Hard Rock Hotel Maldives with Kids

I had always thought Maldives was a place for couples on honeymoon as it is a very nice and romantic place! But friends tell us that actually it can be for families with kids as well! One such recommended place in Maldives was the Hard Rock Hotel Maldives!

Here I will detail our experience in Maldives!

Welcome to Maldives

After clearing customs at Velana International Airport which is the main international airport of Malé (capital of Maldives), you will be greeted with many many hotel staff holding cards displaying their hotel name. I couldn’t find ours then but a kind Maldivian actually guided us to the correct counter!

See the many different counters above!

As shared with us earlier when we booked the hotel, we waited for around 20 minutes before boarding the ferry to Hard Rock Hotel Maldives! Depending on which island your hotel is, you might have to take a plane which will cost hundreds of US dollars.

Travel by buggy

The common mode of travel is by buggy, as the island is really pretty huge to cover by foot. So after alighting from the ferry, we were taken by buggy to the reception where we checked in, and thereafter took another buggy to our actual room.

A staff followed us into the room and guided us on the amenities and island facilities and took our questions. There is wifi but it is not very fast, the download is about 1 Megabyte per second and my kids often complained about the speed when they were watching Youtube.

Meal packages

I was more interested in understanding the meal packages. There are a few types, half board (breakfast and dinner), full board (+lunch), all inclusive (+drinks), and premium all inclusive (more complimentary stuff). We took the full board as the price difference compared to the half board was not too much (this is special rates that was offered when we purchased this package). From what was shared, unless the restaurant was having a buffet (e.g. Sessions had buffet on Tue night), meals for adults only included an appetiser, main dish and dessert. Although I said “only”, it was actually a lot of food, especially when we were only used to eating 1 main dish normally. For kids, the food is free but the portion is not too big especially if your kid is older, so you can share some of your food with them.

Overwater Villa

Anyway we took the Overwater Villa with Private Pool. Technically unless you need the private pool for convenience and more privacy, you can take the room without the private pool (i.e. the one with the hammock) and go for a swim in the sea or in the other pools across the islands.

Dinner - Sessions Steak

We asked for restaurant recommendations and Sessions was recommended for dinner as they were serving steaks that night. I thought the food was very good! The steak looked small but it was actually 300g and pretty filling!

Gym

The weather forecast said that it was raining the whole week so I went to the gym. It was quite well maintained!

There is water and towel there as well!

Rainy Day Program

Due to the rain, there is a rainy day program as well! Honestly I don’t know when it happened but this program might have popped up on the tv screen by itself!

Breakfast - Sessions

Breakfast was at Sessions, which offered pretty decent continental style breakfast!

Lunch - Kinkao

Due to heavy rain, we didn’t really do much and it was time for lunch! We chose an Asian restaurant this time round and went with Kinkao Thai restaurant. It was quite good!

Honestly no complaints here with any of the food during our stay, they were really up to mark!

Dinner - The Elephant and the Butterfly

Since I am already sharing about the food, might as well share the dinner we had, which was at The Elephant and the Butterfly.

By the way, do note that you need to make reservations at most of these places, except for the Hard Rock Cafe.

Snorkeling Experience

Our favourite pastime was snorkeling! We were able to collect free snorkeling equipment at the Dive Centre. The question was where were the best snorkeling spots?

Based on different staff’s experience, the answer can be different! If we look at the above marked spots, we have:

1. In front of the gym
2. Bridge area to Saii
3. Saii’s beach
4. Bridge connecting Hard Rock to The Marina

Most say that the rocky areas in front of the gym is a good spot! But they would usually also say it is good but not the best. We didn’t go there and see for ourselves. One of them said the best was #2, but when I went there, the floor suddenly went very deep so I did not venture near the waters. Spent the most time at #3, and we did see a bit of fishes.

I thought the best place to snorkel might be #4 even though nobody actually recommended that. Although you might need to go there are high tide. A couple told us they actually saw a lot of sharks there at midnight! Here’s what you might be able to see when you snorkel there! (If you don’t snorkel, you can still take the boardwalk and view from there!)

We also saw a humongous manta ray there too!

For people staying at Overwater villa, you can walk down your steps and dive straight into the waters. I recall that was the first time we tried snorkeling here, straight from the room! I was pleasantly surprised that due to the condition of the waters, I could float with ease! There were actually some life jackets in the room to use too in case you need it.

The above was what we saw right beneath those steps! There were thousands of tiny white fish just darting around in the waters surrounding the villa! The stingray also came to visit. My wife was lucky enough to see a baby shark! Just that it swam away before she could take a picture! Saw a humongous manta ray nearby too!

The hotel placed a coral area right in the middle of the villas and there were nice fishes there, including the famous nemo!

If you are adventurous, you can consider going for snorkeling experiences with the Dive Centre. They can take you to the area with sharks or the coral reefs. We took the one to the coraf reefs (Coral Garden 1 in map below) and had to take this Dhoni boat for about 15-20 minutes.

If you are going for the shark one (guessing its Shark Point in the above map), do plan early as these snorkeling experiences are on alternate days. If you missed the schedule, you will need to arrange for a private boat to see the sharks!

We were told there’s a 50 50 chance of seeing sea turtles which we didn’t see, but these are what we saw!

Lunch - Hard Rock Cafe

And its back to meals again! We went to Hard Rock Cafe and you don’t need to make reservations for this. It was nice and very filling! Kids meals came with a drink too!

Shop

Final thing to do is to get a bit of memorabilia before leaving! There is a shop at the reception or you can also purchase things at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Tipping

A bit on tipping is that I read online that some people say tip if you appreciate their services, and many say that its already part of the service charge included. I thought it was not necessary to tip but did still put in some cash for meals and for room cleaning. I guess this is up to the individual.

Overall

It has been quite an experience, definitely slightly dampened by the rain, but enjoyable overall. Important to make plans ahead of time on what to do each day (what meals to go for, which restaurants are closed on which dates or have special events like BBQ night or Seafood buffet) and maximise your stay. Do plan for rainy day programs as well!