Meedhupparu Island Resort

Just come back from Maldives a couple of days ago.

What can I say...

1)We flew with Monarch airlines- very bad!!Please, do not use Monarch for longhaul flights!!!Meals were not good and on the way back to London they even ran out of bottled water...we were forced to drink tap water, which we usualy dont drink...but what can you do...only suffer for 12 hours!!!

2)As we arrived in Male we had to wait in the lounge for 3 hours for the seaplane to arrive...some people waited even longer. But once we were on the seaplane, it was fantastic...amazing views on the Maldives...

3) We requested the rooms anything from 106-168, as they suppose to be better....

When we arrived at the resort, we were given some bad snacks and then all people got good rooms, accept us and another couple....we were taken to rooms 540 and 541. Ours was 540.......it is something incredibly bad...they are not even suppose to be given to the customers, as they attached to the doctor's bungalow, which means it is the accomodations for the doctor not for people who paid a lot of money for this resort. The room had NO view at all, and access to the beach, it was covered with bushes...The doors were not straight and had a lot of halls in it, which made the access to the bungalow to all the creatures, like cockroaches and lisards.....we even could find the switcher to switch off the light.....and reception didnt know where it was. Unfortunately, i didnt take any pictures of inside of the bungalow, as we were too angry with it.

We complaint ones and they said they will give us the better room next day, but i didnt really want to sleep in that enviroment a night. I could even rate that room in any star, as i would even give it a star at all. We complaint again, and then they decided to give us a better room at the same day. They said that this better room suppose to be their doctor who arrives later. So they give the rooms where the doctor should stay to the customers and give the doctor the best room where the customers should be placed instead. Very bad and poor customer service....

So we were given the room with a wall view, which i thought will be unacceptable, but after 540 room experience, it was alright for us. Even though we were still promissed to change the room without the wall next day, but it never happened!!!!!!!!!Actually the rooms with the walls have better views than the others!!!!

4) After 3 days staying there, I husband came to restaurant in the t-shirt and swimming pants, which we thought was alright, as we didnt see any notes about the dress-code in the restaurant. And not very nice waiter started shouting at him in very angry way. Which spoiled mu husband's lunch comletely and he left....As soon as he left two little girls (10-14 yrs old) had only short t-shirts on and swim suits as well, and were not told off at all. Unacceptable!!!!!!!!We complaint to the manager, who was just smiling!!

5)They suppose to do the different food theme dinner every night, where the food was exactly the same from the previous night!!!But nevertheless, the highlight of the food was maldivian night, where they first time served something different and tasty!!!

6)We booked the beach party for 20 dollars each, which was promissed to be nice and without the kids.(the kids were everywhere at the resort), When we arrived, it was nice at first with free cocktails. Then they started the limbo competition with the price of the massage and facial in Ayveda spa...I entered the competition, and suddenly the 5-6 girls age of 12-14 appeared in there as well. Then i thought it will unfair competition, because they are much smaller than the adults. I decided to continue, to see how far i can go...and suddnly right befor the ending level, they decided to pick 5 people who did limbo right!!!WHAT!!!!!!!!!!...why didnt they tell us it before, if we did it wrong....and do they remember that the 3 little girls, who were picked did it right, they were honestly unfair players even more than some other adults!!!And of course one of the little girls one the price!!!!!Why would the little girl need a facial???Definitately fixed!!!!!!!!I was really angree. I wasnt bothered much about the winning, as long as it was fair it was important to me. As it wasnt!!!!I complaint, they said they paid for the party too. Well they didnt, their parents did!!!!!We didnt want to pay for this party at the end of the holiday, but we were forced...as that restaurant manager was smiling again...

I relised that, if you have problems in this resort, you have no rights to complain or change the situation what so ever...Looks like that they just laught at all of us!!!

6) People, who had positive reviews, were probably just lucky enough not to face any problems!!!

And also if you want a quite holiday away from kids, it is not gonna happen, as they are everywhere....

Most of the staff is rude and unhappy....they do their jobs....but with a very unhappy face...

