Rating: 3.6/5 (7 votes cast)
Many of the recent reviews tell what a wonderful beautiful island Veligandu is. How fabulous the food is and how friendly the staff are. This is going to be no different!
We had booked one of the new Jacuzzi Water Villas, for 10 nights over the Easter holidays. We booked through Hayes and Jarvis direct (always a painless experience). We travelled via Qatar airways (quite good).
We were given one of the old pre-refurbished beach villas for our first night. Not a great start. To be fair to the management however, they were very apologetic, they give us the difference in price ($162) for the different room, a free bottle of wine and a candlelit dinner for 2 from the A la Carte restaurant. We were happy with the compensation offered, though what else could we have done at the time? I don't think that this can happen too often, as the waiters and bar staff looked at me as if I had my wires crossed when I quoted our room number to them on our first night.
Apart from this, Veligandu is an absolute treasure. The refurb. is virtually complete now, some planting and on-going maintenance is evident but quite un obtrusive.
The reception staff get a bit of stick on this and other forums. To be fair to them, most are young and inexperienced and did not know as much English as you would expect. However, everyone has to start learning sometime and experienced guys were around to help them most of the time.
The wildlife both above and below the water had us enthralled.
The fish / rays / sharks were plentiful even in the shallows of the lagoon. Snorkelling on the reefs were excellent. Watching the big fruit bats flying off then coming back to roost provided us with our pre dinner drink entertainment, whilst the local Raven's were so tame that they were eating from my Wife's hand while we were on our sun deck.
AI ($40 a day each) vs FB? We are not big drinkers and were definitely better off on FB. Water is $3.50 for 1.5L. Wine averaged between $25 - $40 a bottle. As cocktails were not included on AI, and a happy hour between 19.00 - 20.00hrs exists (25% discount) we were probably $30 a day better off between us.
Veligandu Spa
The Spa was excellent at Veli.. The girls were all out of Bali (we think) and were very professional. A good range of treatments were on offer and at very reasonable rates. Overall we had a fabulous holiday, the hiccup at the beginning not upsetting us one bit. You will enjoy this place, its like being on a different planet!
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