An A380s and Islands Honeymoon: SQ Suites/EY Apartments/CX J+F/Park Hyatt Maldives
Apr 4, 2016, 4:16 pm
#32
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Washington, D.C.
Programs: AA Platinum, DL Silver, Marriott Lifetime Titanium, Hyatt Globalist, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 174
Apr 4, 2016, 5:38 pm
#33
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Washington, D.C.
Programs: AA Platinum, DL Silver, Marriott Lifetime Titanium, Hyatt Globalist, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 174
"Wow". I'm pretty sure that's what was going through my head on our entire walk to the Etihad Premium lounge.
Coming off of the best flight ever, Jaime and I couldn't stop gushing about how incredible it really was. This conversation continued to the lounge and honestly I'm still talking about it now 2.5 months later. WOW.
Anyway, that post is behind us and we'll move on. After getting off the flight we had about a 2.5 hour layover in Abu Dhabi. Should we just sit in the terminal (*cue gasp*)? No, of course not. So we headed to the Etihad Premium Lounge to relax for an hour and a half or so.
Lounge Entrance
Kevin reviewed this lounge during his honeymoon with Katie last May, so I didn't bother. We sat in the lounge speaking with a wonderful woman from Australia who flew the A380 from Sydney in the Business Studios and was amazed by our trip in the Apartments. Obviously I was still pretty jacked up from the flight, so I talked her ear off. Sorry.
After the quick visit to the lounge it was off to gate 56 for the flight to paradise!
I was excited for this flight as it would be my first opportunity to try Etihad's Regional business class product. And also because I was looking forward to a quick (2 hour) nap!
Airline: Etihad Airways
Route: EY278 AUH-MLE
Cabin: J (Regional Business Class)
Plane: A320
Seats: 2A and 2C
Flight time: 4 hours and 20 minutes
Kevin reviewed this exact same flight during his honeymoon as well, so my report will be brief.
As with most of the regional flights in narrow-bodied planes at AUH, we left from a satellite parking spot. This meant everyone squeezed into the buses and boarding was more or less a free-for-all.
Pulling up to the plane! A look down to a host of other satellite spots - they have quite a few at AUH
After what seems like a mandatory 10 minute wait on the hot bus (happens every single time I use them), we were ready to board!
Next stop: Paradise!
The flight was initially supposed to push back from the satellite parking spot at 0920 local time, but we had about a 30 minute delay. The crazy part of this is why we had this delay.
If you remember Kevin's post, he had a 45 minute delay on his AUH-MLE flight because another passenger was having a medical emergency. The exact same thing happened to us on the SAME flight. What are the odds?? An extremely unusual delay on the same flight on the other side of the world? So strange.
We had a passenger who had some type of allergy or allergic reaction and had to be taken off the flight. It was only about a 30 minute delay, but it was pretty hectic with the passenger not wanting to leave and whatnot; a very similar situation to Kev's flight.
Anyway, with that out of the way, let's get to the [brief] review!
We boarded the plane through the forward door and took a right into the business class cabin. Etihad's regional business class is similar to a US domestic first class except significantly better. A larger seat pitch, more comfortable seats, better food/drink, and more recline are just a few of the ways it's better (as if that's hard to do).
First Impression: The cabin seems new! I don't know if it actually was, but the seats and the entire cabin had that "fresh out of the box" feel to it.
The classic "I just walked onto the plane and I'm trying to get a quick picture of the cabin/seats without looking too weird" shot.
View from my seat looking back at the terminal!
Upon settling in to our seats in 2A & C, the cabin senior purser (Kim) came by to introduce herself and offer us a hot towel and a beverage. We both just took orange juice (see, I don't drink on every flight) as we were a little groggy from the overnight flight and really just wanted to rest.
The cabin was pretty much empty today, with only 6 of the 16 seats occupied. Two of the other passengers were actually going all the way to the PH Maldives (as we would find out).
As most of the Etihad crews are, we had an eclectic mix of both personalities and nationalities. They spoke Korean, English, Arabic, French, Italian, Spanish, Serbian, Romanian and Russian.
Back of (empty) seat 1A. Tons of room!
One thing that I've never read online but experienced on the flight was the extra recline in the seat. The purser saw that we wanted to sleep, and since no one was behind us, did something special with our seat to make it recline and extra 8-10 inches or so! He basically messed with the mechanics to make the seat lay down about 150 degrees - pretty fantastic. To get the seats back upright they had to manual move the seat up - so this isn't something you could just do yourself.