Evening entertainment was poor as well. Pianist was bad, could play the music proparly!!The singing guys were alright, but they sang only for one night out of all 7 days we stayed there!!!

I agree with the other reviews, that there are much better resorts that this one on Maldives!!!

I would reccommend this resort to anyone and give them 1,5 stars, not 4 as they want it to be!!!!!!!

The island is beautifull and has a great house-reef. Staff is friendly, the accomodation is nice and clean, food is delicious, with a lot of variety. This place fully our expectations.

Note: As for Lucas if you want to dive.

I would send my friends to this island the Meedhupparu Island Resort and know that they would have a very good holiday. The staff were very good and any thing they could do for you they would.

The room was very good and clean, plenty of tea/sugar/milk provided as needed. The snorkeling was very good just walk into the sea and you are on the reef lots to see.

I have visited many islands in the Maldives this overall is so far the best as we are returning this October it says it all.

Flight: We flew Monarch, on the way out we upgraded to premium for £75 each (initially Cosmos offered it to us at £116 per person each way). To be honest it really wasn't worth it, the seats were slightly wider and the legroom was the pretty much the same as economy (around 34 inches), the drinks were free but unless you're intending to get paralytic then it would only cost you £10-£15 each to drink the equivalent in Economy, the films, etc were pretty poor although the food was slightly better and you get metal cutlery.

Arrival into Male: We came straight through Male and never had any problems with baggage and passport control, we were on a bus to the sea planes in about 20 minutes. We did have to wait an hour and twenty minutes for the sea plane to arrive but that's fine we just sat back at a table in the lounge drinking water and chatting. The seaplane journey's great and only takes about 40 minutes, although the seats aren't that comfortable if you sit on the aisle. Your bags are sent by boat and won't turn up until around 4 hours after you so if I'd recommend packing a swimming costume as a swim in the sea once you get there really shakes off the jetlag.

Reception - You are met from the seaplane by the rep who will take you to the main reception (or if you're in the water villas straight to your villa but more about that later). In reception, you do the standard meet and greet and are taken to lunch (we arrived at around 3pm). Afterwards you go back to reception and have to fill out a registration form for your room and then are shown to it.

The room - The rooms themselves are pretty serviceable and everything's clean and well maintained if not 5* (what do you expect for the money). You tend to get a lot of Geckos around the door and in the bathroom (not in the actual room) but they eat any insects or mosquitoes and they're very cute and thus good. The outside shower's good but the plants around it aren't in top health. The room boy comes in and tidies in the morning and turns your bed over at night, he will make an intricate pattern of your bed sheets and if you collect flowers from around reception (we discovered this after my wife picked up some flowers and left them beside the bed) will place them into the design on the bed, I tipped him $3 a night although some people tipped $10-$15 weekly, I guess it depends on how happy you are with him. A mini-bar is provided in the room and is pretty reasonably priced, also there's a safe in one of the wardrobes (although it's not very well anchored).

The beach - We were on the South side of the island towards the beach bar and so had probably one of the few spots of beach on the south side, the sand's great (not to sharp) and the sea walls (to stop beach erosion) weren't too obtrusive. There seemed to be a bit of petulance about sun loungers with the Brits pulling them up onto their deck or putting towels on them to reserve them, contrary to popular myth the Germans did this at no point. Oh, and if you're walking along the sand at night, try kicking it, it glows due to organisms living in it, very cool.

The swimming is excellent, not much current and the snorkelling is only okay as much of the coral has been destroyed but is currently growing back, however we did manage to swim with a reef shark, turtle and sting ray as well as many fish (there are tons of parrot fish).

The drink - We stopped frequenting the main bar as the staff were surly (as I would be if I had to deal with some of the foul mouthed Brits whom I saw there) but mainly because it was full of people with no manners who seemed to be trying to drink the bar dry.

