Razvan D
We just returned from our holiday to South Palm, as previously reading a lot of reviews from the other travellers we wanted to share our thoughts with you, good and bad.
||We booked our holiday thru BlueBayTravel (please check notes at the end if you’re thinking to book with them)
||For a quick summary here are some notes:
||Overall: 7/10. We’ll go back? Probably No (The world is so big and you have so many choices, so why limit. Plus getting there it is a bit tiring, maybe choose something closer to Male, without the need for a flight connection, maybe only a speedboat)
||- Room: 7/10|- View from the room : 10/10|- Cleanliness: 10/10|- Services / Staff: 10/10|- Food: 9/10|- Restaurant: 6/10|- Atmosphere: 6/10|- Bar: 7/10|- Romantic: 5/10|- SPA: 8/10|- Pool: 9/10|- Price/quality: 8/10
||I will start with the positives:
||- Staff is great, they are trying to make you feel as comfortable as possible, we are a very low maintenance couple, not fussy at all. We had only one request for our stay, to have a table in the restaurant next to the window, once we requested that, we had it. Thank you Salman, Saif, Arif, and all of you who made sure we’re had a good time||- The view from the room (we stayed in 206, Palm Villa) is absolutely perfect, and we think from all the other types of the villas the Palm Beach ones (numbers with 2XX) are the best. And access to the beach.||- Food is great, the selection of the cuisines and the quality is good. Depends of course of everyone expectations, but as a foodie lover, when I’m going to a different country I just want to try more of the local food than the food that I’m used at home. I uploaded more food pics, because I think current photos don’t do justice to the choices the restaurant offers.
||For example there is the pasta bar, where they can cook pasta’s on requirements as you wish. I haven’t used that for the entire week, so I cannot say how good it is, but I’m sure it will be fine.
We mainly ate dishes from local cuisine, from curries to soups, which I was very satisfied to try. No complains at all. As you will see in the pics uploaded, we have tried a lot of dishes.
||We’ve seen previously a few reviews where the people were complain about the food and choices. For us, in Jan 2024 I couldn’t disagree more, there are choices for everyone. The only part which I thing is not as great are the deserts, but hey, it’s South India, not France :)
||- The water activities are great, we went to see the dolphins and for snorkeling. Cannot recommend both of them highly enough.||- If you want to stay at the pool, it is really nice, very relaxing.||- For us it was amazing to see for the first time (live, not on TV) the hermit crabs. They are absolutely amazing, it’s such a delight to watch them. We spent hours looking at the small creatures :)))||- SPA is good, we had the balinese massage.
||- Sky in the nighttime is mind-blowing.
|||What can be improved, I will not say negatives, but definitely some things would make the stay there more enjoyable:||- Aircon in the restaurant. I know that we all go there for sun and hot weather, and this is what you get, but it is hard to eat when you’re continuously sweating (I know, it’s Asia, you’ll not find too many aircon’s in the restaurants, but lunch was certainly an uncomfortable meal and we felt we could not fully enjoy the food because it simply was too hot inside.||- Lights. This is one big issue, after the sunset (6.30pm ish), it’s so dark everywhere, from outside of the restaurant, bar, reception, to the walkways and back of the rooms. There is just way too little to no light, you need to use your phone light to not step on the cute little hermit crabs which are everywhere and to see where you’re going.
||Adding solar powered lights especially outside of the rooms around the trees where now there is only one very very weak wall light would create a more pleasant ambiance and would make it relaxing to stay out of the room on the swing or the sun lounges but after sunset it is completely dark.
||On the bar area will improve the atmosphere a lot putting some candle lights on the tables… I’m sure most of the guests of the resort are couples, and this would will improve create a more intimate/romantic atmosphere||- Bathroom to be closed off for 2 reasons: |
1) my wife uses some face products but when you have the bathroom outside and you’re sweating it will be hard to apply them on your skin. |
2) privacy window between room and bathroom that is completely transparent - a shutter would help and would also keep the room dark after sunrise if you want to sleep in after sunrise (6am ish), personally I cannot sleep if there is light in the room.||- Mirror in the room. I’m sure most ladies will have a mirror in their home to see how they dressed up or whatever, will be a good addition. Even a small one.||The trip started not as great for us as our plane was delayed for an hour (landed 10.30am instead of 9.40 am) and we missed the connection flight in Male (11.50am). The hotel representative meet us and she asked why we are late, because we just missed the flight… (well… I’m not flying the airplane, it is out of my hand, not something that we could do).. and she said: ok, I have put you on the 23.30 flight to Gan… I thought it isn’t a great start at all… over 12h to wait in the airport and being questioned why the flight was delayed after an 11 hours long flight. Not the best start to an expensive holiday and we did not feel very welcome, there was a very strong lack of courtesy and respect to a paying customer.
||She managed to book us on the next flight (16.45) but it was really stressful and we didn’t know if we’ll be boarding that or not until 16.15 after the checkin for the flight was over. ||In the end we got at the resort at 8pm in complete darkness but I think they need to handle this better with the airline, because I’m sure it is not the only flight that was a bit late. So we basically missed the whole first day of our holiday.||Our biggest issue is that there was no provision in place to reassure us that we will be helped to get to the hotel in the shortest time possible and we had the feeling that nobody cared about our comfort.||Again, we really are very low maintenance reasonable people however after an 11+ hours long flight getting out from the plane in 28C+ our weak European bodies started to sweat instantly and we felt light headed and very keen to get to a shower asap. ||We were not offered any complementary refreshments and a bottled water in the airport costs $6.5 and an expresso is $4 - this is a comment for the travel agency as we bought a package and it would be good practice to have contingency plans to deal with delays and make sure clients feel valued and not blamed about things completely out of their control. ||Taking responsibility for the experience you sell and caring about how people feel after they pay your fees is good customer service and makes people come back, not the case here.
||To leave the resort for our return was crazy… the flight from Male was at 11.30am, but we left the resort just before 3am. Absolutely bonkers - we had to wake up at 1.30am.||
You’d think that if you’re paying extra for direct flights from London to Male, instead of having another stop over extra it will get you there (and back) in a lot less time that over 24 hours, not over 24-28h.
||That’s a big issue and you are not aware about time schedule of the internal flights (BlueBayTravel it's saying only "domestic transfer", but no timings).
If you plan to go there, go for 10 days, not only 7.| |It’s just not enough when you’re spending so much time on the trips/connections/airports.||
We booked the holiday thru BlueBayTravel. First time for us using them. I’m not sure if it was only one time, but it was a very strange experience booking it online as you can’t complete the booking and pay for the holiday online as the price on the website is not final and is subject to change.
||After choosing the dates, flights, etc normally you’ll just pay online. No, got a message that they will contact me for the reservation.
||When they did, after a couple hours they told me the price increased from £3467 (around that amount it was showed on the listing) to over £3700 (for 2 adults).||
After a few conversations with them, a lot of time spent on the phone, they “discounted” it to £3667. So that’s £200 extra for nothing, just cheeky with the prices.
||Even checking the price second day on the website, or a few days or a couple weeks after the price showed was still the £3467, NOT £3667. So, misleading prices, not “there are not the live prices that we see in our system”. Not ok for a big travel company. That’s false advertising.||Many thanks to the Virgin cabin crew, they were very friendly and helpful and made the flight very pleasant and comfortable.||All in all, this was a pleasant getaway for a few days from the cold UK January weather but travel wise things did not go smoothly and to have this happen when you’re so far away from home is not a good start for a holiday, professionalism could be much improved in this respect and perhaps more training to staff when it comes to greeting clients and dealing with unforeseen situations.