Blanket. Jaime told me to take a better photo and that it didn't look nice like that. I told her this is how they have it on the seat so I'm taking the picture like this. See readers, staying objective! Although I will say it was extremely comfortable!!
Food:
They came around before takeoff to take our breakfast orders. Neither of us were very hungry, and all Jaime wanted to do was sleep (which she did the entire flight). However, I thought I'd be remiss if I didn't at least try the food. The things I do for the readers.
Small menu
Short and sweet!
For all of you wondering if I left off the other menu pictures because I'm an outspoken opponent of them, I can tell you, I did not. This is it! The menu is really that small. But for a 4 hours-ish regional flight it was more than enough.
I just wanted something small so I went with the scrambled egg option (sorry, no picture). It was actually pretty delicious and it was the perfect pre-nap meal!
The rest of the flight:
I won't go into a ton of detail in an attempt to not regurgitate what Kevin posted, but here's a few more happysnaps of the plane:
Infuriating touch screen. It didn't want to acknowledge what I was pressing.
The screens fold out and up of the divider in between the seats similar to some domestic FC flights (except the screens were a little bigger and nicer).
I always forget where Mecca's located. So glad Etihad reminds me constantly.
Jaime took this picture in the 15 minutes she was awake post-pushback
View of the other empty seats in the cabin. There was no one in the row in front of us or on our entire side of the cabin which was pretty nice!
After a few eggs and a glass of OJ, I zonked out for a few hours. With about 35 minutes left we woke up and were asked if we wanted a pre-landing beverage. We both got some coffee and started enjoying the views!
Excitement level building...
Building....
Malé in sight? Check! Ready to land in paradise!
Conclusion:
This was a solid regional flight. The crew was extremely attentive (maybe due to the fact that there were 10 empty seats...) and professional. They went the extra mile to make sure we had a pleasant flight and apologized profusely for the delay.
If you're looking to get to the Maldives from the US, there isn't a much better way to do it than with Etihad!
Coming off of the best flight ever, Jaime and I couldn't stop gushing about how incredible it really was. This conversation continued to the lounge and honestly I'm still talking about it now 2.5 months later. WOW.
Anyway, that post is behind us and we'll move on. After getting off the flight we had about a 2.5 hour layover in Abu Dhabi. Should we just sit in the terminal (*cue gasp*)? No, of course not. So we headed to the Etihad Premium Lounge to relax for an hour and a half or so.
Lounge Entrance
Kevin reviewed this lounge during his honeymoon with Katie last May, so I didn't bother. We sat in the lounge speaking with a wonderful woman from Australia who flew the A380 from Sydney in the Business Studios and was amazed by our trip in the Apartments. Obviously I was still pretty jacked up from the flight, so I talked her ear off. Sorry.
After the quick visit to the lounge it was off to gate 56 for the flight to paradise!
I was excited for this flight as it would be my first opportunity to try Etihad's Regional business class product. And also because I was looking forward to a quick (2 hour) nap!
Airline: Etihad Airways
Route: EY278 AUH-MLE
Cabin: J (Regional Business Class)
Plane: A320
Seats: 2A and 2C
Flight time: 4 hours and 20 minutes
Kevin reviewed this exact same flight during his honeymoon as well, so my report will be brief.
As with most of the regional flights in narrow-bodied planes at AUH, we left from a satellite parking spot. This meant everyone squeezed into the buses and boarding was more or less a free-for-all.
Pulling up to the plane! A look down to a host of other satellite spots - they have quite a few at AUH
After what seems like a mandatory 10 minute wait on the hot bus (happens every single time I use them), we were ready to board!
Next stop: Paradise!
The flight was initially supposed to push back from the satellite parking spot at 0920 local time, but we had about a 30 minute delay. The crazy part of this is why we had this delay.
If you remember Kevin's post, he had a 45 minute delay on his AUH-MLE flight because another passenger was having a medical emergency. The exact same thing happened to us on the SAME flight. What are the odds?? An extremely unusual delay on the same flight on the other side of the world? So strange.
We had a passenger who had some type of allergy or allergic reaction and had to be taken off the flight. It was only about a 30 minute delay, but it was pretty hectic with the passenger not wanting to leave and whatnot; a very similar situation to Kev's flight.
Anyway, with that out of the way, let's get to the [brief] review!
We boarded the plane through the forward door and took a right into the business class cabin. Etihad's regional business class is similar to a US domestic first class except significantly better. A larger seat pitch, more comfortable seats, better food/drink, and more recline are just a few of the ways it's better (as if that's hard to do).