Instead we started drinking at the beach bar which was all inclusive up until 6:30pm and then charged to your room. The beach bar is situated on the South side of the island beside the dive school and has great views over the sea, in the evenings it only attracts people who are quiet and respectful of others who want to have a quiet night with their partners/and or friends. The barman who seems to be working all of the time there is Southern Indian, his English is impeccable and he really bends over backwards to help you (on 2 occasions he ran to the restaurant as it had taken them over 10 minutes to bring him a bottle of wine for us, needless to say he was well tipped).

The food - No complaints about the food from the buffet at all, it never gave either of us upset stomachs and we were willing to try everything, the menu runs in weekly cycles so each night is different. This means that the first week is varied and edible but the second week does tend to get a bit boring as you've tried everything. Our waiter was fairly surly but was a nice enough chap and we tipped him $3 every night.

That said, in the second week we started eating lunch at the beach bar every other day in order to try and break the monotony a bit and we both had an upset stomach for 2 days after eating a burger from the bar, just goes to show that paying isn't always better. We never ate in the fine dining restaurant as just looking at the d cor put us right off.

Excursions - We went morning fishing which is a bit hit and miss as we only caught 2 fish between four of us when we went but other mornings were much more successful. The breakfast provided is a bit limp consisting of a sandwich, the previous night's fruit cake and no drink (take your own water with you).

The evening fishing was far better although I would check the list to see how many people are on board as the 2nd time we went there were 19 people on board which meant that everyone was on top of each other and getting in each others way, there should be 10 people tops on the boat.

The romantic beach dinner at $55 per person is fantastic, it's held at the beach bar and you get 6 courses, the main's being one and half lobsters each, very good value for money.

Water Villas - On our second week four families turned up, we had 2 on our section of beach. They were obnoxious in the extreme, the parents didn't care and let the children run riot, screaming and generally disturbing what until that point had been a very calm and peaceful holiday, so we decided to upgrade to the water villas, oh and what a good choice it was.

The villas are a bit steep at $350 a night for half board and $300 a night for B&B, the half board is well worth doing as at £25 per room you are given an enormous 6 course meal, the quality is excellent and there's too much food to eat, we stopped ordering the soup to try as we were only eating half of our main.

You upgrade to the villas by asking either of the events managers at reception (if you can find them) and then badgering them 3 times a day until they upgrade you (I'm not kidding, you have to make an absolute pain of yourself for them to remember). You are picked up from your bungalow by the water villa staff in one of their golf buggies and driven over to the villas where you are put in the air conditioned reception and given a garland and a cooling herbal drink, your butler will come and get you from reception and show you to your room and what amazing rooms they are. As you walk into the room the bathroom is to your left, it has a normal shower or an enormous "tropical" shower head, there are 2 sinks and loads of huge white cotton towels. There's a walk in closet on your right which contains the safe and 2 umbrellas. The main room is in front of you, The bed is lit underneath so that it looks to be hovering, it's an American Queen so will easily fit 3 people, you have a TV with satellite (which we never used) and a stereo which is very handy for the jacuzzi. The deck has a viewing window of about 1m square which looks down into the sea, there's a table and chairs and a Jacuzzi which looks out over the horizon, to make it easier to swim there are steps down to the sea with a shower for when you get out. You also get a complimentary bottle of champagne (veuve clique) which was put to use once the Jacuzzi had filled. Each room is allocated a butler but I would say that it did seem as though there were only 5 butlers between 20 rooms so you may have to wait a while at times. Our butler was a really nice guy with quite a wicked sense of humour (he managed to persuade me that we had to be out of the room for a sea plane at 6am when our flight was at 1pm) and generally a very nice bloke. If you need anything at all you can call your waiter and they will get you whatever you need or sort out whatever problem you have. The staff will bend over backwards for you and no one begs for tips as they do at the other end of the island. There are reef sharks under the restaurant which are perfectly docile if a little shy and you can swim with them. One thing that you can do is to pay an extra $50 to have you meal wherever you want it, we had booked this for our final night and were going to have it on the beach (they make a huge heart shape from candles in the sand, it's very romantic) but unfortunately the weather decided it was not to be so we ended up having a picnic on our bedroom floor.

