A couple of days ago, Monkey Miles reported the opening of the JW Marriott Maldives Kaafu Atoll Island Resort. Actually, Zach wrote “JW Marriott Maldives”, so I initially thought he must have been referring to wide open availability and that didn’t immediately seem notable to me. We’d included the JW Marriott Maldives where standard room awards book into overwater bungalows in a roundup in 2021. However, I’ve since learned that this isn’t the same property: there are now two JW Marriott properties in the Maldives. One of those properties, the JW Marriott Maldives Kaafu Atoll Island Resort, has just opened and is available for some dates at 70K points per night, albeit during rainy season.
The Deal
- The JW Marriott Maldives Kaafu Atoll Island Resort is now open, with award rates as low as 70K points per night widely available in June and July (with many dates available for less than 100K points per night until November 2025)
Quick Thoughts
I’m perplexed by Marriott’s decision to brand a second property in the Maldives as a JW Marriott. While I suppose there are probably some cities in the world that have more than one JW Marriott (maybe?), it seems awfully confusing in this case. I could easily imagine a 2-player situation where Player 1 handles booking and Player 2 handles the research about property features / activities / etc where this could lead to a lot of confusion at check-in. I could easily imagine telling my wife that we’re booked at the JW Maldives only to have her Google “JW Marriott Maldives” and end up on the wrong website looking at pictures / features / activities only to arrive at the wrong property.
To be clear, you’re not at risk of actually arriving at the wrong property — your seaplane transfer will be set up through the resort where you have your booking. But I could totally imagine showing up and being surprised because you had prepared by looking at the wrong place.
That said, the JW Marriott Kaafu Atoll Island Resort does look very nice from the early photo galleries, and as it is newly opened, I imagine the resort facilities are probably in excellent condition.
That said, there are a couple of things to know about this property:
- You arrive from the airport via speedboat. The website says it is about a 15-minute speedboat ride from the airport. On the one hand, that makes transfers relatively reasonable for the Maldives ($300 per person round trip). On the other hand, it might mean more noise from airplanes and/or nearby boat traffic heading to/from Male (I’m not aware of the routes, so it’s possible that this is a non-issue).
- New construction isn’t always what you want in the Maldives. While Greg and I had a terrific stay at Le Meridien Maldives a few years ago while it was still quite fresh and new, the construction process doesn’t always bode well for nearby sea life. I haven’t read anything negative about this property, but I’d keep an eye on reviews to learn what there is to see in the water since a large part of the draw of the Maldives for many folks is the snorkeling.
That said, the price is right during parts of the year. For instance, June and July has wide open availability at 70K points per night, though this is during the rainy season.
Later in the year, prices rise, but this property is still widely bookable with points or with 85K free night certificates. Booking an overwater bungalow in the Maldives at a brand new resort using a few 85K free night certificates will likely appeal to some.
I could imagine this being attractive to many people, particularly those who might be anxious about sea plane transfers. I’ll be curious to see how reviews develop over time.
Personally, having stayed once at the Sheraton Maldives Resort, which is a speed boat ride away from the airport, and once at Le Meridien Maldives, which requires a sea plane to reach, I’d be more interested in the isolation of a resort farther from the airport, both for the sense of calm and the sea life. On the other hand, the Waldorf Astoria is a boat ride away from the airport and is widely thought to offer one of the most luxurious experiences in the Maldives, so this new JW Marriott certainly could work out to be a very popular property.
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Orlando also has two JW Marriotts.
Seoul also has two JW Marriotts.
A lot of people are really put off by the idea of flying in a small plane (my wife is one of these people) so I think it’s a smart move to have another high-end property but only a boat ride away; this opens up the Maldives for us now! Hopefully, there shouldn’t be too much confusion because while they are in the same country, they are quite far away from one another.
That’s why we stayed at the Sheraton on our first trip — my wife is certainly one of those people who is not interested in a small plane (this is why we fly Southwest domestically — it’s always a 737, no small regional planes), so I totally get that. Obviously the Sheraton brand isn’t on the same level as the JW Marriott and it’s a much older resort and positioned differently, but after having gone to the Sheraton, we felt pretty ambivalent on the Maldives. We did it as a stop on a large round-the-world trip and we said we were glad we did it that way because it was nice, but not worth flying half a world away to visit. After staying at Le Meridien Maldives, my perspective was completely different — the sense of total isolation and calm and the much greater presence of sea life at a resort farther from the traffic (both in terms of planes but also ships passing by to go to/from Male, which we saw regularly from the Sheraton) made a big difference.
As you note, the WA proves that it is possible to get that type of experience without needing to fly, so hopefully this matches it.
I just booked this one with 2*85K FN and 70k for 3 nights. We are doing WA and would like to spend the 85k cert before expiration. Maldives is probably the few places you can get high value from the FN.
This one came to my radar as the transportation fee is lower than other Marriott properties, given we’ve paid a lot for WA. It costs $600 for 2 adults and 1 kid, but I also need to check how it works for our 2nd kid as we only booked 3 ppl in the booking.
Surprisingly, 3.7 stars of reviews in Marriott website given it’s not widely opened yet. Hope those review are trolls.
Looking forward to the stay.
If you look at it, that’s based on only three reviews. Two of them are five stars and one is one star not terribly specific about what they didn’t like, but it seems to be service related.
Mumbai, India also has two JW Marriotts – the JW Marriott Juhu and JW Marriott Mumbai Sahar
Good to know!