Meeru Maldives Resort Island

Meeru Waterfront Villa #527 We travelled to Meeru with friends to fulfil my burning desire since the 90’s to holiday at Meeru. In April 2022 we stayed with friends at Kuredu in the Sangu Jacuzzi Beach Villias which was like heaven on earth and a holiday of a lifetime. It stole a piece of our hearts so was very open minded about our holiday at Meeru as didn’t want our Maldivian memories to be shattered. I can honestly say from the bottom of my heart Meeru far surpassed anything I’d dare to dream it would be. Meeru is paradise, it was everything and more than we could have ever dreamed off. Sheer Bliss, everything and more than you could possibly want from a holiday in the Maldives or indeed anywhere in the world. From booking with Emirate via Hays Travel in April and communicating with the Island our request to be beach neighbours with our friends due to personal reasons disclosed to the hotel and operator, the hotel staff were truly amazing and extremely attentive to our request and needs. Outstanding levels of communication from the reservations team. After some research we requested villas 526 and 527, the hotel promptly noted our request and explained no guarantees but would do everything they could to ensure our stay was memorable and comfortable. We arrived into Male at 8.00am on 5th June, by 8.30am greeted by Emirate meet n greet who guided us to the Meeru desk. We’d completed our online check in on the app so just had one form to complete and hand in to reception on arrival at the Island. We were given bottled water and our room allocation, 526 and 527, we were overcome with joy and excitement, our dreams where already starting to be fulfilled, especially after our long intense flight from Manchester. We’d just under an hours wait in the very humid airport, no private air conditioned lounge like we had for our Kuredu sea plane transfer. But we were so excited to have the villas we had requested the time flew by and we boarded the boat at 9.39am. Our boat transfer took around an hour and was smooth, we were told to leave the water at the airport as we’d be given fresh cold water on board, which didn’t happen. We were greeted and given connection to Meeru WiFi which was a wonderful touch being able to let family know back home we’d arrived safely. Our arrival at the Island at 10.38am seeing the sheer beauty of the Island, the welcoming team playing, our safe arrival etc, I was overcome with emotion and couldn’t hold back the tears of relief and joy. We were given a cold drink and cold flannel. Check in took place at 10.45am and was very informative by Ibreham aka “Barry” as he became known to us, what a friendly fantastic guy he is, a credit to the Meeru team. By 11.10am we were in a buggy and on route to our homes for the next 21 days which took minutes to get to. On arrival at 527 at 11.18am, what I could see was everything and more than I’d ever dared to dream it would be. Opening the door onto the veranda and seeing the view was breathtaking. Whilst my husband rested after the long journey I wanted to unpack and get settled into our “home” for the next few weeks. There was a shortage of coat hangers with staying 20 nights so called reception who organised more to be delivered to our room. I’d highly recommend Meeru to anyone especially the Waterfront Villa AI Dine Around. AI Dine Around is not just about alcohol as I’ve seen many posts on social media, it’s being able to dine at the À la carte restaurants once a day as well as the additional free activities and alcohol. To us it was worth it alone just for the restaurant upgrade. From memory it was around £80 to £85 pppd upgrade from FB. We truly enjoyed dining out daily at the Asian Wok, Vilu, A-Mare and Reef. What a fantastic experience seeing the sunset at the Asian Wok as well as seeing the beauty of the ocean whilst lunching there. Vilu and A-Mare are in the same location but provide two different menus and experiences served by friendly, knowledgeable staff who are extremely attentive and knowledgeable. We were allocated the Maalan adults only buffet restaurant and allocated our table for all our dining during our stay at this table in the Maalan. We were asked for our preference on table and happy with the location in the corner by the shutter doors with a fantastic view. Aaffin was our waiter and on our anniversary went above and beyond with table decorations and service as we’d chosen to dine in there as it was Vegetarian theme and close to the Uthuru Bar where we were watching the sunset with chilled music. I am a vegetarian and allergic to shellfish and every restaurant could not do enough to ensure I ate safely and had delicious meals. The head chef in the Maalan restaurant did point out which vegetarian foods not to select due to the possibility of cross contamination, I did notice on the next couple of visits that meats / fish and vegan / vegetarian cold foods had been separated but then went back to previous layouts. We loved Kuredu but Meeru was another level, yes Kuredu ✅ was greater for the toilets, they always smelt so fresh, Meerus were clean but that little extra touch made a difference. I did like the hand flannels for hand drying at Meeru and the automatic doors in some of the toilets. Kuredu had plug in mosquitoe smelly in your room, which helped keep them at bay, Meeru provided a can spray which we regularly used plus I’d brought our own plug ins thankfully as mosquitos were very active for most of our visit. The island some days did “smoke” them twice a day but not everyday. Breakfast finished a little early for us at 10am but that was fine as we loved the lattes at Vilu, best on the island we thought and we’d either have brunch at Vilu or mostly at Dhoni. Bista at Vilu was extremely attentive, going above and beyond for us, she has outstanding customer service skills. She would see us arriving on a morning and our lattes and my sparking water would be served to my husband and I. Bista also served us on our first visit to the Asian Wok and cannot speak highly enough of her attentiveness to ensure I was served food like the other three. On all our visits to the Vilu and A-Mare Bista would organise an avocado starter for me, which only the Asian Wok serves. Attention to detail and memory was also her strong points, we’d definitely recommend her for employee of the week, month if Meeru offer such a scheme incentive for staff. Other members of Meeru customer facing team who helped make our holiday perfect and who we believe should be recognised by Meeru for their customer service skills are Sandhye and Ni Luh at Vilu and A-Mare. Sachini at Uthuru Bar, Ahmed and Austin at Dhoni, Jailsm at Asian Wok and Aaffin at Maalan they are all a credit to Meeru. Viam our room person was also attentive noting we weren’t early risers so didn’t come knocking early doors when he did our friends villa whilst they were at breakfast. I had a couple of accidents bumping into the wooden Sunbeds on the verandas causing bleeding to my legs as I easily bleed, I left a note for Viam apologising for blood marks, he