Overall, this was a great holiday, and the staff are the most friendly and helpful people you could meet. The dive centre was excellent - great knowledgeable instructors, and some good dive excursions. But I would have to say that I would probably not return to Meedhupparu because of a few bad points.

First of all, the water bungalows have been given an exclusive treatment which prohibits 'second-class citizens' from the main resort, and prevents a walk around the island. This is also bad news for the water bungalow guests, as they are penned in behind a rusty chicken wire fence with 20 sunbeds for 40 guests. I have never seen this ridiculous class divide on any other island.

Second, there is quite a lot of building and concrete walling on the island, but I know that much of this is Tsunami repair and island protection, but it does spoil the look and feel unfortunately.

And finally, some nit-picking points: Guests arrive at the island and have to wait for an hour or two before rooms are ready. They are given a 'welcome' speech, which is more like a list of rules and regulations. The sunset bar is only fully-inclusive up until 6.30pm (an hour before sunset), so inclusive guests either have to move to the pool bar or pay for their drinks - giving you the feeling that all inclusive guests are like social security scroungers. The layout of facilities is a bit confusing, and there is not a single ramp anywhere, so this is a no-no for wheelchair users, and difficult for people with push chairs.

Overall, a great holiday, let down by some minor faults that could so easily be addressed.

Couldn't fault any aspect, yes the flight was a little uncomfortable but it's all worth it and I would do it again soon!

This is a nit-picking, hyper-critical review of our stay in Meedhupparu in the Maldives, so up front I would like to make it clear that it is a great place, with great staff and we had a great time (in spite of the weather)! But there is no real point in just saying that, so here goes.

Firstly, I would advise against taking any holiday in the Maldives involving Monarch and/or My Travel airlines. We were 24 hours late out (Monarch) and 19 hours late back (My Travel). Both should stick to short haul. They do not have a long haul mind set. They have short haul seat pitch and width, short haul food (bad on Monarch, downright disgusting on MT, where it seemed to be the previous day's delayed meal re-heated), a short haul mentality to passengers, (we are there to be flogged, crisps, drinks and even WATER on Monarch), and a short haul mentality to service and back-up of the hardware (plane goes wrong in Male so the captain phones Manchester to be told to turn it all off and re-boot it, like a desk top computer). My Travel even seem to take two hours longer than Monarch (12.5 hours in all). From the times between way-points, they probably fly the 767 slower than normal, presumably to increase the range to try to make sure it gets there! I was wary of these airlines before I booked, and I wish I had followed my instincts. In future, I will only book with an operator who uses scheduled or "proper" airlines. The extra money will be worth it.

We booked through Hays-Travel.co.uk who were excellent all round (and are being very helpful with the battles we have commenced since returning). We travelled with Thomson, who, apart from their choice of airlines, were OK if a bit less than perfectly organised on the ground, though they are taking steps to sort that out.

Meedhupparu: Things they don't tell you in the brochure.

The Italians have gone, and it is now run by a Sri-Lankan company, Aitken Spence, who have divided the island physically into three resorts; the Water Bungalows, the Spa and the package deal plebs, who, though the vast majority, are now not allowed to go right round the island and spoil the view of the few in the top price water bungalows. In the long term, I think this will be found to be a mistake. It was certainly resented.

The brochures tells you that baggage goes by boat on the way and arrives several hours after the seaplane transfer. This can be midnight. The brochures do not mention that the same thing can happen on the way back. We were lucky; there were more people arriving than leaving when we left, so the Twin Otters could take the baggage. The people leaving a day earlier lost their baggage to the boat transfer at the midnight before they left.

The hotel does not hold lunch for late arrivals, so you can be 18 hours without food on the way out.

You can end up being delivered back to Male airport at 8m in the morning for a flight at 4pm in the afternoon (if it goes on time).

The seaplane transfer is fantastic. Cramped (though not much worse than the Air Bus), noisy (they issue earplugs on departure, but make sure they are kept for the return), but absolutely marvellous. I want a Twin Otter for Christmas!

All water activities (except swimming) are charged in addition to the "all inclusive" price.

