Underwater Paradise at the Ithaa Restaurant
For our second day in paradise, we ventured underwater at Ithaa!
Waking up in Paradise
Because we were tired from our day of relaxation (joking - it was the long days of travel!), we decided to sleep in and wake up with the sun. We quickly learned that the sunrise is pretty early and we just ended up waking up, napping, and then relaxing in the room. More importantly, as Mary Frances likes to remember, it forced me to stay away from the (free!) breakfast!
Tip: For all Hilton Gold/Diamond members, there is free breakfast at the Vilnu or Atoll Market. During my pre-travel research, everyone highly recommended the Vilnu as it was sit-down service and great quality versus the buffet style of the Atoll Market.
For our first breakfast, we went a little crazy… First, I hit the smaller buffet line to grab all the carbs. My personal favorite was the chocolate donut with the various fruit coming in for a close second. For my main, I had the delicious eggs benedict while Mary Frances had scrambled eggs and bacon. To share, we had a wonderful Belgian Waffle covered in a fruit sauce with whipped cream!
Pro Tip: You can order WHATEVER you want - regardless of the Hilton status - as it is an all inclusive meal. Get your money’s worth!!
Ithaa Undersea Restaurant
At the Conrad, the resort has one of the most unique restaurants in the world - the world’s first undersea restaurant, Ithaa. Understandably, Ithaa is not only a huge marketing tool and separate activity, it also has delicious food according to Tripadvisor. There are three options to visit:
- 11am Cocktail Hour (everyday, but Tuesday) ($75++)
- 12:30pm Lunch ($290++)
- 6:30pm Dinner ($375++)
Before our trip, I initially reserved our last dinner to be at the Ithaa. Thankfully, Mary Frances also did her research and saw the reviews were okay compared to the price tag. Most importantly, she had the brains to realize it would be completely dark in that room after sunset at 7pm… Therefore, we switched to the cocktail hour.
Tip: You can reserve two weeks in advance and change until 12 hours before the meal or activity! There are only 15 spaces in the restaurant so it is important!
Pro Tip: I admit that I am a major foodie. While it was tough to miss out on the experience, it also saved us about $500 that we were able to use later!
History
Over 14 years ago, the Conrad designed the restaurant in Singapore before floating, I mean shipping, to the Maldives. The trip was almost 6 weeks long and must have looked funny as it was towed from Singapore. Once at the Conrad, it did not naturally sink despite weighing over 750 tons so they had to add more cemetery and weight before it sank.
Now, there are two semi-natural reefs on either side to encourage the fishies to hangout there! Everyday, they feed the fish three times and so happens to align with the cocktail hour, lunch and dinner. Unsurprisingly, before each of the services, divers have to come and clean the glass due to all the feces. After being there for only an hour, I can attest that it must be done because it gets very cloudy and dirty!
Cocktail Hour
Tip: Stand near the stairs so you can be first inside the restaurant and nab that perfect photo!
Once we walked downstairs, I had the perfect view since I was first in line and had both my Nikon and iPhone ready to go! Pictures speak louder than words so take a look at this excellent shot from the entrance! Despite the hype and the perhaps over marketing, it is incredibly remarkable inside the restaurant!
We were served champagne and a little appetizer as we stared at all the fish. Since there were only 5 couples or families inside the restaurant, we all had our pictures taken by the friendly staff who knew the best angles! Especially after they fed the fish and sharks and loads came into the view!
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Our crab appetizer -
As the famous saying goes, pictures are a thousand words and the unique experience is only captured through the photos! We definitely took many as the cocktail hour is the best deal to visit Ithaa as the sunlight is directly over us and it started before the hottest part of the day! Once our time was ending at 12pm, we were very glad we weren’t staying for lunch as it was getting a little toasty under the sea!
Luxury R&R
After the restaurant, we strolled over to the beach which was a whopping 100 yards a way. We were getting our steps in! Although the sun was potent at 12pm and it was awfully hot, we tempted fate and epic sunburn. However, the view was PRICELESS!
