Four Seasons Resorts Maldives - a little report

We are back from two wonderful weeks in the Maldives, visiting the two FS resorts (one week at each). I have posted glorious reviews at TA simply because this is how I feel that the two resorts were. However, there were differences between the two, so I thought that a little comparison would be the best addition to the reviews which you can read at TA. First I would like to say that I really think that if you have more than a week to spend, I would recommend to share it between the two resorts because they are both great and very different from each other. If you would like to make a choice, I have the following points to help, obviously subjective so feel free to comment or ask questions!

LG wins KH is a much smaller island than LG and LG is more away from everything else, which which is the reason that I favor LG. While LG gives you space, KH is, however, much more accessible; You can walk around everywhere while most of LG is covered by dense jungle and you will have to use buggies to get from one side to the other. Buggy service is slow compared to FS Ko Samui and FS Langkawi, but it was no problem for us since we had a very central location of our bungalow. The main problem with the small size of KH, is that the main pool, main restaurant, grill restaurant and indian restaurant are really close together which means you might get a feeling that you are "at the same place" a lot of time. It might also be a problem that the beach pavillions are close together, but for a beach bungalow at the sunrise side (which we stayed in), this was not a problem. I think all of them are private, with the exceptions of the ones very close to the Reef restaurant at the sunset side of the island.

KH wins! KH is a little Maldivian village while LG is Maldivian minimalismn within a dense jungle. I personally prefer the look of KH; LG can be a bit too "cold". This is especially true for the main pool and (parts of) the reception area, which I did not like, while it works really well at Blu Beach.

LG wins! Blu beach at LG is fantastic and wins the comparison, but it does not have the "paradise look" with lots of palm trees that many people think should be there when going to a tropical island. Also I missed a couple of Bale's or some better umbrellas to make it a bit more bearable to stay there when the sun was at it's warmest. This is no issue when you stay in a beach villa (at the Blu beach side of island with bale and sun loungers at beach in front of villa), but was an issue for us. At KH the beach is best at the sunset side of the island. Though one is free to occupy any sun loungers here, even if one live at the other side, I did not really feel like this, meaning that we stayed at the pool or at the less beautiful sunrise side beach outside our bungalow.

KH wins! The pool at KH looks wonderful and there is a number of bales to use in addition to the many sun loungers. Service is very warm and personal. There at two pools at LG. We really disliked the minimalistic and cold look of the main pool and did not use it at all. The 2nd pool is at Blu beach and almost a part of the Blu bar/restaurant which means that it is not really used (people seemed to be swimming in the sea instead).

A draw. We found the Indian restaurant at KH the best, closely followed by the Arabian restaurant at LG. Both are great in terms of personal service and taste/quality of food. The Reef Club (KH) and Blu (LG) Italian restaurant are both excellent, but very different in style. Again a close race. Main restaurants: Breakfast are very good at both, maybe slightly more variation at KH, but more personal service at LG. We found that the Asian food was a bit too bland for our taste at both (even after specifically asking for authentic and spicy food), but loved the teppayaki at LG and the Fisherman's Feast at KH.

KH wins KH offers one sunset bar close to the reception and one at the Reef Club for pre dinner drinks. LG has a bar in the "ground floor" of the Arabian restaurant and a bar next to the Blu restaurant. I preferred the KH because they had a separate bar where one could go to just have drinks (not pre dinner drinks and then dinner) or to have a light meal (if dinner would be too much). The LG bars seemed to be very much more pre dinner drink-places. Actually LG also had another bar above reception, but this was very unviting in our view so we never went there.

KH wins. The KH library is centrally located and looks really nice, while this is not the case for the library at LG.

My husband says that LG wins because of more space and more equipment. I was on holidays.

A draw. The KH spa at a separate island is very charming and beautiful. It has a great reception area and a garden to relax in before and after the treatments. Treatments are done in over-water bungalows which are connected to the private changing rooms/shower etc. with a wooden bridge. Treatments (I had their signature massage and a body cleansing ritual with peeling and body mask) were both great. LG's SPA has two different areas, over water bungalows or the Ayurvedic Retreat, with made me feel they offered two different SPAs (a good reason to book extra treatments to try all ;-) . The reception area should have been bigger with more space for relaxation - they have the space for it at this island (something like FS Langkawi would be great, but also KH was better). Treatments were wonderful. I had the signature massage, the Navarakkizhi ritual and the last day the best facial I have ever had (neem restorative).

LG wins. LG wins because of two things: - their service is very personal and you really feel that the employees of the resort know you and that you get to know them. This was the case with some of the KH employees as well, but at LG it was the standard. - The LG senior management is very visible and hands on. They are there to welcome you and offer their help, while the KH senior mangement was much more hidden (many of them we did not see at all until the last day at the manager's coctail reception). I did not mind at KH, but having experienced the "LG-way" of doing things, I strongly prefer this.