The package plebs part of the Island is definitely not four star. I would say three. The rooms are large, with large beds, two showers, a hot one in and a cold one out, a ceiling fan that blows you out of the door (and is too fast to run at night,) A/C and a bum washing hose (some people assume these are for washing sand off feet, so public loos can get a bit awash)! But no 4 star bits like a bath, TV and/or sound system (thank goodness) etc. The rooms are paired in bungalows and sound travels between them. Although the dividing wall is blockwork, the soffit boards at eaves level are just that; board. The first night we had drunken, puking, argumentative neighbours, and we requested a move, which was carried out the next day. The hotel did offer to move the neighbours instead as they were staff, but we accepted a room half in the water on the wilder side of the island.

Food is served buffet style, with a lot of instant cooking in the restaurant. Flambe and flames everywhere, even at breakfast, where the guy running three pans at a time making omelette's was a master. There is a lot of it, and generally it is good, sometimes very good, and only on one night, it was not so good. The service set up avoids long queues. Waiters bring drinks and clear dishes quickly. Dinner was themed each night, and they really pushed the boat out on Halloween. The choice of food is good; including different meats, curries, fish (you have to like Tuna in all its forms) and salads. Salads were a bit basic and monotonous, but this is to be expected, as everything has to come in from abroad. Fresh tropical fruit was not too abundant for the same reason. Never saw a hint of a mango. The only bad point was there were no juices, only sickly squashes. The house wine was drinkable. If you want lobster and shell fish you will have to shell out up to $100 a head in the specialist restaurant.

Even though the sides of the restaurant are open (when it is not raining), and it has a high pitched roof, it varied from hot and stuffy to smoky and suffocating (all that flamb work), as the architect had obviously goofed off during lessons on ventilation. A few simple ridge vents would sort it all out.

The bar was also rather airless for the same reason (and the cure would be as simple). All inclusive drinks were served until midnight. Snacks served in the afternoon and late in the evening. There was always a rush for the comfortable chairs. The bar had a small TV tuned to football, and showed movies during the day on a big screen when it was raining. It carried a few books and lots of board games. There is a bar on the windward side, but that stops serving "all inclusive" drinks at 6pm in the evening.

The Disco was a solid block building, so no noise got out to disturb those sleeping nearby. The A/C was turned down to freezing and the "music" up to deafening, both being the norm for such establishments I am told.

Evening entertainment was (thankfully) limited to the house two-piece combo, with weekly crab racing (if they could find enough crabs), and occasional karaoke, which was generally ignored. After a few gins and rums (amongst the guests) it became possible for some to dance to the combo!

The swimming pool is not that big, but it was never crowded (too much sea). It has gently sloping ends, which is ideal for youngsters. A big minus round the pool was that there were no mats on the plastic sun loungers. One can understand this around the beaches (it does rain a bit), but not around the pool.

A lot of the time there was a smell of burnt plastic around the Reception, pool, bar and nearby areas of beach. I was assured by the management that this was not from burning but from their large compactor, in which they crush the plastic trash and tin cans. This machine seems to work 24 hours a day, and we did get the impression that a large boat full of plastic trash from other islands or resorts turned up once a week. It would hang around the dock for a day before being unloaded in the small hours by a team imported from the nearby inhabited island. Trash is a big problem in the Maldives. "Rubbish Island" is clearly visible on Google Earth just off Male.

But, boy, did they keep the place clean. Beaches, sand pathways, everything, all swept clean overnight. Large earthenware ashtrays, like jardini re stands, are set along all paths and on the north, leeward, side beaches. And to help keep sand out of the rooms, each room has a large bowl of water by the door for washing feet.

The leeward side beaches were wide, white and clean and calm. The windward side was also clean, but the island, like all Maldivian islands, is subject to erosion on the windward side. The islands are constantly on the move regardless of the man made bits attached to them. So we ended up in a room that had sea on two sides, with the balcony facing west into the sunset (and the prevailing wind), from which one could watch fish in the shallows. On moving into the room, the first thing we saw was a (smallish) shark rounding up a shoal of pipe fish. Small rays flopped past from time to time, and whenever we went into the water, a crowd of fish just swam along with us. Jellyfish are supposed to not populate the atolls, but one very impressive specimen was washed up under our balcony. We never heard of anyone getting caught by one, so maybe it was dead long before it came over the reef.