Using an unproven technique, I rotated my front and back and then took hour long breaks under the umbrella. I only did 2 of these rotations, but it was enough! Flash forward to later that night, it turns out the umbrella is NOT effective at blocking out the sun!
In between reading, napping, and staring out into the deep blue of the Indian Ocean, I (obviously) got bored and explored the nearby areas.
Because we were on the main island beach, it had a larger pool and beach area. The beach area is semi-private though as the beach villas line up most of the island so I was limited in my beach walk to one corner of the island.
At the infinity pool, despite the views and beautiful design, was incredibly hot which does not pair well with an overheated body! I much preferred the ocean that was really cool compared to the pool and air and also was crystal clear! I couldn’t believe these folks preferred the pool over the ocean that was less than 10 yards away.
Afternoon Tea
With Hilton Honors status, we had access to free afternoon tea and happy hour. Because we were enthralled with our new water villa yesterday, we did not visit afternoon tea.
Since I will not detail review every afternoon tea experience, here it goes! Beginning at four, the Vilnu restaurant opened for afternoon tea - British style! The resort prepared a variety of tiny sandwiches, cakes, tarts, desserts, and obviously scones and clotted cream and jam! While I did not partake in the hot tea, they had many selections and would be great if the weather was not as hot as the hot tea.
The experienced guests knew that the best tables go at 4pm so we joined the crew on the water taxi back to our island. For today’s selection, we had ham salad on rye bread, cakes, tarts, and scones with strawberry jam. Since we didn’t eat lunch, I loaded my plate many a time - often on the cakes! The sandwiches were not that great and barely contained any ham, but still tasty!
Happy Hour
Immediately following afternoon tea, the resort happy hour for Hilton status members commenced and our tea was replaced by the alcoholic beverage of choice. I always went with a gin and tonic as it was really refreshing on a hot day while Mary Frances ordered her rose wine. In my opinion, if you’re after the value, I would pick wine as the waiters refilled from the bottle and did not have to go to the bar to refill my drink!
The Decision (and Delay!)
We enjoyed another spectacular sunset from our water vila and began to settle in for the night. Unlike my decision to eat everything in sight at tea time, Mary Frances nibbled.. Thus, we had a dilemma - do we skip or do we eat? For me, I was comfortably full to the point where I could sleep but would wake up starving. On the other hand… happy wife, happy life.
Since Mary Frances does not like making decisions or getting out of bed or moving when hungry, I decided to tease her and made her make the decision! I gave her a hard deadline of 8pm and we had to be out the door by 810pm, otherwise I would stay inside.
Vilnu Dinner
Obviously, Mary Frances waited until 7:59pm to say she was hungry so we went to Vilnu since it was the closest restaurant. Surprisingly, the restaurant had to squeeze our table in despite it being half full. Either way, we sat down and were promptly served!
Every item on the menu looked delicious, but one of the waiters pulled out all the stops. Since we were torn between the lobster and steak, he introduced MF to the new April item on the menu - a lovely steak topped with grains with a green salad and fried polenta. MF was immediately sold! Because it cost nearly $75, we decided to split it.
When MF licked the plate, she almost ordered another one until I reminded her we had side dishes! The steak was incredibly tasty and melted in our mouth. MF wanted to come back for all our meals but I had to remind her that we were in the middle of the ocean and we had to try seafood and other highly recommended restaurants on the island!
In the end, the decision was well worth it! The Vilnu has excellent service, friendly waiters, and the food was divine! MF was mad that we hadn’t come here last night. In my opinion, if you are willing to pay for the food (i.e. above $50), it will be excellent. On the food less than that, it is fair game. Obviously, that is my experience!
Manta WHAT?!
At dinner, one of our waiters told us manta rays have been visiting around 10pm under the bridge connecting the two islands. Because we need to digest our lovely meal, we went on a walk in the cool air to see if we were going to get lucky. As it happens, we had perfect timing as we were visited by multiple manta rays!!
At first, we thought we were crazy because we stared out into the dark night just looking at the water. It can get boring really quickly, but we were very lucky as we instantly saw them!! We had a great time watching these majestic beasts as they did somersaults and gliding under the water...