Reethi Life

Mark and I honeymooned for 10 nights at One&Only Reethi Rah in July 2007. We chose it partly because we love One&Only Royal Mirage in Dubai, partly because I'd previously been to what was One&Only Kanuhura with my parents and it was AMAZING and partly because my parents went the year before and said it was more spectacular than Kanuhura.

We weren't let down. The resort is spectacular - MUCH bigger than Kanuhura, so you can't really walk right the way around. You could, but it would take ages! There are so many different types of villas. We'd opted for a standard beach villa and were thrilled with it. It was absolutely stunning. We think it may have had a square footage not much smaller than our flat! The bathroom was superb - it had a huge two person bath, his and hers sinks, and the shower was a walk in room! It was absolutely massive, overlooking the beach and with a bench if the need to sit down came about! We were met by our villa host, who washed and massaged our feet before we were allowed into the villa!

The exterior of the villas is amazing too. The Beach Villa had sun beds, a hammock and a sheltered pagoda. But we didn't stay very long.

Due to a series of unfortunate events (involving a bag spoiled by leaking air conditioning and a rather bruised knee caused by leaking patio doors) we were upgraded to the Grand Beach Villa with Pool after two nights! We thought the beach villa was perfection - the new one was out of this world! We had a huge square C shaped pool, complete with day bed, which had a canopied day bed which could easily have fitted four or five people on it, two sun beds on the deck outside the villa, two more on the beach. We had a hammock as well, and an outdoor dining area. And the best bit...OUR OWN GOLF BUGGY TO TOOTLE AROUND IN! That was such a boon - it meant we didn't have to wait if we wanted to go anywhere which made life a lot easier.

Reethi Rah has 3 restaurants, Reethi Restaurant, Fanditha Lebanese beachfront, and Tapasake - a fusion of tapas and Japanese food. We didn't get the chance to eat at Fanditha though - we had about 5 out of the 10 days with inclement weather, and the night we were going to go to Fanditha it wasn't a menu we were enamoured with. Both Reethi and Tapasake are amazing - Wagyu Beef, Angus Black, Goats cheese: anything and everything you could want. Mark was particularly fond of Reethi's Dim Sum starter and had it at almost every meal and for lunch some days.
We had room service a few times and the staff made a lovely setting at the table, especially at the Grand Beach Villa as we had an outdoor eating area. Tapasake was phenomenal - crispy fried chicken with a gin sauce, and lots of other imaginative combinations which meant we went three times.

Each villa has its own villa host. Ours was wonderful - considering the weather was so bad we called him quite a lot to bring us drinks, snacks, DVDs, etc, but he always had a smile for us and was very efficient. He was also the villa cleaner, and it was amusing to see the team of hosts pedalling about on rickshaw-esque bikes with baskets on the back for all the linen and towels!

The resort (you can't even really call it a hotel...) has a general store selling RR souvenirs, mainly things from the rooms, like soap dishes, candle holders, etc, but it also sold a small selection of snack food like Pringles (1/2 price of tubs in Mini Bar - beware!), Mars bars etc. There was also a boutique selling swimwear, jewellery, and accessories like bags and hats (almost came away with a Stetson and an Anya Hindmarch O&O designed bag featuring a map of the RR island!).

The Spa....wow! We booked in for a couple’s treatment which was lovely. We both had hot stone massage, Mark's just on his back, me a full body. It was a wonderful experience, starting off with juices in a pavilion overlooking the spa pond, foot massages, then the massages and the whole experience was topped off with a relaxing milk bath in a bathing house above the ocean, looking out into the deep blue. It was EXTORTIONATE but lovely!

I went out scuba diving once. I wasn't very impressed by what I saw, but the water had been very choppy for 4 days, it was an overcast day and to be honest I wasn't even too bothered about going, but thought I'd be as well to and see what it was like. I didn't dive again because I wasn't taken by the test dive, and we were close to flying out again anyway - the weather had been so bad I had to postpone twice!

For rainy days: the hotel had a DVD library and we watched a few. It's pretty much a choice of films, sleeping, and reading, eating or working out in the gym. You could go the Spa too but as soon as people woke up and saw it was raining the spa was fully booked by 0900 (we were warned by the manager who drove us to our villa as we arrived)!

I fell in the room and clattered my knee really badly and within five minutes the resort doctor and the duty manager were in the room with ice and odd looking blue painkillers. They checked on me the next day and made sure I was comfortable, and produced another bottle of champagne, adding to the one waiting for us when we arrived.

On our first morning we asked to be shown around the island so we knew where everything was. This was very useful especially once we got our own buggy! We did have a bad habit of racing around at night and trying to avoid the puddles...thankfully we had no accidents.

Reethi Rah is truly a One&Only experience. The chain's motto is:

"There are moments when anything is possible.
Where perfection is perfected.
If you can dream it, you can do it.
There are places where moments like this happen every day.
One&Only. Live the moment."

This pretty much sums up life at Reethi Rah. Anything can happen. As honeymooners we got a complimentary romantic dinner but because the set menu didn't appeal we were introduced to the executive chef, shown around the kitchens and told we could pick whatever we wanted to eat and it was cooked to order for us. That's service! The fact Mark picked something that wasn't even on the menu and there was no objection says something.

The TVs in each room are set to the One&Only channel in the evening after turndown. The music which goes with the short film reminds me of so many happy times, and I've managed to upload it onto my iPod so I can Live the Moment wherever I am.

Reethi Rah is extremely expensive...but I'd say it was worth it. My only suggestions for improvement would be it could benefit from another restaurant. If you're stuck there with resonably bad weather like we were, another eating option would have been good because we couldn't get to Fanditha. So going between Reethi and Tapasake got a bit boring, but the food was wonderful!

The other suggestion would be that afternoon tea needs to be improved, although I know they're addressing this. The option was iced tea and freshly made donuts with a selection of sugar, icing and cocnut to dip them in. We expected afternoon tea to be like it is at The Palace....sandwiches, cakes, a selection of drinks (hot, cold and alcoholic), chocolates, fruit, etc. The new food and beverage manager at RR used to be at the Palace and was appauled when we told him at breakfast one morning when he asked what we thought about the afternoon tea that we had to pay for a coffee and a Diet Coke. He said he'll be overhauling how afternoon tea works so hopefully that's been done now.

We'll certainly be back to One&Only resorts many times in the future. Hopefully we'll return to Reethi Rah at somepoint in the future too. Maybe not for 10 nights (perhaps if the weather had been better!) but it's a true experience, and has given us memories we'll treasure forever.