Alila Kothaifaru Maldives

Alila is truly an unforgettable stay. With an abundance of wildlife, incredible service and lovely staff, I can assure that you will have a trip of a lifetime! Even if the weather isn't great, there is plenty to do and the rooms are so beautiful that you might not want to leave them. The food is also fantastic, with different cuisines served at the highest standard so you have many choices each day.

My wife and I just got back from our 4 night stay in Alila Kothaifaru, and we're already talking about the next time we'll get to visit. Disclaimer: I've been a Hyatt Globalist for the past couple of years, and this is the third resort we've stayed at in the Maldives. Upon arrival, we learned that our stay coincided with the tail end of China's "Golden Week," so activities and food offerings were slightly different from the usual. 1. Rooms. We split our stay into 2 nights in the beach villa and 2 nights in the overwater villa. Both room types, and the resort overall, had contemporary designs with Japanese-inspired aesthetics on the interior and a more industrial-feeling exterior. Beach villas were huge with direct access to the beach, but the overwater villas were still spacious enough, with the added benefit of amazing views and bug-free indoor bathrooms. 2. Food. Every restaurant we dined at tasted high quality with lots of variety. We thoroughly enjoyed (and stuffed ourselves with) daily breakfasts at Seasalt. A few honorable mentions -- Damodar, the talented chef at the live cooking station who made a diverse set of delicious plates like kimchi fried rice, banana croffle, spicy pork belly bao, etc. and Selli, our server who remembered our favorites throughout our stay and made us breakfast smoothies "to go" on the day of checkout, even 30 minutes after last call! 3. The house reef was decent for snorkeling and "good bang for buck," with the coral and ocean drop off quite close to shore (near Umami and Yakitori Bar). It's not the most diverse marine life we've seen in the Maldives, but it is very convenient and we did manage to find sea turtles, a ray, and of course lots of fish. 4. Insects. We saw quite a few bugs and got bit commensurately during our stay at the beach villa, while walking around outside and when using the outdoor bathroom, despite applying bug repellant lotion/spray. Resort management has been actively working to improve this (for example, experimenting with glass enclosures for the beach villa bathrooms). After moving to the overwater villa, we no longer had this issue. 5. The overall service at Alila was incredible and blew our expectations out of the water. We had seen reviews from 1-2 years ago mentioning the service could have been more polished, but that could not have been further from our experience. Finally, I want to call out three more people who went above and beyond for us: - Alla, our wonderful host who helped upgrade us from our beach villa to a sunset overwater villa halfway through our stay despite busy season, then provided a third room for us to get situated before our late checkout. He gave very timely responses for buggy pickup, and also proactively checked in on activities we were interested in (and reminded us of complementary events each day). - Chanaka and Arya from the Yakitori Bar, which is, in my opinion, an underrated gem of a restaurant. Sichuan chicken skewers and the Yaki Jam (a Japanese whisky sour clarified with soy milk) were to die for and rank high on our list of favorite food & drink even outside of the Maldives. Mocktails were excellent too. The whole team was attentive, thoughtful, and matched excellent food with stellar service. Arya memorized our order and proceeded to surprise us with our favorite skewers/drinks during happy hour. Chanaka impressed us with his cocktail innovations, including sending us off with a flaming (and yummy) shooter. We stopped by the Yakitori bar three times during our 4 night stay, and it would be one of the main reasons we would go back to Alila Maldives. Let's just say, we can't wait to go back!

My stay at Alila was truly exceptional. We chose the Overwater Pool Villa, which was impressively spacious and impeccably clean. The staff were all incredibly warm and attentive, making the experience even more memorable. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and would wholeheartedly recommend it to friends and family.

My wife and I stayed for six days and we were blown away by the dedication to service of every single person on the island. Alla was our concierge/host for the week. He was amazing. He anticipated our every need and was incredibly helpful, especially on arrival and departure. There was all types of food and something for everyone. It was all very tasty. The villa on the beach was cozy and very comfortable. It was very private and we did not have any trouble with noise (except for the bird outside the window at all hours of the night). The mosquitoes were not as bad as I anticipated. The island is fogged once a day. There are mosquito traps in the room and there is mosquito spray provided in the room which all helped. Because you are near the equator, the sun can burn you in a short period of time. Bring a minimum of 50spf but really, I would encourage 70-100spf. We loved it here and can’t wait to make the long trek back! Thank you for a restful and wonderful trip!!!

Alila was a great place to visit. There are so many options to visit within the Maldives and I am very happy that I made the right choice. Alila offered all the amenities and more that I look for a place to stay. The views were amazing. You get a person assigned to you if you need to go a restaurant or to any place within the island.