SO/ Maldives 5 stars

SO/ Maldives is truly a chic resort and carries a minimalistic yet vibrant and fun vibe. ARRIVAL As soon as you reach Male airport, right after baggage collection you will see representatives from most of the resorts. We found our SO/ guy quickly and took us directly to speedboat with just 10 minutes wait. The journey was comfortable and we had requested resort for comfortable journey for special reasons and they ensured it. Upon reaching resort, you are welcomed on welcome jetty/runway and done checkin at the Pavillion while sipping welcome drink. Then your Guest Experience Maker (GEM), in our case - Ana, will take you around resort and drop you to your room. VILLAS During our stay, we experienced their Lagoon Beach Pool Villa and Ocean Water Pool Villa and both have same interior. These are designed by Singapore based Eco-id Architects. Beach Villa benefits from larger terrace area and Water Villa benefits from Panaromic Ocean views and direct Ocean access. It is an open living concept featuring all basic amenities and stylish interiors - uniquely SO/ style. Since it was also a belated bday celebration for my wife, they made a very nice artwork on the bed and had placed welcome amenities in our Villa. While Beach Villa was great, Water Villa with its panaromic Ocean views was amazing. RESTAURANTS The resort has 3 restaurants : Hadaba (signature dining Arabic/Egyption restaurant), Citronelle Club (All day dining restuarant) and Lazuli Beach Club (snacks and fast food). Service everywhere was very friendly and food was good. Since it is also connected with Crossroads, we also visited the Indian restaurant there called Kebabs and Kurries and food their was really nice. There is 1 bar only space, called Pavillion Bar where you check in. It is a casual space to connect and sip your choice of drink. For celebrating our special occassion, we  had a private beach dinner with custom menu. The setting, the food and the service, all was superb. SPA I had a 60min Aromatherapy massage and my therapist - KC was really good. The Spa also has Sauna, Steam and a wellness pool for quick dip. The Spa rooms are spacious with very comfortable massage beds and ocean views. The Spa is just next to the well appointed Gym. PHOTOSHOOT Siraj is very friendly and patient guy who takes beautiful shot, definitely recommend getting yourself clicked on this beautiful vibrant island. SERVICE OVERALL Starting with our GEM - Ana. Ana is really friendly, quick to reply and helpful. She is really a GEM and ensures that the itinerary is managed well from check in to check out. She also helped us with upgrade to Water Villa and we can't thank her enough for that. She also left a goodbye note which felt very personal. During Private Dinner, we met Dan who is an energetic man full of smiles and service. Suleiman at Citronelle Club was very friendly and gave personalized touch while serving us during breakfast. Chef Robby also met us during our Private dinner. The meals he made for us were very tasty and checked in to see if all was good. Everyone was very accomodative of our special situation and made sure we were comfortable, whether it was a buggy ride or food at restaurant. The airport staff was also very helpful with the luggage. SUGGESTIONS & CLOSING Few suggestions which we feel will elevate the experience at SO/ Maldives: 1. Upon check in, we didnt see any welcome letter. We have seen it in our other Maldives resort visits, which made it feel little personalized welcome 2. The room amenities could be better, example we didn't see any laundry bags/shoe bags/shoe mitts in either of our Villa which was surprising, we called for one laundry bag and got one but usually resorts of this stature have them by default 3. Also other utilities like resort slippers were there in our beach villa but not in water villa. Regular Vanity amenities in water villa were also less as compared to beach villa. 4. We thought these are casual miss by mistake but what was surprising was that during room refreshes, they were not restocked in the room - little surprising 5. The boat to Crossroads is an open boat, which is good when its not raining but little messy when it is. Although the journey is just 5 minutes and that the boat is run by Crossroads, resort can probably take it up since they are all owned by same company 6. While calling Guest Services or In Villa Dining, you need to mention Villa number as they dont get to see who is calling (guessing since we were asked everytime we did not mention it) 7. Lastly, I wish the automated vertical blinds are changed with regular automated curtains. Why? - because till the time all occupants dont wake up, you are unable to go out on terrace without waking others up. If it was just a curtain, I can sweep it a little and go out easily All in all, keeping these heartfelt suggestions aside, SO/ Maldives is a great choice for first time Maldives visitor or even second/third/fourth time Maldives visitor. Thanks team SO/ for memorable stay. Regards, Vipul Swanky Travellers