First Impression: The cabin seems new! I don't know if it actually was, but the seats and the entire cabin had that "fresh out of the box" feel to it.
The classic "I just walked onto the plane and I'm trying to get a quick picture of the cabin/seats without looking too weird" shot.
View from my seat looking back at the terminal!
Upon settling in to our seats in 2A & C, the cabin senior purser (Kim) came by to introduce herself and offer us a hot towel and a beverage. We both just took orange juice (see, I don't drink on every flight) as we were a little groggy from the overnight flight and really just wanted to rest.
The cabin was pretty much empty today, with only 6 of the 16 seats occupied. Two of the other passengers were actually going all the way to the PH Maldives (as we would find out).
As most of the Etihad crews are, we had an eclectic mix of both personalities and nationalities. They spoke Korean, English, Arabic, French, Italian, Spanish, Serbian, Romanian and Russian.
Back of (empty) seat 1A. Tons of room!
One thing that I've never read online but experienced on the flight was the extra recline in the seat. The purser saw that we wanted to sleep, and since no one was behind us, did something special with our seat to make it recline and extra 8-10 inches or so! He basically messed with the mechanics to make the seat lay down about 150 degrees - pretty fantastic. To get the seats back upright they had to manual move the seat up - so this isn't something you could just do yourself.
Blanket. Jaime told me to take a better photo and that it didn't look nice like that. I told her this is how they have it on the seat so I'm taking the picture like this. See readers, staying objective! Although I will say it was extremely comfortable!!
Food:
They came around before takeoff to take our breakfast orders. Neither of us were very hungry, and all Jaime wanted to do was sleep (which she did the entire flight). However, I thought I'd be remiss if I didn't at least try the food. The things I do for the readers.
Small menu
Short and sweet!
For all of you wondering if I left off the other menu pictures because I'm an outspoken opponent of them, I can tell you, I did not. This is it! The menu is really that small. But for a 4 hours-ish regional flight it was more than enough.
I just wanted something small so I went with the scrambled egg option (sorry, no picture). It was actually pretty delicious and it was the perfect pre-nap meal!
The rest of the flight:
I won't go into a ton of detail in an attempt to not regurgitate what Kevin posted, but here's a few more happysnaps of the plane:
Infuriating touch screen. It didn't want to acknowledge what I was pressing.
The screens fold out and up of the divider in between the seats similar to some domestic FC flights (except the screens were a little bigger and nicer).
I always forget where Mecca's located. So glad Etihad reminds me constantly.
Jaime took this picture in the 15 minutes she was awake post-pushback
View of the other empty seats in the cabin. There was no one in the row in front of us or on our entire side of the cabin which was pretty nice!
After a few eggs and a glass of OJ, I zonked out for a few hours. With about 35 minutes left we woke up and were asked if we wanted a pre-landing beverage. We both got some coffee and started enjoying the views!
Excitement level building...
Building....
Malé in sight? Check! Ready to land in paradise!
Conclusion:
This was a solid regional flight. The crew was extremely attentive (maybe due to the fact that there were 10 empty seats...) and professional. They went the extra mile to make sure we had a pleasant flight and apologized profusely for the delay.
If you're looking to get to the Maldives from the US, there isn't a much better way to do it than with Etihad!
Apr 7, 2016, 5:03 pm
#34
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Washington, D.C.
Programs: AA Platinum, DL Silver, Marriott Lifetime Titanium, Hyatt Globalist, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 174
Another Lost Luggage Story?? Honeymoon version.
Coming off a very pleasant Etihad Regional Business Class flight to MLE, we couldn't be more excited to grab our stuff, get on the puddle jumper and head to the resort.
We met our PH representative and waiting for our luggage to come out....and waited....and waited. I don't think I have to tell you how that ended.
If you've been a reader of this site for any period of time, you'll remember the lost luggage stories I've had in the past - here & here.
The most unusual part of all these stories is that I rarely check bags. Only for longer, extended trips (usually 5 days or more minimum). So the fact that my luggage has been lost 3 times in probably the 5/6 times I've checked a bag is not a great stat to say the least.
After I realized our bags weren't coming out, we had the helpless "look around in astonishment" look on our faces, at which time an Etihad rep came up to us and confirmed with us there were no more bags coming out - we were screwed.
We went back with them to the office and they processed all of our information. They finally found out our bags were actually left in AUH. They told us they knew where they were but they were just never put on the plane because they were only checked to AUH......?? That's after we were told 3 times in Frankfurt, Terminal 4 (LHR) and the Lounge!
