I was really exited to go to this island , but sadly sisssapointed in the service, management, overcharge etc etc, the staff is so rude and discontented, they do not smile , i was told by the sri lankan staff member that the maldivians are told not to speak or smile at the tourists, it seemed almost like a comunist military camp type atmosphere, i upgraded to all incusive and at the end of our stay found that we were charged for every single thing that we had payed for as an all inclusive, when i adressed this overcharge they denied it, there front office manager is a joke and would have been fired in any other country that actually has customer service standards, so to this day they got away with there fraudulent charges and nevert= corrected it or apolgized. PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THIS PLACE , YOU WILL BE RIPPED OFF AND MISTREATED, AND THE PRICES THEY CHARGE , NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS WOULD ACTUALLY EXPECT SOME SORT OF VALUE RESPECT AND HONESTY, THAT NO SEEMS TO NO THE MEANING OF AT THIS RESORT, I THINK THEY HAVE GOT AWAY WITH CHEATING PEOPLE FOR SO LONG THAT THEY PROBABLY DONT EXPECT ANYONE TO SPEAK UP ON THE ISSUE.

We'd been to the Maldives before to Kuramathi so knew what to expect, we were pleasantly surprised to be upgraded to a water bungalow for the first four nights which was great. The resort is small but like all Malidivian islands very beautiful with great snorkelling, rooms were very good and food quality and variety good. Our main problem was with the all inclusive, you can only have drinks in the main bar and you can't take them away from the bar, if you want water in your room (we were told not to drink the tap water) then you have to buy bottles at £3.70 per 1.5 litre bottle, fruit juices and cocktails are also not included and you have to be careful when ordering drinks - for instance if you ask for lime juice and soda you will be charged about £5 per drink. The entertainment in the evening was mediocre and repetitive and not helped by the fact that we were there a week before Xmas ! The main bar was undergoing annual maintenance while we were there and the hammering didn't do much to enhance the beautiful sunsets, the management team could and should have opened the other bar while this was going on. Finally we were the only UK people in the resort which didn't bother us - most people seemed to be Russian or Chinese.

I stayed here November 2010, we had at first stayed in Sri Lanka on a cultural tour which was first class, we then had seven nights in the Maldives.
I had upgraded to stay in the Beach bungalow above the sea at a cost of £900 for the week.
The island was small with only a small resort, this was not a problem as we only wanted a small resort. Food was average and the staff were generally miserable and due to their culture quite rude when a woman wanted to drink alcohol. The island was full of germans and russians fine no problem, but the staff spoke their language and very little english. Although all inclusive if you wanted a drink in the lounge bar you had to pay!!! All inclusive is really what it should be.
We took part in a night fishing trip- great but when speaking to the staff they said that on the outside they smiled but hated the fact that people came to their islands drinking alcohol!!! Eh mate are we not facilitating tourism!
Chinese spa fantastic staff friendly, Sri Lanken staff on the island very friendly, beautiful island and if you want to relax fantastic but would put this as a 3 star.

Background:
We were looking for a honeymoon venue and wanted to a lovely beach holiday where it was snorkel friendly (neither of us dive and I'm a weak swimmer) and also not too hard on the wallet. After combing through the bewildering myriad of Maldivian resorts, we settled on the Club Rannalhi as previous reviewers boasted of some awesome snorkelling and for Maldivian prices, was one of the cheapest options we found.

Although we specifically told our travel agent in Singapore that we were going on honeymoon, we were told by our agent that the Adaaran resorts did not offer anything for honeymooning couples and also would provide 2 bottles of water in each room every day.

Trip duration:
We spent 3 nights in their beachfront (standard) rooms and 3 in the newer water bungalows.

Airport transfer:
Around 40 min journey by speedboat. The ride is pleasant (I like the wind in my face and roar of the engine over the sea) and on both journeys, we had good weather. No water spray although we sat right at the back of the boat. Only comment is that we never used the actual pier by the airport but rather embarked and disembarked alongside what I can only call a "kerb".

Clientele:
We thought it would be all couples but we were surprised. Many were groups and families. I would say it was about a 60:30:10 split (couples:groups:families). You can tell that many Italians and Russians are frequent customers given that the clocks by reception told time for Male, Rome and Moscow.

Staff:
Staff were generally courteous. Reception staff were helpful and tried their best to resolve problems. We weren't sure why we kept being quizzed by non-reception staff as to which country we came from (are they playing country bingo??). This question was thrown to us by almost all such staff encountered, from the chef who cooks the eggs in the morning, to the housekeeping staff. Anyone whom you have a conversation (or not) with. Got a bit annoying after a few days of this...

