Review: St. Regis Maldives Overwater Villa

Ben - I hate to provide a correction, but the room that you had is actually called the "Overwater St. Regis Suite," which is different than the "Overwater villa" and "Overwater sunset villa." Specifically, it appears that the main differences are size in terms of your suite having a larger living area, the dining table, second bathroom and a wall between the living area and bedroom area. Finishes styling etc are all the same.

Was this booked on points or rate?

Lucky, I love your blog, but please!! you should do something to improve your photography quality. The Points Guy had outstanding pics of this villa, yours make it look pretty bad.

Like Patrick, I would like to know if this was booked with points, points + cash, or cash?

Lucky - you're very fortunate to be able to travel the way you do and stay the places you do. I know this is a very open-ended question but if you stayed on points, how in the world do you accumulate so many frigging points to stay at all the places you stay?? I mean, every well runs dry after a while.

Looks stunning. But am I the only one that prefers a beachfront villa over an overwater villa? I'd rather be able to walk out to a nice sandy beach than just be over water and have a long jetty to walk/ride everytime you want to go somewhere.

Eric is spot on -- you were put in a St. Regis Suite.

@ CJ & Patrick: Lucky said in a prior post:

"When the hotel first opened they allowed redemptions for 26,000 Starpoints for overwater villas for a very brief period, which is a great deal. I made a few reservations using this deal, but canceled all but one."

@Bill - thank you. I missed that.

@Marcos TPG had a professional photography crew on site...I'm sure Lucky's pics would have been that good had he had one too.

@Bill -- still unanswered though, as far as I've seen, was whether this jump to an Overwater St. Regis Suite was a complimentary upgrade, a paid upsell, or something else?

"only a small percentage of rooms are overwater villas, and often require a big upcharge. In the case of the St. Regis Maldives, the resort has a total of 77 rooms, and about two thirds of them are overwater"

~66% isn't a small percentage...

I just returned from 5 nights at the St. Regis on Monday. I was booked into a "Overwater Villa" but received a complementary upgrade to "Sunset Overwater villa." Prior to arrival the hotel attempted to get me to commit to paying $350 per night for this upgrade. I will also say when I checked into the resort on 3/8 the occupancy was 37% so I would have expected a free upgrade easy to come by. The hotel seems to have a variety of policies on upgrades. We met one couple paying for their stay who booked into a beach villa and felt it was too small so asked the hotel to be moved to a bigger room. The hotel offered them the Overwater St. Regis Suite (same as Ben highligted above) but asked them to pay a $350 per night upgrade fee.

@Marcos: Lucky's candid photos (probably an iphone) are WAY more helpful and useful than professional camera shoots that end up getting edited and touched up and might as well be given from the hotel PR media team

@Rakesh, reading comprehension is essential. Lucky said "At many resorts in the Maldives,..."

It looks really, really gorgeous! I also can't believe hotels put that kind of TVs in their rooms, those look like Bang & Olufsen that retail for $10-15k a piece...

@JF For crude pics you can always check tripadvisor, plenty of bad photography there.

Being low quality does not make a photo closer to reality. The shots on this review and TPG's are pretty similar, but TPG's have better light, color, focus and quality overall, allowing me to be able to judge the property better.

Take for example the photo of the closet here and at TPG, they were shot almost from the same perspective and place, but the difference is as clear as the ocean in Maldives:
#_ga=1.250741638.1067348869.1487953403
?zoom=2&resize=774%2C516&ssl=1

I just would like to see better pics next to the top notch reviews Lucky does. There is no need of a photo crew, there are plenty of small portable cameras nowadays that take nice pics with little effort, although a class in photography might help as well 🙂

Amazing. One of the best hotels I have ever seen. It's time for me to save up points, going to the Maldives in August but not at the St Regis, might be able to make time for a stopover though

What we all really want to know, like others have said, is how did you say there? Points, pointd & cash, or cash? I think it's a little unfair to Jesus with this blog and then not tell us how you staying there.

We read these blogs to learn things and have aspirations of our own. Showing me the pictures is nice but it doesn't really help me stategize on how to get there.