The house reef surrounds the island between about 25 M. and 100 M. off-shore. Water is crystal clear (except immediately after the cyclones), and teeming with life on both sides of the reef. You do not have to dive or even snorkel to watch fish by the bucket load. Even the little pool just off our room, formed behind a groyne, had its own small Moray.

The hotel operates a few chargeable, but reasonably priced excursions to go on day or night fishing, visiting a local inhabited and uninhabited islands, and a romantic day for two marooned on a deserted island. We tried that one, and one ended up with a large dohi boat for the day, with a tender and crew of three, sun loungers (with mats this time), a hamper of food and cool box of (non-alcoholic) drink, both sufficient for a small army and a beach brolly. It was hot, so it could have done with a couple of brollies. After dropping us and the supplies, the boat lay off a couple of miles, and then it was just us on a 10 acre island. Us and the plastic rubbish. Wherever one goes in the world, there is plastic rubbish. It would be nice for the hotel to clear this trash off maybe once every two or three years. It would take a gang of three a couple of days and we would not be averse to paying a "clean up" supplement to the trip to cover the cost.

The excitement on the deserted island was provided by a rather aggressive ray with about a 6 foot span and a 6 foot tail, who seemed to own the waters behind the reef, and who would come steaming up when he heard us in the water. Luckily it was so clear one could spot him a way off and retreat to the shallows where he would sit for a minute or two in about 18 inches of water, before flapping off again. OK, he rather curtailed swimming (we being cowards in his element), but it was worth that to watch him.

Guests were a mixture, and generally a friendly bunch aged from 10 weeks to over 80, and from all walks of life. The predominant group was the British, followed by Russians and then one or two from here, there and everywhere.

The people who made it a great holiday were the staff. Lots of them (though one person we met who had been there before reckoned there were fewer than there used to be, and said the place had gone downhill, though what any more would do is a mystery to me) and all made one feel welcome. They would do anything they could to make one's stay pleasant, come rain or shine. Good people.

This for me was the best holiday I've ever had. It was our first trip to Meedhupparu in the Maldives but it met all expectations. All the staff were friendly and very helpful nothing was to much trouble. The food was great, a different theme every night, so there was plenty of choice, with snacks in the main bar. Most drinks were available on the all inclusive, except cocktails which were only $3. A nice big pool which over looked the sea and it was kept really clean, as well as the rest of the island. Our room was right on the beach, which was only a few steps into the crystal clear sea. I would recommend it to anyone considering Meedhupparu. You won't be disappointed.

When we arrived in the Maldives we were surprised by how remote it was, and the lovely sandy beaches and the perfect blue sea. Even though it was the monsoon period, we only saw rain on a couple of occasions, and this didn't spoil our holiday in any way whatsoever.

The staff were brilliant and very helpful. Our room attendant was fantastic, and he made pretty patterns on our bed, and he often made pictures using flowers. We didn't have to share a table in the restaurant, and if we did, who cares? It's nice to make friends and talk to people. There were no Italians on the island; mainly English holiday makers.

I loved the place, and I couldn't really fault it. We stayed in the water villa for the last night, and it was a bit noisy form the disco for a chefs birthday, otherwise it was paradise and I was sad to go home. I'm thinking of taking a career break and going to the islands again to help teach in the schools.

Staff were attentive and friendly. You did not have to chase a waiter as another critic claimed. The only things which you had to pay for were cocktails, which at 3 dollars a time was no great hardship. Drinks from the mini bar and the spa, oh and wine, which I did disagree with.

Since we went off season there was not much in the way of entertainment, but if I may suggest, if you need to have your entertainment provided, you are on the wrong type of holiday.

A really good value for money holiday. We came home relaxed and refreshed and ready to face anything the world could throw at us. The food was good and varied, and the staff could not be faulted in any respect.