BThumme

Hello!

This trip report was originally supposed to happen last year, with a much grander spectacle. The original plan was to spend some time in Iceland and the Maldives after getting married, with some of the usual big time redemptions (Etihad Apartments, Qatar QSuites - even at one time a proposed routing on Juneyao from Reykjavik - Helsinki) - but COVID derailed all of that.

COVID was pretty close to de-railing this trip too. My wife and I still got married in a very small ceremony in August of last year, but the Conrad Maldives shut down for a couple months in August and I never even finalized flights last year with everything going on. We did temporarily push out our stay at the CMRI to August of 2021 but weren't even sure we were going to be able to travel or if it would be worth it. I wanted this to be my/our trip of a lifetime but it felt like at times, I was just struggling just to make things workout.

One of the main reasons for wanting to take this trip was that I was upgraded to a Grand Water Villa as all the overwater villas are currently under construction. I was also starting to get a bit burnt out with working from home and needed something to look forward to, so in June we decided to get more serious about making this trip.

Here is a summary of what this trip report will encompass:

- DTW - ORD - ZRH - MLE, with ORD-ZRH in LX's 777-300 business mini-class, 8 hours in Zurich, and then Edelweiss business on one of their A340's from ZRH-MLE

-The seaplane transfer/lounge in Male

- The popular Hilton Conrad Maldives Rangali Island - a Grand Water Villa , with a snorkeling excursion and the fisherman's bbq dinner

-QSuites from MLE-DOH-MIA on QR's 777-300, including an overnight layover at DOH, and then AA MIA-DTW (although this last flight will be pretty limited in info worth highlighting).

I'm not going to be able to provide much new insight into the Conrad Maldives Villas or QSuites - maybe a slight perspective on how things are handled during the covid era, but I will try to highlight some of the areas where I haven't seen a lot of info on (like Edelweiss J, or the CMRI Fisherman's BBQ).

This will be a pretty picture-intensive report as well, and I will also try to get some video uploaded as I have a lot of my takeoff/landing videos.

BThumme

Parts 1 and 2 are text heavy, this is the pre-planning fun/excitement/worries I had. Pictures will showup in Part 3.

PART 1 - Planning

The original plan ideally was to fly in Qatar's QSuites on the way out, and Etihad back on one of their A380's to try out their apartments. My wife and I have never flown Qatar or Etihad in any class, but I've always heard about how special Qatar was for their QSuites. The Etihad Apartments are only available on their A380's however covid has almost certainly permanently grounded their fleet.

At the time of this report/booking, AA has a very flexible policy for award travel that allows for free changes/cancellations. I wanted to try and get on as long of a Qatar flight as we could for the way over, and was focused on either LAX, DFW, or IAH. AA plays a ton of games with married segment logic routings, and the only thing I could get to return as a result was either DFW-IAH-DOH-MLE or IAH-DOH-MLE. Our home airport is in DTW, so there were plenty of "cheap" options either DTW-IAH or DTW-DFW as a positioning flight. I was never able to price out a business saver award starting in DTW.

For the return flights, there was some availability on the day we were to return, but not to DTW. I entertained for a while an option MLE-DOH-LAX-IAH, which would then require another positioning flight home. There was availability for a day later back to DTW but that wouldn't do me much good.

In my desperation to make this work, I was also looking at star alliance awards. Both Lufthansa and Turkish fly to MLE , and while Vistara/Air India do as well I wasn't interested in flying those. The Lufthansa and Turkish flights never showed award availability on the days I needed it to. Every once in a while there were some random 2/3 stop itineraries that I believe did open up with Air India/Vistara but they were 50+ hour trips getting in a day later then I was looking for. While browsing on the 4th of July, I did notice one award redemption open up a day later than what I was looking for:

DTW - ORD in ua Y on an E170 (whatever for a 45 minute flight)
8 hours in ORD
ORD - ZRH in LX J on a 773
8 hour layover in ZRH
ZRH - MLE in Edelweiss J on a 343

The dates were a day off, but I realized if I could push my stay at the Conrad back one day, I could book this itinerary and then also book an AA award on Qatar back to DTW. I would also remove the need for any positioning flights. I decided to lock this itinerary in and worry about moving the hotel around later.

As mentioned I was fortunate enough to be upgraded at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island from a standard overwater villa to a Grand Water Villa. Depending on the dates, that upgrade could have been worth anywhere from $800-$2500 for a 5 night stay. The standard overwater villas are under construction at the moment, and only beach villas are able to be booked on points so I lucked out. However, a change as simple as checking in and out one day later was a big problem as Hilton could only make changes based off the going redemption rates. I could move my stay back, but I would have to rebook into a standard beach villa and hope for an upgrade. I did have a free night certificate to use that I could have to extend my stay and just eat the cost of the first night, however after some back and forth the hotel agreed if I cancelled and re-booked my stay, they would re-upgrade me, which is what I had to do. With new dates in place, here's the breakdown of costs of what I ended up booking for hotels and flights:

Outbound:
DTW-ORD-ZRH-MLE - 93,500 UA miles and USD $21.20 x 2

Hotel:
Hilton Conrad Maldives Rangali Island - 5 nights, with the 5th night free - 380,000 Hilton Points

Inbound:
MLE-DOH (overnight layover)-MIA-DTW - 70,000 AA miles , USD $82.65 x 2

So total out of pocket cost was ~$200 - not bad!

