Serene D.
Google
We are NH fans having lived in Spain, and from the time we were transferred to their representative at Male Airport, we were in good hands. I was hesitant about traveling to the Southern Atolls, but the discount on transfers and the allure of a less crowded resort helped seal the deal.
We had an Over Water Villa (they had 60 OW and 60 Beach) and I appreciated that we were not too far from the mainland. Not too keen on having to call for a buggy, and when it was raining cats and dogs it was helpful to be able to rush back to our room quickly.
The villa was lovely and very comfortable, with a half outdoor bathroom giving us options between indoor outdoor showers as well as a bathtub. The green tea bath products were standard (had the same at NH Colombo the week before) and nice, though I still prefer Occitane or Nuxe. Surprisingly there were no bugs in the bathroom, though when it rained almost everything would be wet.
The bed was so comfortable and I really appreciated the Nespresso machine as we spent almost all our time in the room. The water was beautiful and clear, we loved admiring it from the bed. The tides were either high or low, the reef was nearby, but you could see the strong currents so we tried to be careful and only swim during low tide - not ideal for visiting the corals. You could see sharks and other fish swimming past and just under the stairs of the villa there were house fishes because of the algae and plant life. We borrowed snorkeling gear from the friendly Filipina at dive centre, but had to cancel the only scheduled guided snorkeling tour because it rained just before. We also didn’t kayak as it was either too sunny or it was raining.
They clean the room twice a day, but we only asked for housekeeping in the evening during dinner. Were supposed to get a bottle of wine as welcome gift, but it was Prosecco instead so we didn’t drink it. We took half board as we figured we had nowhere to go to and should not consume more calories than we could spend.
The staff in this resort were so friendly and nice. We were welcomed by Dewi from Bali at our first dinner and both she and her colleagues made a point to remember our preferences for simple things like coffee and water. The buffet was to our liking as we love Indian cuisine and there was always Indian food in the buffet and of a good standard too. Appreciated the daily dal, the basmati rice, fresh naan, thosai, only missing paratha. However there could be more vegetables like okra or cauliflower. I don’t eat tuna so I was a bit suspicious of the fish they served in the buffet, you almost never get to see a whole fish. Italian section not attractive to us who live in Italy.
For the large number of Chinese tourists present I was surprised that there were only beef dumplings every evening. We stayed 2 nights at Kurumba after the NH and I have to say that they had a more varied buffet though their Indian food offering was not as good.
We had a destination dinner on the beach which was amazing. Only sad thing was it started drizzling which stressed out our sweet waiter who put in so much effort to decorate for our meal. The Wagyu carpaccio, meat and seafood platters were generous and delicious.
I wished we had gone to the pool more often as it was beautiful. So nice we decided to order lunch to extend our time there. There was no pressure to consume and staff would bring us cold water if we asked for it. The lunch menu was quite nice and the food tasty, enjoyed the Maldivian beef tacos.
Grateful it was low season and there were not too many screaming kids around.
As for the spa, official prices were ridiculously high - and then you arrived to 40% discounts but had not planned to have any and forgot about it. A pity as we visited the spa almost every day when we were in Colombo.
We had an amazing stay at NH Havodda. Just a little hiccup at departure as our luggage was not picked up on time and we started panicking. Other than that this was a well-managed and maintained resort, totally recommend.