Can you delete my last post. Too many typos!! Ugh. Just tell us how you got there!!

Was very curious to read this, having stayed at W Maldives recently (which I loved!) - how was the service overall?

Stupid question - did they remove the face wash? We were recently at St Regis Langkawi and they didn't have any (they did find it after 3 days and only 1 bottle which was enough for the stay, though). Was one of the things I was looking forward to! After that stay, we bought the st Regis pillows (on property) and pillowcases, and we love it. This week I ordered the rest of the bedding as it is so so good! But still kept my Sofitel featherbed as it's second to none 😉

Did you get any sun during your stay? Weather in the Maldives has been a bit touch and go!

How was the air conditioning? I know it can be inefficient at some over-water bungalows at other resorts.

@ Steven -- Had no issues whatsoever with the AC, which I agree can be an issue at other resorts.

@ @mrsoaroundworld -- Service was much better than I've experiences in the Maldives in the past. It still wasn't quite to the level you'd get in Bali or Fiji, for example, but was very good. As far as the face wash goes, that's a good point, don't think I saw it here. Lucky you for getting all the bedding, there's no better way to sleep!

Ben, do you worry about Zika? We were planning on staying at this hotel, and then on to Bali, but didn't end up booking it due to Zika.

Thanks for a great review Ben! I was there just after opening last year and loved it. But one of the things I loved best was the iPad room control - I live in hotels and it was so WONDERFUL not to have to play "hunt the light switch/TV remote" - don't tell me they took them out???!!!!

Also one comment about the Remede toiletries which surprised me when I was there - doesn't the body wash (not the face soufflé) contain the little plastic scrubbing beads that kill marine life?
I meant to mention it to the lovely GM Mark but forgot.

Lucky, you mentioned that it was your third time staying at overwater villas, beside the Park Hyatt Maldives, which other overwater villas did you stayed?

I did a French Polynesia island hopping over the New Year and stayed at islands (Huahine, Tahaa, and Tikehau) that people probably unheard of outside the points and miles world but I preferred those Polynesian styled overwater bungalows than those modernized overwater villas 🙂

Speaking of how to take good vacation photos, check out my travel blog at: https://missvacation.wordpress.com

@Bob, while the CDC confirms that Zika is a risk in the Maldives, the only effects are to pregnant women, so I can't imagine it concerned Ben or Ford much. 🙂 If your traveling companion is pregnant or might become pregnant, you'd be wise to avoid it for the time being.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/alert/zika-virus-maldives

Ben, can you detail how this was booked? I thought that was a big part of your reviews.

I agree with MissVaction about liking the overwater suites in French Polynesia better. I recently stayed in an overwater suite at the Intercontinental Thalasso in Bora Bora and I must say compared to the St. Regis Maldives it was a lot more private when you went out the deck. They looked a lot more tropical outside but the inside was just as modern.

@Eric W.

Inaccurate. Zika has been shown to have adverse effects on males as well.

That said, hotels in MLE, including the SR, actively fog for mosquitoes, and if I recall, there was only a single case in MLE and that person was not proven to be infected there.

@Luis - I agree. Much prefer a beach villa than anything overwater. While at Conrad Maldives we had a beach villa to start with we were given a comp upgrade to one of the overwater villas (forget exactly which) & I much preferred the beach villa simply coz I got a better sleep without hearing the distant ocean waves crashing on the edge of the atoll.

It seems there is little privacy for these villa, when there villas look directly onto your deck. Also the pool could be on the edge for infinity pool instead. The lack of privacy of these villas for me is the deal breaker for a Maldives vacation.

Lucky, you really need to correct what you refer to this room by in your article. This is the "St. Regis Overwater Suite", not the "Overwater Villa w/ Pool" category, not to mention this room is a $600/night upgrade over the "Overwater Villa w/ Pool". The smaller room doesn't include a wine bar or an outdoor gazebo. It is also nearly 1,000 square feet smaller.

The St. Regis Overwater Suite could be redeemed for 90K points/night back in August 2016 (what I did), but this room category is no longer redeemable via points.