We probably sat in the office for about 25 minutes while they confirmed everything. Then, to our surprise, they gave us $160.00 (in Maldivian money) for the lost luggage. Cash on the spot. We were also told that our luggage was found and it would be on the flight the next morning, meaning we would get it the next night (so a full 1-day delay). This $160 gave us some spending money to get a few pieces of clothing. We ended up using it to get Jaime a bathing suit at the PH and a sarong at the airport gift shop, with plenty of money to spare.
After grabbing Jaime the sarong, we headed to the Maldivian Moonimaa Lounge in the domestic terminal for a quick 30 minute wait before our flight to Kooddoo.
Pretty empty lounge!
I'd be weary in trying the food....it didn't look [edible] very tasty.
Lounge visit complete, we were off to paradise! A little over an hour and change flight to the tiny island of Kooddoo.
On our way to Kooddoo sans luggage!
Getting on the boat to PH Maldives - no luggage to slow us down!
Never believing anything to do with the luggage until it's physically in front of me, I was obviously skeptical. Luckily for us our PH Host (Shifaz) was fantastic and kept informing us throughout the day on our bags' status. That night (the day after the flight) around 9:30 we had a knock on the door and voilà - they made it!
In reality, if we could take a 1-day delay in our luggage every trip we go on and get $160, I'd do it every time!
Conclusion:
Jaime and I were both fascinated by the lack of communication in both London and AUH. We had the luggage confirmed so many times it was almost astonishing that it didn't make it. However, the ground staff in MLE - that seemed like 1 "real" Etihad employee and the rest were contract workers - were fantastic. They coordinated well with the PH and our hosts and we couldn't be happier with their service.
So if you're flying Etihad and they lose your bag, don't give up hope! But pack an extra pair of clothes in your carry-on just in case....
We met our PH representative and waiting for our luggage to come out....and waited....and waited. I don't think I have to tell you how that ended.
If you've been a reader of this site for any period of time, you'll remember the lost luggage stories I've had in the past - here & here.
The most unusual part of all these stories is that I rarely check bags. Only for longer, extended trips (usually 5 days or more minimum). So the fact that my luggage has been lost 3 times in probably the 5/6 times I've checked a bag is not a great stat to say the least.
After I realized our bags weren't coming out, we had the helpless "look around in astonishment" look on our faces, at which time an Etihad rep came up to us and confirmed with us there were no more bags coming out - we were screwed.
We went back with them to the office and they processed all of our information. They finally found out our bags were actually left in AUH. They told us they knew where they were but they were just never put on the plane because they were only checked to AUH......?? That's after we were told 3 times in Frankfurt, Terminal 4 (LHR) and the Lounge!
We probably sat in the office for about 25 minutes while they confirmed everything. Then, to our surprise, they gave us $160.00 (in Maldivian money) for the lost luggage. Cash on the spot. We were also told that our luggage was found and it would be on the flight the next morning, meaning we would get it the next night (so a full 1-day delay). This $160 gave us some spending money to get a few pieces of clothing. We ended up using it to get Jaime a bathing suit at the PH and a sarong at the airport gift shop, with plenty of money to spare.
After grabbing Jaime the sarong, we headed to the Maldivian Moonimaa Lounge in the domestic terminal for a quick 30 minute wait before our flight to Kooddoo.
Pretty empty lounge!
I'd be weary in trying the food....it didn't look [edible] very tasty.
Lounge visit complete, we were off to paradise! A little over an hour and change flight to the tiny island of Kooddoo.
On our way to Kooddoo sans luggage!
Getting on the boat to PH Maldives - no luggage to slow us down!
Never believing anything to do with the luggage until it's physically in front of me, I was obviously skeptical. Luckily for us our PH Host (Shifaz) was fantastic and kept informing us throughout the day on our bags' status. That night (the day after the flight) around 9:30 we had a knock on the door and voilà - they made it!
In reality, if we could take a 1-day delay in our luggage every trip we go on and get $160, I'd do it every time!
Conclusion:
Jaime and I were both fascinated by the lack of communication in both London and AUH. We had the luggage confirmed so many times it was almost astonishing that it didn't make it. However, the ground staff in MLE - that seemed like 1 "real" Etihad employee and the rest were contract workers - were fantastic. They coordinated well with the PH and our hosts and we couldn't be happier with their service.
So if you're flying Etihad and they lose your bag, don't give up hope! But pack an extra pair of clothes in your carry-on just in case....
Next up: My take on the Park Hyatt Maldives!
