Park Hyatt Maldives Hadahaa: Service

For my sixth(!!!) and final installment of my review of the Park Hyatt Maldives, I want to review the service of its employees. I’ll start off by going on a bit of a journey through the idea of service at a luxury hotel (with an emphasis on Park Hyatts), go over the specifics of how it works at the Park Hyatt Maldives, and the end with my general thoughts, observations, and overall feelings of the service afforded by employees.

TLDR: This was the best service I have ever had at a hotel and might have been the highlight of my stay.

Service at Luxury Hotels

If you’re like me, luxury hotels are really out of the picture without using points & miles. I just can’t justify spending $1,000 a night on a hotel, as well as all the food, drinks, activities, etc. I need to be wowed, particularly when it comes to service.

That being said, points and miles have opened up this opportunity for me. I can say with confidence, while I’ve stayed at a variety of luxury hotels in cities on points, this was my first true luxury hotel stay for a resort-style hotel. (The Andaz Mayakoba, which is a family-favorite, is close to luxury. However, I wouldn’t put it up there with true luxury. I will update this story if my wife reminds me of a hotel that I am somehow forgetting.)

What makes this resort particularly unique is its designation as a Park Hyatt. Around 2014, Park Hyatt had somewhat of a rebrand, releasing a new tagline: “Luxury is Personal.” What this means is that, whatever luxury looks like to you, they’ll make that happen. If you want hand-holding, they’ll hold your hand. If you want to be left alone, they’ll leave you alone…and that’s ok! I think that this looks differently based upon the type of hotel you’re staying in.

I had stayed at Park Hyatt’s in DC & New York City before, and I found them to be (what I guess is) typical luxury city hotels. We didn’t have a butler or host, and we could ask the concierge for recommendations if we wanted. However, we know both cities relatively well and didn’t need a ton of help, nor did we want it. For us, luxury at those hotels was in the actual facility.

At the Park Hyatt Maldives, we hadn’t really thought about it until our second day there, but we took a somewhat different approach. We actually wanted someone to help us, and we became ok with that. Given that we spent $1,000 a night on our upgrade to the overwater villa alone, I think it’s fair to suggest that we have very personalized service. And that’s what we got.

Brief Overview of Service Mechanics at the Park Hyatt Maldives

The Park Hyatt Maldives has two types of service workers that guests will interact with on a day-to-day basis. First, there’s the servers who work in restaurants, the spa, the dive center, etc. This is a typical worker you see at other hotels.

The second and more unique type of worker is what the Park Hyatt Maldives calls their hosts. The hosts are somewhat of a personal concierge. Their entire role is to help you out with whatever you need.

You meet them as soon as you get to the island. Mine personally showed us everything in the room and explained his role in detail to us.

At this point, he also asked us to share our Whatsapp with him. This is the main method of communicating with them. As part of the rest and relax, the hosts don’t want to come barging in or knock on your door. You could be sleeping! So, they communicate with you via Whatsapp.

Download Whatsapp before you get to the island.

Service at the Park Hyatt Maldives

First of all, I would like to give a shout out to our host Shahum. He was absolutely fantastic, and, when we saw him, he always had a smile on his face and was eager to help us. Like I said earlier, it was a bit of a transition to working with the host, but that’s because it was a new standard of hospitality to us, not because he didn’t do his job well! We feel absolutely blessed to have had him as a host.

We really appreciated his anticipation of our needs. For example, after the first night, when we were looking to get a reservation at the Island Grill, he had figured out that we like to eat a bit earlier (due to just eating breakfast and protein bars, as well as the overall jetlag). He suggested the proper time for us, suggesting that a bit earlier might meet our needs.

Additionally, when we went on our dolphin tour, it started raining on the way back. When we got back to the dock, he was there waiting for us with umbrellas and a golf cart ride back to our overwater villa. He did a fantastic job there.

I could go on and on, but he was there from the moment we got to our first room (I believe a manager met us at the dock to take us to our room) to the moment our boat left the island on the last day. He stood at the end of the dock and waved goodbye. He was fantastic.

