OBLU by Atmosphere at Helengeli

I had a good holiday with my family in the last week of July. Overall, it was a wonderful holiday on a beautiful island with the most exotic house reef. Pros: - The island is beautiful and perfectly sized - not so small so not crowded yet not so large that a lot of time would be wasted going from one end to the other. We may have felt differently if it was fully occupied and crowded! - The house reef was stunning! Esp the reef drop off point. We saw so many varieties of fish, swam with sharks, turtles, rays. - The All Inclusive package is a great idea. Esp because it includes rental of snorkeling equipment, along with food and drinks which other resorts dont usually offer. and all the equipment was in perfect shape and Shafeeq in the dive shop was so helpful. - The food was varied and tasty (breakfast was the same every day though, they could add some variety there). The dinner on the beach was great and the food was delicious. - Rooms were substantially large and cleaned every day. Because of the AI package, there was so shortage of water, they gave three large bottles every day. There also other helpful touches like flip flops, raincoats, umbrellas and even life jackets that could be used by people who weren't confident swimmers. - There is only one bar but it was never full so one always had a place to sit and the bar tenders were quick and efficient and waiters really helpful. Cons: - My biggest grouse was that they made us leave at 12pm on the last day, even though our flight was at 5pm and knowing it takes less than an hour to reach Male. It almost felt orchestrated in a way so we wouldn't ask for lunch as lunch started only at 12 (luggage was taken at 11.15 and we had to let the rooms go at 11.45). And this was communicated late the night before we were to leave so there would be no time to even discuss or request this, despite my asking them several times the day before . Considering we missed lunch on Day 1 (as our flight landed only late afternoon), they could have offered some quick bites. Our flight was also delayed (not the resort's fault) but that meant we were waiting at the airport for 7 hours! Im sure they could have had more frequent speed boat rides going back to Male. - Also, though the staff was polite, I felt the ones at the reception were either not efficient or were purposely not helpful. Any request took a long time to come or not at all. Like replacing the battery of the torch in the room - it just didn't arrive. We needed an RT PCR test done our our travel back and I had to call the reception 6 times before they finally sent it to us at 10 am on the last day, after having told us that we would have it by 8am latest. And we desperately needed it to be able to fill out the various self declaration health forms prior to reaching the airport. As a result, our last day was ruined as there was no time to snorkel / swim one last time as I had to keep chasing them for the report. On hind sight, we probably should have done the test a day earlier so that our last morning was stress free. - We had standard beach villas on the east side. The view was fine as were the rooms, though a bit old. However, the next time we will probably take the rooms on the west side, because of the breeze and also a better beach. The eastern shore is very pebbly so to snorkel our one would have to tread over the stones and carefully so as not to hurt the corals. However, we enjoyed the quiet of this side. - One suggestion is to perhaps serve the food in the buffet counters so that everyone is not touching all the serving spoons and covers (a necessary precaution during these pandemic times). Despite the cons, we may come back to this resort as we just loved the house reef and the size of the island seemed perfect for us, as was the food and drinks.

We took this trip right after the whole pandemic shutdown in April 2021, the property was on a relatively small island that just had enough of everything. Nothing outright fancy here, however, it was a relaxing holiday on a nice beachfront villa which was perfect for kids. The beach villa is not too large however it was good enough for our family and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The number of restaurants is quite limited, however, the main restaurant had enough variety for the three days we were there. Staff at Oblu are always smiling and are quite happy to oblige. The highlight of the property is the house reef which was quite delightfull. Overall it was a great experience.