left a beautiful elephant and note wishing me well, extremely thoughtful. We appreciate it’s not only the customer facing staff that made our stay so perfect it was a team effort from everyone and gave to say the chefs / kitchen staff at the Vilu / A-Mare always had a friendly smile when we passed and the kitchens were spotless. On our last evening it was lovely that the supervisor came out to introduce himself to us. It was also a nice touch at the Asian Wok the chef coming to the table and believe the same happened at the Reef when my hubby and friend ate there. We celebrated our 46th anniversary at Meeru and Aaffin, Viam and hotel management ensured our day and evening was magical, a massive thank you from the bottom of our hearts, bed art, bubbly, fruit, chocolates in the room as well as dinning table display and bottle of our choice with our evening meal from the management. As much as we really appreciated everything, we said to fully enjoy the bed art and room gifts on the event day it would be lovely to have them during the day rather than when returning to the villa at the end of the evening, just a small note as the bed art was truly spectacular and we didn’t want to spoil it. Oh and not forgetting the famous “Barry” who always checked up on us when seeing us. But every member of staff we interacted with from reception to cleaners, grounds people etc were extremely happy in their roles and we could see the excellent facilities Meeru management provided for them. It really was pleasing to see how well cared for staff were which clearly reflected in their happy and content personas. We like that staff quarters and facilities were visible to all. I walked round the island daily at least once a day without stopping other than to take photos or videos, with the exception of one day. Over the 21 days the coastline around the island totally changed as well changing from morning to afternoon walks. It was reassuring to see that parts of the coastline that had been hit hard disappearing and palms left with exposed roots were being backfilled with sand and supported. With this in mind one persons stay and opinion of the coastline to another’s at different times of the month never mind year will vary vastly. We also found only small areas of the island where the sand was flour like and you definitely needed footwear when walking on the back roads. I’d definitely recommend taking a pair of flip flops and reef shoes. I attended the gym and provided feedback which the SEE manager explained that once the building work extending the gym was completed my concerns would be resolved. Personally I found 23 degrees to high in the gym but he explained this was the average set from all requests to be low / high. Unfortunately the driving range was closed for refurbishing so used the golf pitch n put. With the heat it would be good to have a water station on the course. We took our own water bottles but wasn’t keen on placing it on the floor. We also attended the Sunday morning nature trail which was extremely informative. Personally I’d have like to have know more about the water bottling plant and a tour of it would have been fantastic to see how self sufficient the island is. The only real negative of our holiday was when I was alarmed that a young girl around 2 to 3 came out of the day centre looking for her mum as the door was open, if I had not altered what I saw not sure what would have happened as the child ran towards the pool. A lady came out of the centre saying she was looking for her mum, the child at times ran frantically back and forth and wonder if when reunited with the mum, her mum was made aware her young daughter had got out of the child’s play area as the door was open. I was shocked that the “day centre lady” didn’t put any speed into catching up with the child. I was extremely alarmed but would never put a child / grandchild of mine into a child’s holiday play area, after all it’s their holiday with us but understand not all the same. The SEE who we were with at the time thought the child had come from a pushchair not a million miles away but knew this was not the case, he too was alarmed. This was the only negative about the island which truly alarm and upset me as a Grandma, the tiny tot could have ended up in the pool she was frantically running around. We were extremely fortunate visiting in the “rainy” season not to have any rain during the day except one morning whilst eating breakfast and as fast as it came it went and you couldn’t even see it had rained. We also had 4 evenings were it rained during the night, early hours of the morning and on the 15th June had a bad storm in the evening and during the night hitting our side of the island which staff said was most unusual. None of our plans, days or evenings were affected by the rain. After the storm on the 15th the humidity increased day by day and was very intense at times becoming very high. It would have been welcoming to have had a breeze on the beach by our Villias to bring some air and relief from the intense heat of the sun, which are all clearly outside the hotel’s control, just like the rain. What we couldn’t understand and wasn’t important as we didn’t need the bar open later but why does the adults only bar close at 11pm and the family bars close at midnight? Our villa was spotless on arrival and kept that way which was very impressive and the bed and pillows extremely comfy. We heard the waterfront villas are due to be demolished and rebuilt, I hope they don’t put pools with them when they’ve the best pool ever in front of them, the Indian Ocean. I also hope they don’t spoil the character of the villas but would be great to have the bathroom area more like the Sangu JBV at Kuredu. I think the app is great for making reservations but would be good when two rooms on reservations that both rooms able to provide feedback. A bonus would be that when bookings made on the app the option to add to own diary / calendar on phone would be fabulous as reminders could also be set. Whilst waiting in the main reception for our boat after check out in the North Reception I was most impressed that reading glasses accidentally left in the room where brought to me, very impressive that rooms are checked before you leave the island to reunite you with any belongings you may have missed when packing. On our final day, our flight was at 6.25pm, room check out was noon, our luggage collected from the back door and taken onto the boat around 2pm, we boarded the boat and departed at 3pm promptly in a lovely new air conditioned boat, wonderful. We were sat at the front and I’d to move to the rest as I’ve a back and neck injuries and the bouncing on the waves caused me pain, whereas at the rear it smooth. Wi-Fi was available on the boat. Would I come back, in a heart beat and didn’t want to leave. The management and staff are a real credit to the Island and the owners must be extremely proud of ever member of team they employ to make customers feel special and valued. I cannot thank everyone enough for making our holiday so very very special.