The ultimate destination of our trip on Singapore Airlines was the Park Hyatt Maldives Hadahaa. Park Hyatt is one of my favorite brands, and this seemed like a truly aspirational redemption. I rarely stay anywhere for an extended period, so a whole week on an island with nowhere to go would be a new experience.
I booked this with the Hyatt Passport Escapes package, that included 7 nights along with 5 dinners included in the points price. This allowed for some significant out of pocket cash savings, but unfortunately this program has since been discontinued. This is a category 6 property, which costs 22,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points per night. There are additional costs for the air and boat transfers from Male, which cost about $460 per person.
Note: This property now costs 25,000 points per night, and additional costs for transfers, etc have increased as well.
Pool Villa, Park Hyatt Maldives
I will review our experiences Park Hyatt over several posts, this one will focus on the room where we spent the most time, a Pool Villa. We also stayed in an Overwater Villa, and I discussed dining and activities at the Park Hyatt.
A lovely view a few steps from our villa
We arrived late at night after a long day in transit from Kuala Lumpur via Singapore and Male. Once we arrived on Hadahaa island, we were informed of our free upgrade to a pool villa, rode there in a golf cart, and quickly went to bed.
Our pool villa shortly after arrival, looking through the bathroom and into the outdoor shower.
Room Types Park Hyatt Maldives
There are 3 room categories at the Park Hyatt Maldives. The entry-level rooms are land villas, there are also pool villas, which cost an additional $200 per night, and overwater villas, which are $350 per night additional. These prices are increasing slightly in 2014, including peak season pricing to $370/$580 between mid-December through early January. There are reports of space available upgrades for Hyatt Diamonds, which is how we were given a pool villa. We did want to experience an overwater villa, so we did so for the last night of our stay. That was enough of an additional splurge for us. I think experiencing an overwater villa was worth it, but we couldn’t justify more than one night at that cost.
There are 16 land villas, 20 pool villas and 16 water villas making for a rather intimate experience. During our week on property, we rarely saw many other guests, other than at meals. We had several hours at the pool with no one else there multiple times. We had a an unplanned private charter for some of our Scuba diving trips.
Map of Park Hyatt Maldives, water villas on the left.
We were in villa 12. Its location made it rather private, plus occupancy during our visit was low enough that I don’t think any guests occupied either of the adjacent villas during our stay. I only saw other people on the beach near our villa a few times.
Here is a photo tour of a Park Pool Villa:
“Front Door” entry to villa
Bathroom view of double sinks and outdoor shower. Toilet and indoor shower are behind camera on either side of bathroom.
Outdoor shower and bathtub
Containers for bath products in indoor shower. These are filled with standard Park Hyatt offering, Bergamote 22, from Le Labo.
bedroom view towards sliding doors to pool
Water (both still and sparkling) refilled multiple times daily, with an additional half liter bottle of each in the minibar. There is a water desalination facility on the island.
Overlooking daybed towards plunge pool and the beach
Villa view from edge of beach. Small water bowl near stairs to clean sand off feet
lounge area on beach in front of villa
nearly private beach in front of villa
Thoughts on our pool villa
The pool villa was a great place for our time at the Park Hyatt. I don’t know that its different enough to warrant the upgrade cost, but for free it was excellent. As I mentioned, there were rarely others at the pool or beach, so we spent some time in the public places with nearly as much privacy as in our own pool. The plunge pool is rather small, but its a nice place to cool off during the hottest part of the day. The king bed was very comfortable, and it was very well designed with reading lights and power ports on the head board for charging phones, etc. The bathroom was luxurious, with a large shower with a rainfall head. The outdoor shower and tub are nice as well.
Each room has a small refrigerator with minibar type items that are for sale, plus free coffee and tea. There is an iPad loaded with various Maldives information, other useful apps such as a constellation finder plus the Park Hyatt Maldives app with lots of resort information. There is free wifi on the property, and although signal is decent in most places, the speed is painfully slow.