Things move slowly as we found out first hand (read on).

Check-in and the meal plan:
Difficult.
We were greeted with a small glass of non-alcoholic cocktail and a very welcome cold towel. As we arrived just before lunch, we were shuffled off to partake in the buffet-styled lunch before checking-in. We were assigned a table and waiter, who gave us acceptable service throughout our stay there.

Something at lunch had raised my curiosity and because I enquired, we found out that there was a mix-up as to what meal plan we were on. This was probably due to the Maldivian travel agent (presumably whom our Singapore travel agent went through to book this) mixing up terms. Be warned that fullboard (FB) is NOT the same as all-inclusive (AI). Fullboard includes all meals but no drinks whereas the all-inclusive one does. With the average price of a drink (including water) at around US$6 per glass, this can be a fairly costly difference.

Resolving this took about half an hour, mainly waiting for return calls from the Maldivian travel agent to confirm that we were on the AI deal. Having been certified AI, we were then labelled with a non-detachable wrist tag that's similar to those you get at big beach parties and theme parks. You can swim with this, bathe with this but once on, it only comes off with a pair of scissors or extreme force. So it's your close friend for your whole stay. I wasn't keen to have this band on and for the first 2 - 3 days, found it very annoying especially when bathing as the tag can scratch other parts of the body when one is soaping. Likewise when one hugs someone and retract one's arms - it didn't exactly create the romantic mood for me! I got used to it after awhile (and the tags soften slightly) but I'm curious as to whether other resorts use the same method of marking their guests...

Food:
Good.
There's only so much variety you can have with the same few ingredients that are generally accepted but we give the resort points for trying. We had "international" nights, a chinese night, an Italian night and a Maldivian night during our stay. Maldivian was my favourite, with the hopper (coconut flavoured savoury "pancake" with optional sunny side up egg and onion-based relish) and deep fried bananas. Good variety of fruits for dessert and my other half enjoyed the spread of desserts which featured a large variety of blancmange-y types and sponge cakes. Lots of variety at breakfast - English (bacon, oatmeal etc.), American (omelettes, waffles etc), Continental (toasts, cereals etc.), Asian (rice etc.) and fruits. Overall, we had solid, down to earth fare during our stay.

As mentioned earlier, on the AI plan, most drinks were included (you get a list when you check in) and served by the glass. The soft drinks don't exactly taste like their European counterparts but we put that down to a regional thing. We never got our 2 bottles of water per day in any of the rooms... which is fine as we were on AI but representation of poor standards as I read somewhere on TripAdvisor that others at the same resort have had 2 bottles of mineral water per day. Luckily we had our own water container and filled these up at meal times (very discreetly, as it didn't seem to be allowed).

Rooms:
Variable. This was the aspect that really bugged me.

On top of what's advertised on the official website, all rooms had air-con, hairdryers, towels (both for the room and beach) and generic toiletries (soap, shampoo etc. no slippers though). The water bungalow had a flat screen TV (standard rooms had CRTs, not flat screens) and bathrobes but no fan, which means you either sleep with the air-conditioning on, or leave the back glass doors open. We had a newer water bungalow and that has no see-through glass floor in the room. It has a strong lamp on the sundeck floor so you can still see fish swimming below at night, but outdoors. Outside the beachfront bungalows are racks to dry clothes, towels and other bric a brac on. There is also a little pot of (sea?) water by the terrace to help reduce the amount of sand you track into the room. In the water bungalows, there is a towel rack on the sundeck wall but no clothes pegs so be aware that smaller items may fly away into the ocean... We generally used the chairs on the deck as these also got the sun's rays. No internet in the rooms but mobile signal was available. Housekeeping comes twice - morning and evening.

The first room we got was 143 on the "other" side of the island, next to the "other" pier and the sandbagged side of the island (sea is still gorgeous though). Featuring a twin bed (which annoyed me as this was meant to be our honeymoon and no mention of twin beds on the hotel's website AT ALL), this room had a pre-locked safe (the previous guest might have forgotten to unlock it), non-working kettle and a giant damp patch in a corner of the room, making it smell musty. TV reception here was poor, with some ants running underfoot in the room. It took about 2 hours to get the safe unlocked and another 6 hours to get a working kettle (we asked the staff 3 times about the kettle and only when we complained at reception in person, did it get resolved).

