Spent one week of our honeymoon in Constance Halaveli Resort, absolutely fantastic place! Staff very friendly even general manager drive guests with electro car. Villa was outstanding with great view, it was cleaned 2x per day. Every evening different world cuisine, suggest to visit fine dining restaurant just wine card is worth to be there.
Excellent SPA, while my wife had a SPA treatments I had a time for diving, worth to see Halaveli wreck, just 10 min from island.

A truly heavenly experience. Maldives is like a dream. The beaches and water here are gorgeous. A view that takes your breath away no matter how many times you look at it. We were here for our honeymoon and we have no regrets. It is like living in a dream. However I do think there are a few things which the management can look into improving:

1. Service - local Maldivian staffs were great. They were polite and helpful. However I noticed that some of the staffs at the reception and Jahaz restaurant tend to treat Caucasians better than Asians. I do not expect this from a 5 star resort. Every guest deserves similar treatment and hospitality.

2. Food - generally very overpriced especially Jahaz buffet. It cost us USD 100 per pax which shocked us!Meeru was way better option and value. Jing was expensive but the set up was lovely so we didn't feel that ripped off. Stay away from Jahaz buffet.

3. Reception - when we arrived, we did not get the kinda welcome
we expect from a 5 star resort. We did not even get a welcome drink while waiting for someone to attend to us. Btw we were the only couple that checked in during that time. The next day, we saw some guests arriving and they were all given a welcome drink. Guess what, they were all Caucasians and it was a large group. This obviously wasn't suppose to happen

4. Whale shark excursion - extremely expensive.

5. No butler service. For the same price or lesser, some resorts provide personal butler service.

A few things which I would like to give special mention are:

1. Meeru - My favourite restaurant. Food were good. The desserts were delayed but the staffs were kind enough to waive them from the bill. Nice gesture

2. Jing - Lovely set up and attentive staff. A local Maldivian staff kept attending to us and kept chatting with us. Courteous and attentive.

3. Water villas - Absolutely gorgeous and cleaned twice a
day. Cable TV has lotsa options too.

4. Buggy service - prompt and fast

5. Arrival and departure - Seamless and efficient without having to wait long. The waiting lounge in Male was comfortable and definitely a nice touch. Seaplane came half an hour later than scheduled on the day of departure. It would have been nice if the reception had informed us earlier so we didn't need to rush to check out and spent a little bit more time in the lovely villa.

Overall, we are still satisfied and is truly a memorable experience and vacation. I can't think of a better way to splurge for our honeymoon.

We had a mixed experience at The Constance Halaveli - for $1,400 per night you have certain expectations and these were not met.

The room was good, but not great given the price and comparable properties. The worst thing about the resort is the feeling of being bent over at all stages. You're a 60km sea plane ride from Male, so you could say a monopoly exists on the island. The way this resort uses it is why most western countries have competition and consumer protection law.

Before I continue I'll put upfront we pay for a lot and do not mind spending money - $15 cocktails are the norm in Melbourne, and we spend more travelling than most people I know - when I complain about pricing here it is not that we're not used to world or high prices...

After paying $1,400 + tax per night! and $900 for the sea plane trip things here are so expensive we didn't want to participate (and we're not cheap - we forgot sunscreen, a small bottle was $47. A beef burger is $38 + tax. The sunset cruise is $85 per person + more for all the drinks you have. A boat to Male is $1500. Dinner is a buffet or at least $300 per night. An experience dinner on a private island is $1250 per person, to have a romantic beach dinner without wine is $1000 - prohibitive pricing). If you're not willing to spend this there is very very little to do as most activities are let's just say have monopolistic pricing - this gauging ruined our holiday Astor the first time in a long time we've chosen not to do things because they were price prohibitive. Not fun when you've paid a fortune to fly to Male and another in room rates.

Further, the attitude is one I'd expect from a $200 per night resort, not one catering to clients who can afford the $1,400 rate. On two of our three nights there was a buffet + only one other restaurant (no issue except there are at least 200 people and the non buffet seats 20).

We flew from Australia for 3 nights. Our flight departed at lunch time on day 4. The resort insisted we leave at 5:45am Male time arriving for 6 hours in Male airport. Not good enough for $5000 for 3 nights.

Expect your bill to equal the room rate every night if you want to do things like eat. Ours did.

All that said Halaveli is a perfectly nice 5 star resort. The reef is amazing, the beaches are post canard beautiful.

I was surprised at the amount of rubbish both floating (it looked like garbage was dumped into the ocean - a lot of floating garbage a few hundred metres off-shore - we suspect this is not from the resort but from the village on an island in sight). Building materials, tyres etc. dumped and sitting on the sea bed are unwelcome surprises.

PROs
- overwater villa is beautiful - almost perfect
- Local staff (Maldivans) are fantastic

CONS
- you obviously get gouged at every step
- the attitude is not catering to clientele
- food - not a high point
- UHT milk (ok hard to blame the hotel, but who wants a UHT latte??)
- Nothing is included, everything is very expensive
- floating rubbish and underwater dumping of building and other materials
- there is a breakwater around the island making it hard to swim out
- some staff are particularly unhelpful and say more suited to a mass market hotel
- expect a cruise ship experience - you'll be dumped at the airport in Male (no lounge, no AC, not exactly HK or the Qantas First Lounge) 7 hrs prior to an international flight because it suited the hotel not to pay for another seaplane (despite it costing us $900 for the transfer).

In all ok, but I am not coming back. Leaving somewhere feeling ripped off and bored isn't what I like taking home from a vacation.