As frequent travelers, we stay in lots of hotels. It’s a somewhat unavoidable necessity in order to see what other parts of the world have to offer. We’ve stayed in everything from beachfront shanty hotels to 5 star resorts. For some travelers, the lodging experience is a big deal. We have gone back and forth, at times, on the importance of our hotel choice. In this post, I’m going to share my favorite hotels with you.
Outrigger Konotta Maldives Resort
This very difficult to get to resort was discussed in our 51 Hour Journey post. Coincidentally, it was also the longest stay we have ever had at any single hotel. The Outrigger Konotta has only 53 guest rooms in 8 different styles, ranging from beach villa to the overwater Grand Konotta Villa, which is really a large house. It’s important to note that every villa on the resort has its own private plunge pool, which gives you a choice of swimming in the privacy of your room or at the resort’s main pool.
The Outrigger Konotta is not for everyone. Not because it lacks, well, anything. If you can stomach an extra hour flight once already reaching the international airport in the multi-atoll nation of Maldives, you might want to keep reading.
Once you reach the Kaadedhdhoo airport, the welcome staff from the Outrigger Konotta meets you at the terminal with a golf cart for a short ride down to their enclosed speedboat, which takes you to Konotta Island. Upon arrival, you’ll be greeted with fresh coconut water still in the coconut before being whisked away for a full explanation of all the resort’s amenities. Each villa has its own team member tasked with assisting the guests with anything they need. We’re pretty self sufficient, but Shuhad definitely impressed when we needed him.
The Outrigger spa was outstanding. Michelle and I had 2.5 hour couples massages and facials, which have to be some of the best spa treatments we have ever had. Following the treatments, we relaxed in the spa’s hydro pool, which is also available for all guests to use without additional charge. While at the hydro pool, spa staff brought us some post massage dessert to eat while remaining in our blissful states.
This resort island is surrounded by a house reef inhabited by the most beautiful fish, turtles, sharks, stingrays, eagle rays, octopi, squid, and coral. We even saw dolphins. The water sports crew took us out on jet skis to the most beautiful sand bank in the middle of the atoll. Then they led us on a snorkeling excursion around the surrounding reef. The dive shop also employs a marine biologist, who not only led us on a night time snorkeling trip, but also on a coral replanting excursion. We really enjoyed helping the reef coral repopulate and thrive.
When it comes to food and dining, the Outrigger Konotta is more than adequate. When we first arrived on the island, it was late morning and our villa wasn’t ready yet. Naturally, we headed to the pool and opted for lunch in a poolside cabana. We were super impressed with the 3 course lunch that consisted of an appetizer, entree, and dessert. For dinner, the resort had a static menu every evening and an option for speciality cuisine at one of its other restaurants. One night we opted for Moroccan food, which started with a buffet spread that would impress anyone, followed by a main course of meats. We always ate our meals outside where we could take in the ocean views and smell the sea water in the air, except for one night when it was raining. This also happened to be the night the staff arranged for us to have a beautiful candle lit dinner on the beach. That was unfortunate, but it hardly ruined the experience at Outrigger Konotta.
This resort lived up to all our expectations and ends at the top of our list.
Vedana Lagoon Resort & Spa
This resort is in the middle of nowhere, south of Hue, Vietnam. We discovered the Vedana googling around for overwater bungalows in Vietnam. If you’re a seasoned traveler around Southeast Asia, you are probably already raising eyebrows. When we visited Vedana in 2017, it was only one of two resorts in Vietnam with overwater bungalows and happened to be somewhat close to the area we were passing through.
Arriving at Vedana was frightening. We took a cab from the train station at 9pm. To get to the lagoon Vedana is constructed on, you have to drive off road through a fishing village. We thought we were going to be murdered. In Vietnam. In a fishing village. In the middle of the night. After checking in, we were escorted to our overwater bungalow by golf cart, where we ordered a room service dinner before passing out.
Our surprise came at 5:30am when we were awoken by the sun rising up over the lagoon and shining through the floor to ceiling glass windows. This was the first of many surprises Vedana had to offer. Once we got out of bed and really checked out the villa, we noticed the large wrap around balcony, which had all the views. The villa had both indoor and outdoor showers as well as a large marble soaker tub. The resort uses shampoo, conditioner, and soap made on site from soapberries purchased from a local market. The soapberry products were so impressive that I found some to purchase when we got back home.