I also want to mention the servers and the support staff on the island. I discussed the servers in the food and beverage post, but I really appreciated all the work they did, particularly with welcoming us to the island and making sure our food was allergen-free.

The support staff did a great job as well. The basic premise of the island was that they let the vegetation grow, except for where buildings were and on paths. Given that leaves and sticks fall from trees, they had a team whose one job was to keep the island clean. They always kept it spotless (for an island that uses dirt paths), and when you walked by, they stopped what they were doing, put a hand over their heart and said hello.

Additionally, the team on the island in charge of repairs did a great job of keeping a sense of place. For example, on the overwater huts, the pipes run under the hut and then down the walkway to the island (I do not know where they go from there). One day, we walked outside and found that they were replacing something under the walkway. However, they did it in a manner that didn’t disturb the guests or the wildlife and left no trace that they had been there at all. I’m not going to bemoan doing upkeep in the daytime, as it would be dangerous to do that type of work at night over the water. However, they kept it peaceful, and they were very courteous as well. They knew how to do things that did not disturb the guest experience.

Tipping

Note: I added this section one day after it was originally published, as the good folks over in the Hyatt Reddit subreddit reminded me I should add it. I would like to thank them for reminding me.

Every charge, including your room charge has a 10% service charge. It is my understanding that this service charge is distributed amongst the staff at the resort.

The only exception we made was that we tipped our host in USD cash on our final day right before we left. We gave him $75 for each full day we were there. I honestly wish we could have given him more (but we only brought a couple hundred bucks in cash). Anything you give is appreciated. I do think you should tip your host if you use them extensively like we did.

Special Requests

As part of there service, you can make all kinds of special requests, and, if they are able to, they’ll make it happen.

For example, for travel, I am a collector of two things: local currency and Park Hyatt pens (I really do use them!).

A day or two before we left, I sent my host a Whatsapp asking if they would be able to provide some extra pens and if I could exchange some USD for Maldivian Rufiyaa (their currency), as I collect them both. My host immediately responded that he absolutely could. Later that day, he brought me 5 pens and about $10 worth of Maldivian currency. What service!

What’s great to is that if you put in a request before you arrive, they will do their best to source what you want and make it available for you. We didn’t have any requests, but I know that others have. Send them an email, and they’ll do what they can.

What Happens When There is a Service Error?

Now, even though this is a luxury hotel, there is always the potential for errors. I’m not one of those people who thinks that luxury hotels should have everything perfect the right time. No human is perfect, and I’ve lived enough life to realize that giving grace is going to be a safer bet in the long run. Additionally, in my opinion, what makes a great hotel truly great is that they are able to recover from the service error.

On our trip, we did have one service error. Before you get to the island, if you book your spa treatments and special dining in advance, you get a 10% discount. We weren’t too interested in the special dining (as, weirdly, that’s a Mexico thing for us), but we did prebook a couples massage.

When we arrived at the resort, we were given a sheet of paper with what we had prebooked (basically, our upgrade and massage). Our couples massage was clearly on there.

However, when we got to the spa, we said, “Hi, we are here for our couples massage.” The receptionist asked for our room number and attempted to look us up in the system. We weren’t there for some reason!

I think this is the opportunity for the hotel to make it right.

Immediately, the receptionist apologized and asked for a moment to organize the spa. Within 5 minutes of us arriving, she had 2 masseuses walking us back to our spa room. Additionally, our host came and apologized and a manager found us at dinner to apologize. They also absolutely honored the 10% prebooking discount (as they should).

Should the massage have been in the system? Yes. Did they recover? In my mind, they did.

I’m not the type of person who is going to complain about it and demand some sort of compensation, as I’m relatively non-confrontational. However, I do think it is appropriate to share how there was a service mishap and how they corrected it. Given that this is the only mishap that we had (and, given the food allergy in my party that is far more consequential that they don’t mess up), I was fine with it, particularly since every other interaction we had with staff was fantastic.

Conclusion

The service at the Park Hyatt Maldives was top-notch. It was the epitome of a luxury resort, and we are looking forward to going back.

What do you think about service at a luxury hotel? What is the most important aspect in your mind?

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