Side by side Cheval Blanc Randheli vs Cheval Blanc Paris

What's genuinely hard to find elsewhere in the Maldives is this: identical, enormous villa layouts whether you're on the water or on the island, a 45-foot pool that heats up in the sun, and a lagoon in front of the Lagoon Villas that people who've done a dozen Maldives trips still describe as unlike any water they've seen. The Jean-Michel Gathy design carries the whole property, from the restaurants to the spa, which sits on its own island reached by a short boat ride and includes a pool big enough that you'll likely have it to yourself with a waiter bringing drinks.

The butlers can make or break the week, and that's the real trade-off worth knowing before you book. One couple's stay turned on Mr. G tracking down dolphins and surprising them with snacks and treats; another couple's most-referenced complaint was a butler who felt reactive rather than anticipatory, plus a few requests (reserved goggles, an itinerary update) that never made it through from the pre-trip planning team. A run of hygiene complaints followed a general manager change too: hair in food, a live worm in a salad, reckless buggy driving, reported by more than one long-time guest who called the resort their second home before that stretch. It hasn't shown up everywhere, but it's real, and it tracks with the management turnover other guests flagged around the same period. The house reef is also weak, so don't come expecting to snorkel straight off your villa; the better marine life is a short boat ride away.

Book it for the villas and the spa island, and go in expecting the food to be the strongest and most consistent part of your week, especially breakfast and the pastry counter — a few guests found the sushi at Diptyque didn't match the rest of the menu, which is worth knowing rather than worth avoiding the resort over. Couples and families both seem to do well here; the kids' club gets specific praise, and the villas are private enough that other guests barely register. The top villas run around $4,000 a night. For the room alone, and for a lagoon that keeps coming up as the thing nobody expected, this is worth the seaplane transfer.

A butler walks you to a balcony suite over the Seine, a bottle of Ruinart gets opened on arrival, and gifts turn up at turndown most nights of the stay. The building itself, all glass and pale stone and a staircase people photograph more than the art, is genuinely one of the most striking hotels in Paris, though it splits opinion: some guests find it fresh and youthful next to the Ritz or Le Meurice, others think it feels more like a smart apartment building than anything distinctly French. Plenitude, the three-Michelin-star restaurant upstairs, gets talked about the way a trip highlight gets talked about, not just a hotel meal.

The service is where the promise gets uneven. A concierge spent real effort tracking down an Hermes appointment for one guest; a birthday stay drew a spontaneous chorus of well-wishes from staff who had no reason to bother. But a July heatwave exposed a hotel with no working air conditioning in rooms, restaurants, or public areas, and instead of admitting it, staff reportedly told guests Europe just doesn't do AC, which is a strange line from an LVMH palace hotel charging Ritz prices. Rooms on the sixth floor sit under a rooftop restaurant with furniture that gets dragged around well past 1am, and more than one guest has lost a night's sleep to it. Langosteria, the Italian spot, comes up often as the weak link at dinner: slow, indifferent, food that doesn't match the room it's served in.

None of this is enough to talk anyone out of booking, and it shouldn't be. Book it for Plenitude, the Dior Spa, and a room over the river that nobody who's stayed there seems to forget. Ask for a floor away from the seventh, and don't assume the AC will save you in August.