Part 5 – Food & Activities

In part 4 of this trip report, I gave you a tour of the island and showed you the different villa types.  In this part, I’ll explain the dining options, activities, and entertainment.

As a refresher, here is a  map of the island:

  • A – arrival open air area –
  • B – lounge area
  • C – gift shop, library, 24 hour ‘front’ desk office
  • D – The Dining room (breakfast, lunch, & dinner)
  • E – The Bar
  • F – Blue Journey (dive center, snorkeling gear pickup, excursions)
  • G – Spa
  • H – The Island Grill (dinner)
  • I & J – Fitness Center/Yoga
  • 1 thru 37 – Park Villa & Park Pool Villa (we stayed in #25)
  • 38-44 – Park Water Villa
  • 45-51 – Park Sunset Water Villa (we stayed in #50)

 

Breakfast

The main restaurant is ‘The Dining Room’ – letter D on the map above.  It is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  This is the place we received our complimentary breakfast for being Diamond members.  I loved this view every morning at breakfast.

The Dining Room

The Dining Room

The breakfast consisted of a choice of two menu items along with a buffet.  The menu included eggs, waffles, pancakes, along with a selection of asian dishes.  My go to dish was the wok noodles with either the french toast or eggs.

 

Cappuccino

Cappuccino

 

Buffet options

Buffet options

 

Wok Noodles

Wok Noodles

We would usually eat breakfast around 10am.  We probably over indulged in breakfast – it was very good. We were never hungry for lunch but would start to get a little hungry around 6 or 7 pm since we skipped lunch.

Happy Hour

Another benefit of being a Hyatt Diamond member was that an evening cocktail and canapes were included each night at ‘The Bar’.  It was called a Sundowner.  This was one of my favorite things to do each day – hang out at the bar area and enjoy a cocktail with beautiful scenery.

Sundowner Cocktails

Sundowner Cocktails

 

Sundowner Canapes

Sundowner Canapes

 

Dinner

Since we stuffed ourselves at breakfast and had the Sundowner cocktails and canapes – we weren’t overly hungry for dinner (probably because we did nothing during the day).  The Dining Room was open for dinner along with a second restaurant called ‘The Island Grill’.  The Island Grill would be open if they didn’t have a special Beach BBQ or Beach Seafood buffet setup.  The other two options for dinner were room service or The Bar.

We mostly just ate at the Bar each night – they had smaller plate food – burgers, mini pizzas, fish-n-chips, etc.  Our bills were usually between $55-$80 for a light dinner.  We ate once at the Dining Room, it was fine and a little more expensive than the Bar – I got a kung pao chicken dish and my wife had a soup – the bill was a little over $100.

Our host kept suggesting the Beach BBQ or Seafood buffet which were really expensive, $150-$200 per person.  Frankly we weren’t hungry enough to eat a big buffet of food again at night so we skipped these.  We did order room service our last night in the overwater villa so we could watch the sunset.  The room service menu was basically the Dining Room’s menu.

 

Amenities

A few other nice touches that Hyatt provided included:

Arrival Fruit & Snacks

Arrival Fruit & Snacks

 

Arrival Champagne

Arrival Champagne

 

They also surprised us with a cake, champagne and a romantic bubble bath in the outdoor tub for our 15 year anniversary.

 

Surprise Anniversary Cake

Surprise Anniversary Cake

 

Surprise Anniversary Bubble Bath

Surprise Anniversary Bubble Bath

One other thing not to be missed is the manager’s reception.  Each Saturday from 6-7pm, there is a manager’s reception on the beach.  There are complimentary cocktails and canapes along with some local entertainment – Maldivian dancers.  It was fun, they encourage all guests to attend and the drinks are free flowing – I think I had 4 in the hour.  The lady serving us even made sure to bring one last drink to be before they closed the makeshift beach bar.

Manager's Cocktail Reception

Manager’s Cocktail Reception

Activities

There were a few scheduled activities available including:

  • Complimentary yoga classes – never made it to these
  • Dive shop with fishing and diving excursions – didn’t do, not really our thing
  • Fitness center – walked by it, but that’s about it
  • Spa – we went to the spa twice for extended treatments (2 hours one time and 3 hours the second time) – the treatments were very very good and about the same price you would pay in Las Vegas.  It was a little over $700 + tip for the 10 hours of treatments.  We also lounged at the spa pool (spa in background) one day, we had the whole area to ourselves.
Spa Pool Area

Spa Pool Area

  • Back of house tour – a few times a week, the head engineer provides a back of house tour so you can see how they generate electricity, filter sea water, store food, see where employees eat and live, etc.  It was a neat tour to take, I highly recommend it.
Back of house

Back of house

 

Back of house

Back of house

  • Pool, snorkeling, and watching sunsets – we did these every day!  The dive shop provides complimentary snorkeling mask and fins that you keep for your entire stay.

Sunset

Sunset

Night Life / Entertainment

None.

Wrap Up

While the food is expensive (along with everything else, a 3oz banana boat sunscreen bottle was $40 in the gift shop), being a Diamond member (now called Globalist with the new World of Hyatt program) really has it’s advantages with complimentary breakfast, cocktails, and snacks.  Letting Hyatt know you are celebrating something special also brought a few unexpected surprises.  And the spa was amazing.

If you are looking for a quiet relaxing vacation while being disconnected from the world – this is your place.  You can’t leave this place feeling anything but rested and relaxed.


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