrobe on the right side of the bedroom, and it was my fault for not telling him that some clothes were in the left wardrobe! As a butler, isn't his job is to do a thorough check of the wardrobes during packing? And to be honest, I placed the clothes in the left wardrobe after bathing (the night prior) by myself (instead of calling the butler to do so) was because I already got the impression that the butler was not very good at his job, and I did not want to disturb him at night by calling him to come to my villa just to place my clothes in the wardrobe. So, in the end, my mercy act of "not giving extra for the butler to do" actually became the reason the butler blamed me for his mistake! How ridiculous is this? It was so shocking to me that for my room costing over USD $3000 per night, the staff would blame the guest in such a manner! Again, this reinforced my statement that there was inadequate customer service training offered to staff at this resort. In contrast, my butler at Cheval Blanc Randheli actually searched my villa thoroughly during the packing process to make sure he had left nothing behind. ii) On the afternoon of 17 Nov 2023, I wanted to go for snorkeling for a while in the ocean in front of my villa. I was not a good swimmer, so I informed my butler about this so that he could check on me and make sure no accident would happen to me. He just did not appear to be interested in this job and did not particularly want to help m

We spent an amazing week on that island. Food, service, people, accommodation, activities were 10 out of 10. I can not find a thing that was not ok. There is so much to do: squash, tennis, paddle, beach volleyball, football, basketball, badminton, gym… they have two exceptional spa centers with tons of different treatments. We stayed at the island villa which, upon arrival, left us speechless. Private pool, private beach, two chill areas… Restaurants are so good that I would give them a michelin star. Our butlers, Mode and Haleem, were extremely kind. I have not met so kind people before, they did the impossible, possible. I would highly recommend visiting this gem if you are travelling to Maldives. You will not be disappointed, believe me!

Everything works on this island - the villas, the ways of eating, the sports, the smiles and the willingness. With such high ambitions and standards a visitor here can have a very busy but deeply peaceful time. Hats off to the management, the butlers, groundsmen, housekeepers, cooks, barmen, gym instructors, diving instructors, boat crews, laundrymen, spa therapists, technicians and apologies for the skills I over-looked - you run the island like a ship at sea with such skill. Congratulations to the owner too - Velaa is a triumph.