In January 2023 we spent our 21st vacation in the Maldives and we chose OBLU Lobigili, having already twice very good experiences at OBLU Sangeli.
Our review is very short and simple: exceptional staff and resort with an excellent concept.
Our island hostess Lisa made the organizations of excursions and events from arrival to departure in a perfect way and gave us full assistance in all questions at any time.
Our well and tastefully furnished beach pool villa was cleaned twice a day, the minibar was refilled every day, the entire resort was kept extremely clean.
Without exaggerating, the catering can be described only as excellent and first class with unusually delicious menus and large choices of high-quality beverages. The staff was exceptionally friendly and competent at all times and topped all of our previous experiences, which were by no means bad. We enjoyed dinner and lunch in the underwater restaurant, an experience in itself.
The house reef is only a few meters from the beach and offers fantastic snorkeling. Bathing shoes are recommended as corals are sometimes washed ashore.
A perfect holiday for us, we are definitely planning a repeat.
Recommendation rate: 100 %

Booked a 10 day visit to celebrate our 30th Wedding Anniversary.

The cost of the accommodation including the LOBI Plan may look daunting BUT is actually very good value for what it includes. Our 10 day stay included 2 Spa treatments, 3 boat excursions (snorkeling, sunset and fishing), 2 meals at BOTH Gaadiya 17 and the stunning Only Blu Underwater restaurant. All meals, drinks and non-motorised water sports equipment were included within the plan. Extra charges apply to items such as premium spirits, hire of jet skis, a private beach dinner etc.

The meet up at the airport was straight forward, a short walk across the road to the speedboat and approx 20 minutes later arriving at the island to be met by live saxophone music and your own island guide/host. Our host, Srashti, was exceptional in the arrangements she had made and thereafter keeping in touch to ensure we were enjoying our time on Lobigili.

The island has a large team of staff who all seem to be constantly working on the upkeep, appearance and maintenance of the whole resort as well as the expected catering, bar and leisure activities. We found all the staff to be friendly, cheerful and ready to assist with any possible request or query you had. The certainly made us feel very relaxed and welcome and that we, the guests, were the priority for them.

We had booked a Nest Beach Pool Villa. We found it spacious, well equipped, modern and clean. The mini bar was well stocked and resupplied. Yes, only one Mars bar BUT seriously; there is so much good food available why would you even care about a chocolate bar. Our maid, Shruti was exceptional, a thorough service early in the day with a second 'turn down' service in the evening.

Back to the food - we found that there was plenty of variety and enough items changed in the buffet each day to more than cater for our needs. The lunchtime buffet at Ylang offers an incredible array and range of dishes. Yes, there are repeat items and particularly in the evening meal options BUT with the range and ability to select different dishes from the different styles we never got bored with the meals; in fact we found a few favorites that we were always keen to try again. If you really can not find something that meets your dietary needs; just ask the staff who will speak to the chef - nothing seems to be too much trouble for their guests. We should mention Cris, Krishna and Divya who served us on a regular basis; they epitomized the friendly keen and helpful nature of the resort staff.

As it is a man made island a lot of work and effort is undertaken by the staff to maintain and keep the beaches in the best possible condition. Unsurprisingly for an island with coral reefs you will find broken coral, shells etc littering the sand in certain spots; just be sensible about footwear. In any case you will quickly forget the discomfort of bare footing over these when you snorkel off the beach - the sights of the colourful and at times inquisitive sea life are worth the trip alone.

The maintenance staff have done a great job at introducing palm trees and plants all over the island. There was ample cover to the rear of of beach villa to make our private plunge pool nicely secluded with shade provided mainly by the beach umbrella,

The island does get some strong winds blowing through and also some fairly impressive bursts of rain and storms but the temperature remained high and steady both day and night.

A big bonus we thought, was the close proximity to the capital Male and the airport. It does mean that you will occasionally notice planes flying about but usually unobtrusively enough and in the distance - it is certainly NOT like being beneath the flight path at Heathrow or Gatwick! There is more 'noise' from the more regular passing speedboats and seaplanes which we found to be far from annoying or distracting.

Overall we were delighted with our stay and could not have been more pleased with how the holiday went. Like everyone else, we read a lot of reviews before we chose Lobigili and had a few concerns given some of the negative remarks. We have chosen to address a few here as quite frankly we found some of the 'issues' previously raised and mentioned to be utterly inconsequential - but that is our opinion and prerogative!

If we were pressed really hard to find one fault we would mention that the accommodation has a permanently on 'night light' which was a little bright for our liking at night but easily solved by placing a shoe in front of it before bedtime.....now that was hardly worth the effort of typing in but it may help someone!