Ranveli Village

1 reader found this review helpful

My partner and I went in Feb. 07. It’s my 4th time but my partners been a fair few.
We weren’t expecting to go away not this early in the year no way, still the opportunity came so we grabbed it with both hands.
I had 2 days to come up with an island that we'd both like. We both wanted small and were going to go for half board as normally we don’t drink and sometimes skip lunch, it worked out £400 cheaper to go HB.
So anything below £400 by the end bill was cheaper.
When we arrived to the sea plane airport the weather was fantastic as always. We sat down and waited for our transfer.
On arrival to the island you’re dropped off by seaplane to the jetty on the water then a boat trip 5mins to the island, from the boat the island looked inhabited, untidy, the vegetation wasn’t green and what was there was very sparse.
Still then they told us what you see on the way in is infact the staff quarters only so we wouldn’t be accessing those areas anyway.
You’re taken through to the bar for your intro talk and your drink, then taken to your rooms.
We'd never seen a room so dirty and unfinished, this really wasn't what you pay all the money for, so we explained to reception and they willingly moved us to a room further up the island and facing the beach.
Now we we're ready to start our holiday.
To sum up our holiday to you, the food was very poor indeed. Every morning you were sick of eating omelettes, coz that’s the only hot thing they, had apart from every other day they'd alternate baked beans the next day mushrooms wow!
The lunch being half board we chose from a menu in the pool bar. Every day, unless you wanted to spend £15 English each on a burger and a hand full of chips, all you could have was toasted sandwiches - cheese, tomato, tuna or chicken.
Dinner was a mission for us, a task to find a plate of food that you would eat, all the guests we spoke to were the same, and one couple we spoke to ate popadoms with chilli sauce and some ice-cream.
They had some really unusual dishes like mint spaghetti (spaghetti with mint leaves in but no sauce or anything else) the next dish would be boiled rice then maybe curry of some sort then some either fish or chicken.
The fish I don’t eat and the chicken was basically a mass of bones, no meat. The closest you got to a salad was some (cold - slow salad) coleslaw and some chopped cabbage.
Dessert was hilarious you come all that way to the Indian ocean where they grow all there own fruit and veg, when it came to our dessert the last thing you expect to see is all the fruit from tins and all in syrup!
No thanks I think I’ll pass.
Our waiter was a disappointment he would turn up when you’re leaving to take your order for drinks and realise that he should have been there ages ago, still he cant of realised because for every meal for the 2weeks he was the same.
Still never mind the food, that’s not the end of the world, its still the Maldives.
The island is so small but you can’t walk round it as the staff quarters are not included.
So the island is 85% Italian, we think they're fantastic people but they do get up at 6o'clock am to reserve their sun beds for the day ahead.
The sun beds are limited and the shade is more so all the 120 guests are all trying for the 60 beds they have on the beach. Then you get one, no way of seeing any shade.
The amount of arguments over the beds really drove us up the wall all the time it was constant, every other English guest we spoke to agreed with us.
It came to the end of our first week and we asked our rep and island manager if there was any possibility that we could move to another island.
Unfortunately there was no accommodation... so we had to grit our teeth and waited to leave!
If you go there good luck and enjoy!
Please note that I have only marked this island as a three -
1) the sand
2) the sea
3) the sun

Really enjoyed my time at Ranveli, found it to be a really nice and relaxed place to stay. I personally liked the small size of the island and the fact that everything is 30 seconds walk away. Main plus points are the amazing house reef which has great marine life for snorkelling whenever you want and the food which I thought was excellent. Extensive diving and spa facility was available as well as other excursions such as night fishing (they cook what you catch!).
Staff were friendly and service was good. The rooms while not exactly plush, are comfortable and fully suited my requirements. The single beach is very pleasant alongside a huge lagoon. I would also point out that the guests were mostly British with a few Italians and Germans so any worries about noise were totally unfounded. For transfer I would recommend the sea plane as the 2 hour speedboat journey was a little brutal at times.