Soneva Jani

Nice overall, but some really strange design elements that take away from guest experience, rather than improving it. The fake luggage at the ends of the beds, for example, are really weird. Like a bad afterthought. They just get in the way and even block the views. And the children’s sleep areas should be only in some villas. Would feel much more luxe if they made a few very simple changes. At this price point there are far better options. The whole resort is a little tired. The food options seem solely there for the myriad of eastern guests, and so on.

We expected an exceptional experience at Soneva Jani, but were disappointed on a few key fronts. Sharing one butler between two villas felt disorganized and took away from the personalized service we were promised. Even more concerning: we were made to pay full price for a snorkeling boat trip despite clearly unsafe weather — something the staff knew in advance. Safety and service standards need serious reflection.

This was the worst experience we had in 25 years traveling to the Maldives. 1) Transfer We booked a shared seaplane transfer. The trip from Male to Soneva worked well. We took the Soneva plane for the 40 min flight and shared it with a couple. On the way back, Soneva totally failed us. "Shared" plane now meant that we had to leave the hotel nearly 5 hours before our onward plane from Male took off (on ALL 3 previous instances from that same atoll we left 3 hours prior), which meant a 5:00 AM wake up... just to board a Manta Air plane, not Soneva plane, that took us to another resort (30 mins flight time) to pick up another 10 (!) passengers for a joint 45 mins onward journey to Male. We were squeezed into a tiny plane. While it said in the smallprint that "times of the flights need to be flex and depend on the external operator", it said nowhere that we could go to another island to pick up other passengers. We were left in the believe that we would take the Soneva plane (also operated by Manta air) at all times. Even when discussing the journey with management and our butler the days prior to departure. Soneva was clearly optimizing for their ease of operation (and probably costs), not for the holiday experience of their guests. We flagged days in advance that we would like to leave as late as possible to allow our little children to maximise sleep prior to long international flight. 2) Food: cold Soneva has a large choice of restaurants incl visiting Michelin starred chefs. Quality of the ingredients is good (given remoteness of its location) and in line with other hotels of the same category. But unfortunately half of our food arrived cold. Constantly, despite flagging it to the waiters repeatedly. This happened in all restaurants, even when we sat next to the kitchen or BBQ. 3) facilities: old One issue is the aircon. Very old and not working well. Drafty and noisy. Our bedroom could not be cooled down appropriately. We had 2 terrible nights of sleep and then got moved to another larger (thank you) villa with new AC. But even there not all rooms had AC and some "windows" did not have glass, only shutters, ie hot air was coming in from all over. The AC was still drafty and noisy, but less than in the first villa. Even in the new villa not at par with what most other resorts use these days. 4) Mosquitos: bite The island is beautiful and has natural vegetation (compared to some of the newer man-made islands on the Maldives). Soneva, focusses on sustainability, therefore is not using pesticides. Which is great on the one hand, but their replacement mechanism for getting the mosquitos under control just does not work at all. While we used a lot of repellant etc, the whole family got bites on a daily basis. We hoped it would be OK in the over water villa, as they are in a healthy distance to the actual island, but even there we got bites every day/night! The situation was pretty bad in the kids club which otherwise has great facilities, but a massive Mosquito problem. Restaurants on the island like cinema or beach restaurants are very problematic with mosquitos, too. 5) Size of island: plan your day If not pre-booked, buggies took up to 45 mins to arrive. Distances for bikes were too far (30 mins one way at times). Hence we constantly had to pre order buggies, which meant planning your day. Not sure thats what you want during vacation time... sounds minor but got quite annoying. To finish on a positive note, the butler was very helpful and friendly and we felt she tried to compensate for some of the shortcomings of the place and its management. Unfortunately, taken all the issues together - even if standalone not significant - we ended up leaving very disappointed. While Soneva will give you a more "beachy" vibe with its white washed villas and its sustainability approach, compared to the more luxurious and "design led" places like Cheval Blanc, it comes with plenty of shortcomings in terms of luxury and comfort. For us not a great vacation and in fact very disappointing experience.