Because Club Rannalhi was at the lower end of the price spectrum, I accepted that the furnishings may be a bit tired and dated. We were also on a tropical island so I accepted that ants are also part and parcel of the setting. However, the last straw was the dripping ceiling in the bathroom, which I discovered in the evening. We mentioned this to reception after dinner (also reminding them of the kettle issue again) and asked to change rooms the next day. They said to check in with them again in the morning.

Also at around 1130pm, it sounded like large metal cannisters were being loaded onto a boat t the pier outside the room... so it wasn't the quietest for sleeping!

The next morning, we got a call offering us to change rooms and we took it as they said that they were getting people in to fix the leak and would take a couple of days.

The first move - Room 119 was on the "better" side of the island (according to reception!), had a lovely king sized bed, open safe, non-dripping bathroom, lovely beach front and no ants in the room!!! I was very appeased and we spent an enjoyable 2 nights' sleep here...

The second move - room 426, the newer water bungalow.
We had to get the ball rolling by asking when we would be moved. Move itself was fine, furnishings were all much newer and bathroom looked more luxurious although when we got there, I found a twin bed (again), a locked safe (again) and best of all, no electricity. A quick call to reception and a bit of a wait resolved the electricity issue but by this point, we couldn't be bothered to solve the safe and bed issue so just left it alone. My other half unfortunately had an extremely lumpy mattress (in the form of hard bed springs) and didn't enjoy his 3 nights, whereas mine was fine. Also, the position of the bed and air conditioner was such that it blew straight into you, no matter how you adjusted the fan.

Due to the nature of the water bungalows, it's inevitable that the sound proofing isn't the best but we must have had the heaviest people for neighbours as we could hear them walking around their room and this kept waking my other half up (who is a light sleeper) in the mornings.

The worst thing was the rude awakening after the first night. Other half woke up to find a cockroach on his arm!! We also found a smaller dead one near the back doors (see pic).... =/ Needless to say, we weren't impressed but given how many times we'd already complained to reception, we didn't bother ringing to complain. I did speak with the housekeeper, who shrugged and said that it was just how it was and that the roaches lived below the floorboards on the water bungalows (but no ants... small blessing?!). We accepted it but just kept our suitcases closed and things out of the way... On a relevant note, we noticed the same breakfast tray sitting outside our neighbour's room for about 3 days! Encouraging the cockroaches, maybe?

Excursion:
We only went on the night fishing (line fishing) trip. It was enjoyable as we caught a wide variety of very interesting looking fish although it was slightly marred by the fact that the fisherman touched me inappropriately. I did not complain then because I didn't think that anything constructive would have come out of it but it is something that ladies should certainly watch out for, especially if you find yourself wondering why the "nice" man is helping so much with your fishing!

The sea:
Best bit of all!! From the "nicer" beach front, it only takes a metre or two of snorkelling away from the shore to find some interesting bit of coral and fish to observe. The waters are so clear that one can see shoals of fishes swimming from raised walkways. Descending into the ocean from the water bungalow, one can see a wide array of colourful fish and it's only a short swim to the border between the shallow and deep waters where it's just teeming with beautiful fish and coral. As I said earlier, I'm not a strong swimmer but the waters are relatively shallow and calm and reefs close enough to shore/room that one doesn't feel anxious. Snorkels (+flippers) and buoyancy aids are available for rent (think it's 7 and 5 USD per day respectively not including service charge, GST and whatnots) but we brought our own.

Billing and check-out:
All other expenditure on the island is credited to your room account. Larger notes can be broken at the reception at certain hours. Check-out is at noon and bills are settled then. Our flight was at 2345 and were assigned on the 1530 boat to the airport so whiled the 3 hours away in the cocktail bar where they serve snacks (at a price) and drinks. Toilet facilities were available but no air conditioning (fan and sea breeze only). As we had a lot of time to kill on arriving at Male, the resort offered the opportunity to go sightseeing around Male, which we declined. You pay (per person) USD$5 per piece of luggage to store, $2 for a return trip, tips for the guide and of course, any other expenditure you incur. We think that if you have a long wait between check-out and your flight, this option seems more worth it than taking the Male city expedition (around USD$70/person).

Overall:
We loved the surrounding sea and the amazing marine life found but will probably stump up that bit more cash to go to a better resort that has a higher standard of facilities. Some lovely sunsets to be had by the cocktail bar and the walkways connecting the water bungalows to the island, where schools of colourful fish swim and also the occasional baby black-tipped shark swim past.