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Thanks @Cat for your review; very helpful regarding prices and restaurant choices. I have a couple of questions about current prices.
I have cash Virgin flights booked to MLE for next February (40th anniversary) so I’m starting to think of resorts. Normally I’d pick a 5* AI and book through an OTA, but the Conrad does look very nice. And it’s on the right side of the atoll for the North-East monsoon.
Booking.com is suggesting £551 for a beach villa room-only, and £616 for a water villa. I have 200k MRs so not quite enough for a redemption, but I could easily bump up the MR balance by switching from BA Amex to Platinum for a bit.
I plan to cancel the Platinum before my November renewal so that gives me Hilton status through to March next year, I think.
Cash vs points seems marginal, but I’ve not found a use for MRs yet and was likely just to dump them into my Avios account after the end of my free Gold year post-Platinum. So maybe this is a good use.
We are not late risers so we will have breakfast and lunch. We will have a cocktail (1745 Conrad time would be fine), and we will have wine with dinner. I’m thinking this is likely $700 per day F&B for the two of us, right?
And has anyone taken a boat from Conrad to Mirihi? It looks about 5km so doable in a boat albeit at cost (ChatGPT guess what sounds likely at $300).
@masaccio I posted quite a detailed reply, having been to the Rangali in March, but it must have contained too many links and so is stuck pending review. In the meantime, I take the opportunity to echo your thanks to @Cat – her review was a great source of info when we were planning our trip. We even took pot noodles, although that was a one-off homage to @Cat ‘s resourcefulness … we didn’t Lidl it every night, honest 🤣
PS My post is probably going to appear twice, although maybe the moderating process will filter the duplication out too! 🤞
Hi @masaccio – we went to Rangali in March for the first time on a redemption and loved it!
Looking at the purchase points route, I still think it makes sense in the 100% Hilton sales, even with the recent redemption devaluation that means it’s 140k per night rather than the 120k we paid. There isn’t a sale at the moment but they come around regularly.
At 0.5cents a point in the sale (assuming you use a dollar or FX free card and settle via Wise/Revolut), factoring in 2.52% off at TCB US, I calculate they’ll cost 0.365p/pt. This equates to £511 pn or £409 pn over 5 nights if you take advantage of the 5 for 4 redemption discount for Honors silver or above members. The standard redemption is into a water villa so that’s a significant saving over the £616 on Booking.com AND you’ll get your free breakfast as Gold, which you won’t if going the OTA route.
The breakfasts are very good and we found we rarely wanted lunch. Staying on the adult island we were right next door to Vilu (on the ‘adults only’ island), the a la carte breakfast venue which is in a lovely spot right on the beach. We took some snacks too, they also give you some in your room each day when they make it up, and there are free apples at the gym to tide you over if really trying to be healthy and/or to avoid racking up the F&B charges. In the evenings the Rangali beach bar has some ‘reasonable’ options. For example, pizza is USD34 ‘plus plus’ as they say there, to indicate plus sales tax of 16% and service charge of 10%! Thus if you can translate the base dollar price on their menus before the ++ directly to the same number in GBP and you’re not far off. Here’s a link to their menus and info that we found useful and which seems still up to date : https://cmris.adalo.com/emenu?target=3nnvught24wktol1dad5sjglb¶ms=%7B%22a5t7a50gnt7g55mxvt7eyrbtl.t_61l355c5qsbd3mf0q622d2er9%22%3A2%2C%22a5t7a50gnt7g55mxvt7eyrbtl.t_0lv7vbtu3hem5vxibu2lxfnbn%22%3A346%7D
Drinks wise, the Gold/Diamond daily free drinks hour is apparently now at Vilu from 5-6, so you could get your cocktail(s) then! They also do half-price (‘Golden Hour’) drinks at Rangali bar from 5-6 and Quiet Zone bar 6-7, so the opportunity for a mini-crawl there between 5 and 7 if you’re thirsty from your days exertions… Finally you have another half-price drinks ‘Signature Hour’ again at Vilu from 9-10 for a night cap! Plenty of choice there to manage costs. Getting a cocktail for about ten quid at these times felt like value for money, particularly when compared to the sixteen quid I was paying for a Pimms at the Chelsea Flower Show last week!
Overall, for 10 nights our F&B spend was c.USD1,800 (about £3k). We also redeemed 100,000 points for the lunch and dinner experience for two (https://experiences.hiltonhonors.com/a-maldivian-culinary-adventure/isynmv1/aucd/4322611) and another 50,000 for the cocktail hour in the Ithaa underwater restaurant (https://experiences.hiltonhonors.com/cocktails-under-the-sea-at-conrad-maldives-rangali/isynmv1/aucd/3426220 ), so say another £365. All in, I reckoned we averaged £336 a day, which I was pretty happy with. We could definitely have spent a lot more. We do eat fish but not meat and are happy to go veggie too, which was often a cheaper option on the menu. We also didn’t drink a lot of wine, preferring the cocktails in terms of value for money or beer/prosecco to slake the thirst after another tough day snorkelling on the house reef!
Our other spend was on a whale shark trip ($250++ each) and the sea plane transfers ($675 each including tax). Not sure about your about transfers to Mirihi but I’m sure the hotel would answer any questions. I always found them very responsive to emails.
