Shangri-La’s Villingili Resort & Spa: Secluded Paradise South of the Equator
Located in the southernmost point of the country and separated from most of the resorts in the Maldives, Shangri-La’s Villingili Resort & Spa: is located in a more secluded and less visited part of Maldives closer to the island of Gan.
What You Need To Know About Maldives :
Unlike many other places on the planet and one of the things that makes the Maldives extraordinary unique is that each hotel is located on a private island of itself. In order to understand this concept, we need to realize that this island country is composed of a chain of 26 coral atolls each of which is made up of hundreds of different islands all dispersed through roughly 90,000 square kilometers making it one of the world’s most dispersed countries! These hundreds of islands are miniature islands, most of which are inhabited and left untouched. For this reason, each island can only “host” one hotel and also one of the reasons why most hotels have water bungalows. This is why planning a trip to the Maldives is extremely different than planning a trip to most other tropical destinations, and why it’s crucial for you to do lots of research to choose the right hotel since you will be spending all of your time there. This means you will sleep, eat and do all of your actives in the hotel. In the Maldives, you can not simply leave the island and go somewhere for lunch or explore a different beach (Unless you are staying in the capital, Male ). This means that essentially the hotel that you choose to stay in will define your whole Maldives experience.
Location & How to get to Shangri-La’s Villingili Resort & Spa :
As Shangri-La’s Villingili Resort & Spa is located in a more secluded and less developed part of the Maldives, you will need to take a domestic flight to Gan followed by a quick 10 min speed boat ride to the resorts island. This means that you do not need to take a seaplane, instead, once you arrive in Male International Airport, the Shangri-La’s Villingili Resort & Spa airport staff will be waiting for you to escort you to the lounge. In our case, our incoming flight to Male was delayed so we went straight to check in for the domestic flight. The airport staff took care of all of our check-in process, we just smiled and handed our passports.
Though our flight was direct from Male to Gan, we ended up having a stop on another island. Once we arrived in Gan, we waited for all of the other Shangri-La’s Villingili Resort & Spa guests and took the boat to the resorts island.
The Villa
We were welcomed to an overwater bungalow facing the sunset side. The first impression when you are in the jetty on your way to the room is how incredibly beautiful the water is! And how much coral there is around it! Our bungalow was very spacious, with a king bed, office and sitting area, space for a bed for the little one, an open concept bathroom complete with an outdoor shower which by the way is one of my favorite outdoor showers! I mean, have you ever showered and right next to you can see coral and lots of fish? Total outdoor shower goals if you ask me!
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The room also has a beautiful outdoor area. Though it doesn’t have a pool, it has an incredible view and great sitting areas. And make sure to stay in the room and watch the sunset! The colors in the sky in Shangri-La’s Villingili Resort & Spa are just unreal! Even though we didn’t get to see a proper sunset due to the weather, the colors of the sky were still so incredibly beautiful.
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Pool, Beach & Amenities
Surrounded by palm trees overlooking the crystal clear waters of the Maldives, the pool in Shangri-La’s Villingili Resort & Spa is absolutely perfect. It has such a beautiful view, and it’s the perfect place to relax and spend the day. We fell in love with this pool, and the beautiful design reminded us of Shangri-La Le Touessrok Resort & Spa pool which we had just visited the month prior.
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The main beach area is right in front of the pool. This was our absolute favorite spot in the resort and where we spent the most time in. The combination of the palm trees with the Maldives water is just unreal! You can actually surf in this part of the Maldives. We saw so many people doing different kinds of water activities, we were wishing we knew at least how to surf!
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There is an area in the resort called The Village, here you will find most of the resorts amenities such as the gym, game room, kids club, diving center, boutiques etc. Hint, my little ones favorite place in the resort was here – the kids club which was called Cool Town. He not only thought the name was awesome, he loved it because it had a large outdoor play area, and they could go feed the fish every day. The only thing that was a little inconvenient was that they closed every day for lunchtime for one hour. One hour is not much, but it would be great if they could have lunch there.
Shangri-La’s Villingili Resort & Spa is home to the only 9 hole golf course in all the country! All oceanfront too! This seems to be one of the main attractions in the resort as many guests were headed there for a round of golf. Another unique thing about Shangri-La’s Villingili Resort & Spa is that it is actually home to the highest natural elevation point in the Maldives. At just over 5 meters tall, it is ambitiously called Mt. Villingili.
As part of our itinerary, we had a couples massage treatment at the spa, snorkeling and sunset cruise, but due to the rain, we were only able to experience our massage treatment. By far, it was one of our best massages of our lives! Mine was a signature treatment that begun with the therapist singing a beautiful melody to my ear! Definitely, something I had never experienced before but look forward to doing so again in the future.
Dining
With 3 restaurant and 3 bars on the property specializing in different cuisines, you will have plenty of high quality and tasty food options. Our favorite restaurant was Dr. Ali. We had one of the best Indian food there! It was so good, I am craving it as I write this right now. And after dinner, you can hang out and enjoy some shisha with good music in a great environment. The breakfast selection at the main restaurant Javvu is excellent. It definitely has the best variety of fruits we saw in the country including exotic fruits such as Mangosteen, Rambutan and passion fruit. The staff was also very friendly and attentive to all of our special requests we made when we wanted something to be made vegan for us.
Since the island where Shangri-La’s Villingili Resort & Spa is located is quite big, you can set up private romantic dinners in multiple places around the island called Dine by Design. We were supposed to have it right at sunset in the Shangri-La’s Villingili Resort & Spa golf course overlooking the beach (sounds magical doesn’t it?) but due to weather conditions, we had to move it to Dr. Alis. They did a great job arranging a private set up and did the best they could to make it work with the weather.
Overall, the quality of the food is exceptional at Shangri-La’s Villingili Resort & Spa, and we found the prices to be quite reasonable compared to other resorts in the country.