We ventured out of the room to explore the resort property on the bicycles supplied to each villa. This super tiny resort has one of the nicest looking pools with a view we have ever seen. The pool wasn’t the only thing extraordinary about the Vedana. Everything about this resort had next level attention to detail. Vedana is the 8K resolution of hotels. If a guest would park one of the bicycles one inch off center, the staff would move the bike over an inch. Staff would even sweep the dirt road right outside the property to level out the ground.
The concierge was even nice enough to arrange a taxi to take us to a restaurant in a local neighborhood. No English on the menus or spoken by the family who owned the restaurant. We were definitely out of place there, but it was authentic and we loved it. Thanks to the Vedana staff, the taxi driver even stayed around so we could get a ride back to the resort when we finished our meal.
Vedana is my #2 on this list, but #1 for surprises.
Angkor Miracle Resort & Spa
If you’re looking for a 5 star hotel on a 2-star budget, I’ve got the place for you. You may have been able to identify the location from the name, but if you haven’t, the Angkor Miracle Resort & Spa is located in Siem Reap, Cambodia. We got an upgraded room with a walk out to the beautiful, sparkling salt water pool for under $80 USD a night. Speaking of dollars, Cambodia is on a dual currency system using both Riel and Dollars so your American currency will be easily accepted anywhere with no need to exchange.
The rooms at Angkor Miracle were very adequate and tidy. We could not find evidence that anyone had ever even walked in our room prior to our arrival. One thing that I thought was very impressive was the hanging bed on the patio. Not in the room, but also impressive, was the included complimentary foot massage each guest received at the spa. I could easily stop with included foot massage—we used ours after walking around the Angkor temples all day.
Angkor Miracle has a really nice business center, which served its purpose when I had some emergency legal work I had to do for a client. I was not expecting to work at all on that trip, so I left my MacBook at home. Well, thankfully, we were staying at the Angkor Miracle, and miracle it was. The one thing that goes well with work is booze, and the Angkor Miracle does that well too. The hotel has daily 2 for 1 happy hours. I’m not one to let good alcohol go to waste, so I downed these 5 shot glasses. Twice.
Finally, the food is not to be ignored. Angkor Miracle has a cafe and a restaurant. The cafe discounts food later in the day so if you’re all about almost free cake for dessert, grab what hasn’t already been purchased after eating your dinner in the main restaurant. We recommend the beef loc lac. It’s a traditional Cambodian steak dish and the Angkor Miracle does it very well.
Angkor Miracle is my favorite hotel for the value.
BLESS Hotel Madrid
This hotel has a stripper pole in the basement. Aside from this obviously single reason you should want to stay at BLESS, this hotel is posh for Madrid. Most of the hotels in Madrid have no swimming pool. Not only does BLESS have a nice rooftop swimming pool, it is surrounded by cabanas and tended to by an incredibly helpful pool staff. The pool is a must if you visit during the warm summer months.
BLESS also has multiple hotel bars. There are two beautiful bars in the lobby area and another downstairs in the basement. You’ll find a drink menu that is more than ample at each with impeccable service. Inside the basement bar is where the stripper pole is located. It’s in a “champagne room” type room. Also in the basement is a two-lane bowling alley, which comes at an extra charge to hotel guests. BLESS surely knows how to entertain its guests. If you’re a guest at BLESS, this will become immediately apparent.
The rooms at BLESS are beautiful. The beds are ornate with really large headboards. The sitting areas have loveseats below the windows. And, Finally, the bathrooms are nicely updated with separate room for the toilet. The rooms were designed with couples in mind.
BLESS Hotel Madrid is my favorite hotel with a stripper pole in the basement.
Sunborn Gibraltar
This is a super unique hotel, because it’s a giant yacht that was converted to a hotel. The Sunborn sits permanently docked between one of the world’s most scenic airports and the famed Rock of Gibraltar. You should expect small rooms for obvious reasons, but for those same reasons you should expect to have a view, which may include a sunrise over the Strait of Gibraltar with Morocco in the background if you’re lucky enough.
The hotel has a casino, but you won’t be impressed with it if you’ve spent any significant time in Las Vegas. You can still unwind there and maybe win some money. As you might expect, the yacht hotel also has a pool on one of its decks. We didn’t have a chance to lounge around the pool, but did go check it out one night and the views were spectacular.
If you’re visiting the tiny UK territory of Gibraltar, it’s likely for a short time just to visit the Rock of Gibraltar. You won’t find many hotels there, but the Sunborn is my favorite floating hotel.
So now you know my five favorite hotels. I hope they inspire you to visit them and you enjoy them just as much as we did!
