St. Regis vs. Ritz Carlton Maldives

For those looking for a Marriott property in Maldives, you probably have come across a lot of reviews raving about both the St Regis and the Ritz Carlton. I have summarized my thoughts on both based on my stay at the St Regis in Jan 2020 and Ritz Carlton in Nov 2022

TLDR version

St regis if

you have platinum and above, want free breakfast buffet
You care more about snorkeling and seeing underwater life more easily
You want slightly bigger rooms and like having huge hammocks over the water
You want to experience the infinity hydro jetted spa pool

Ritz if

You want higher chance of getting a room with emerald blue lagoon
Easier travel between Male and resort
Newer resort with a more modern look and feel
You want to visit a sandbank

Food & Wine

Both resorts have 3-4 options for dinners every night and at least 2 of them are outstanding. Ritz also hosts special dinners at their impressive wine room, which adds to the experience. Both offer wine tasting experience! St regis wine room is enormous and wine tasting along with an aroma kit was super fun. Ritz was in an intimate oceanview cellar and started with a sabrage! Both had an extensive premium wine list. Both breakfast buffets had free flowing prosecco/champange, although I did love having fresh salmon and tuna sashimi at the St Regis.

Ritz: 5 stars

St Regis: 5 stars

Scenery, beach, pool

Overall look at feel of the resort beach and pool is probably a personal preference but I personally liked beaces, pool, view from the rooms at Ritz slightly better. But honestly can’t go wrong with either options here. One special perks of Ritz is you can visit the sand lagoon, tiny sand island in the middle of the emerald blue ocean.

Ritz: 5 stars

St Regis: 4.5 stars

Activities

We tried participating in more activities in St regis (daily morning workouts, painting class, snorkeling) vs. at the Ritz where we spent most of the times just chilling. So I can’t really speak for them but Ritz does offer daily morning yoga sessions, whereas St. Regis offered different workout classes each morning. This might be part of “food & wine” as well but I loved the daily sunset Sabrage at the St. Regis! Amazing view and free glass of Champagne :)

Ritz: 4.5

St Regis: 5 stars

Service

This might be more dependent on who you get for your personal butler, while the entire staff went above and beyond at both resort, we felt like our personal butler at St regis was more proactive in making our stay amazing.

Ritz: 5 stars

St Regis: 5+ stars

Room

This scoring is mostly due to the fact that Ritz was the second time we’ve been to Maldives and we knew what to ask for. We did more research on the type of room we might like more and noted our preference to the hotel, which got us to a beautiful lagoon view over the water villa for 3 nights and sunset beach villa for 2. At the St. Regis, the base room is the garden villa and all we asked for was an over the water upgrade and while beautiful and better for snorkeling, it didn’t have the emerald blue lagoon view. St Regis’s villa size is slightly bigger but the size difference is negligible. St Regis overwater hammock is amazing (vs small hammock on the deck at Ritz) but the Ritz infinity pool was more picturesque.

Ritz: 5

St Regis: 4.5

If anything, refer to the photos and I’ll let them speak for themselves. Pick the one you like better!

St Regis