Finally, this FlyerTalk thread is a mine of information https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilton-hilton-honors/776992-conrad-maldives-rangali-island-mdv-287.html
I know from past posts that you’ve a lot of experience of Maldivian resorts. Previously we have only been to the Six Senses Laamu (twice – fantastic but v. expensive now) and the Radisson Blu (not so great) but cheap at the time on (old) points, which was right next door to the Rangali and put that location in our minds. We thought the Conrad was pretty much up there with the SS and would definitely go back, although sad to hear that apparently the very cool dhoni service between the islands is being discontinued permanently – sad face as @froggee would say. Overall, the unique set-up of two islands, with manta rays appearing under the bridge lights nearly every night to feed, made this a dream holiday for us and one we may well repeat!Hi @masaccio – we went to Rangali in March for the first time on a redemption and loved it!
Looking at the purchase points route, I still think it makes sense in the 100% Hilton sales, even with the recent redemption devaluation that means it’s 140k per night rather than the 120k we paid. There isn’t a sale at the moment but they come around regularly.
At 0.5cents a point in the sale (assuming you use a dollar or FX free card and settle via Wise/Revolut), factoring in 2.52% off at TCB US, I calculate they’ll cost 0.365p/pt. This equates to £511 pn or £409 pn over 5 nights if you take advantage of the 5 for 4 redemption discount for Honors silver or above members. The standard redemption is into a water villa so that’s a significant saving over the £616 on Booking.com AND you’ll get your free breakfast as Gold, which you won’t if going the OTA route.
The breakfasts are very good and we found we rarely wanted lunch. Staying on the adult island we were right next door to Vilu (on the ‘adults only’ island), the a la carte breakfast venue which is in a lovely spot right on the beach. We took some snacks too, they also give you some in your room each day when they make it up, and there are free apples at the gym to tide you over if really trying to be healthy and/or to avoid racking up the F&B charges. In the evenings the Rangali beach bar has some ‘reasonable’ options. For example, pizza is USD34 ‘plus plus’ as they say there, to indicate plus sales tax of 16% and service charge of 10%! Thus if you can translate the base dollar price on their menus before the ++ directly to the same number in GBP and you’re not far off. Here’s a link to their menus and info that we found useful and which seems still up to date : https://cmris.adalo.com/emenu?target=3nnvught24wktol1dad5sjglb¶ms=%7B%22a5t7a50gnt7g55mxvt7eyrbtl.t_61l355c5qsbd3mf0q622d2er9%22%3A2%2C%22a5t7a50gnt7g55mxvt7eyrbtl.t_0lv7vbtu3hem5vxibu2lxfnbn%22%3A346%7D
Drinks wise, the Gold/Diamond daily free drinks hour is apparently now at Vilu from 5-6, so you could get your cocktail(s) then! They also do half-price (‘Golden Hour’) drinks at Rangali bar from 5-6 and Quiet Zone bar 6-7, so the opportunity for a mini-crawl there between 5 and 7 if you’re thirsty from your days exertions… Finally you have another half-price drinks ‘Signature Hour’ again at Vilu from 9-10 for a night cap! Plenty of choice there to manage costs. Getting a cocktail for about ten quid at these times felt like value for money, particularly when compared to the sixteen quid I was paying for a Pimms at the Chelsea Flower Show last week!
Overall, for 10 nights our F&B spend was c.USD1,800 (about £3k). We also redeemed 100,000 points for the lunch and dinner experience for two (https://experiences.hiltonhonors.com/a-maldivian-culinary-adventure/isynmv1/aucd/4322611) and another 50,000 for the cocktail hour in the Ithaa underwater restaurant (https://experiences.hiltonhonors.com/cocktails-under-the-sea-at-conrad-maldives-rangali/isynmv1/aucd/3426220 ), so say another £365. All in, I reckoned we averaged £336 a day, which I was pretty happy with. We could definitely have spent a lot more. We do eat fish but not meat and are happy to go veggie too, which was often a cheaper option on the menu. We also didn’t drink a lot of wine, preferring the cocktails in terms of value for money or beer/prosecco to slake the thirst after another tough day snorkelling on the house reef!
Our other spend was on a whale shark trip ($250++ each) and the sea plane transfers ($675 each including tax). Not sure about your about transfers to Mirihi but I’m sure the hotel would answer any questions. I always found them very responsive to emails.
Finally, this FlyerTalk thread is a mine of information https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilton-hilton-honors/776992-conrad-maldives-rangali-island-mdv-287.htmlI know from past posts that you’ve a lot of experience of Maldivian resorts. Previously we have only been to the Six Senses Laamu (twice – fantastic but v. expensive now since IHG points devaluation) and the Radisson Blu (not so great but cheap at the time on the old points), which was right next door to the Rangali and so put that location in our minds. We thought the Conrad was pretty much up there with the SS and would definitely go back, although sad to hear that apparently the very cool dhoni service between the islands is being discontinued permanently – sad face as @froggee would say. Overall, the unique set-up of two islands joined by a bridge, with manta rays appearing under the bridge lights nearly every night to feed, made this a dream holiday for us and one we may well repeat!
Oh, wows thanks @Guernsey_Globetrotter lots to chew on there.
I sense a spreadsheet coming.
Do rates tend to fall closer to the booking date? February is a very steep $1500pn B&B right now.
Normally with the Maldives I wait until 3-6 months before travelling for decent rates but not sure about the Conrad Rangali. It’ll be the period around lunar new year so I expect there will be plenty of Chinese people travelling which could keep prices up.
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