Not included in this cost though is the mandatory seaplane transfer from MLE to the Conrad, which is a little over $600 USD a person roundtrip. No way around that.

With flights booked and my hotel booked, we had something to look forward to.

PART 2 - Trip Prep

Let me start by saying that while I enjoy the planning part as much as everyone else on here, the week or so leading up to the trip was one of the most anxious times I've ever felt. With the Delta Variant ramping up here in the US, and my wife working at a factory, there was always the possibility that either one of us could test positive. While ZRH (at time of writing) allows fully vaccinated Americans to enter with proof, MLE requires a negative PCR test within 96 hours of your first flight. This meant I wasn't even sure we could go on our trip until ~3 days before we were scheduled to leave, and I was a nervous wreck awaiting these results.

My wife and I went to CVS to do the test - we did ours on a Sunday afternoon at T-92 hours, and got our results the next evening. Thankfully they both came back negative, but then I started worrying about something else - there was some fine print that said if your transit time was over 24 hours, you had to get tested again prior to arrival. The problem is transit time was not explicitly defined anywhere - from DTW to MLE, my travel time was almost 40 hours. Did transit time mean travel time? Layover time? Time until my flight to MLE? I took it to mean that you could not have any stop over 24 hours at a given time, which we did not.

The United App was fantastic in regards to requirements and for verifying ahead of time. The problem we ran into is that we kept getting our PCR tests rejected for not meeting the time constraints. I was freaking out wondering if we did our test too early - was the "96 hours prior to first point of embarkation" meaning something else? Or was the system checking for time of test from ZRH? Entry into ZRH is also possible via a negative PCR test within 72 hours (which we did not meet) - did I overlook some fine point that you can't mix and match entry requirements with one PCR test and one covid vax certificate? Was it like some airfare rules where the most restrictive requirements apply? Something else?

Luckily when I called into United, they were able to transfer me over to a representative from the travel ready center who, after a 45 minute call, confirmed with me my documents did look good and I would be okay.

There were two more items to complete: an entry form into Switzerland that was relatively painless, as well as an immigration entry form for the Maldives. The Maldives immigration needed to be created within 24 hours of your flight to MLE, but the problem is that didn't occur until after our first flight - but the form was needed for check in. I was able to still do the MLE immigration entry for my wife and I, however if anyone really looked into it, it mentioned that our QR code/results were only valid for the next 24 hours. We would have to end up doing this again, but it was checked at DTW check in.

Speaking of check in, of course we could not online check in. Our flight was 11:30 am on a Thursday, and the day before my wife and I went to DTW to try and check-in in-person for some extra confirmation. I know I mentioned being anxious about the test results, well now I was anxious that all it would take is one agent to disagree with the rules/requirements and the trip would be off. I dropped my wife off to go to check-in while I went to park, and when I finally got into the check in area, our boarding passes were being printed off. Phew! It was only at that point that I really started to feel like this was going to actually happen. I can't tell you how stressful everything up to this point was for me, it just felt like there were a ton of obstacles to overcome to just make this happen.

BThumme

PART 3 - Journey to ZRH

For once in my life, I didn't have to book a trip for Emily and I that started at 6 or 7am. Our first flight from DTW-ORD was scheduled for 11:30 am in the afternoon - sure I was still super giddy and wasn't going to be able to sleep much, but I wouldn't have to worry about missing our flight. Despite living less than 20 minutes from DTW, public transit is non-existent here and uber/lyfts still run around $40. I decided to book a one way Hertz rental for around $45 so that I wouldn't have to worry about if a ride would or wouldn't be available.

After triple checking my suitcase and weighing it (there are strict weight requirements for the seaplane flight in MLE), we we're ready to go. We did have bags to check so did want to get to the airport a bit early in case there was any issues. The north terminal of DTW (where all non-Delta/air france) flights leave does have a Lufthansa lounge which is very nice, so I didn't mind if we would have time to wait.

We got to the airport around 9am. It was a nice morning out and fairly quiet, but the north terminal is usually fairly quiet anyways.


DTW Check In Counters

Much to my surprise, there was not one single person in line for United. We were able to check our bags without issue and were on our way.

The DTW north terminal has two checkpoints - a west entry (pictured above) and an east one. Precheck is only available at the east entry, so we have to go from the west end, to the east end for security, then back all the way to the end of the pier to get to the United gates (the check in area is more or less the middle of the terminal).

Despite being electronic heavy, there was 0 issues with precheck for Emily and I today. This was also a bit of a relief as we had to update Emily's name since we got married, as she was getting left out of precheck since we couldn't get her name change submitted to the global entry office, causing a mismatch with her known traveler number and name.

We got through and proceeded to the Lufthansa lounge.

Through security and heading towards the UA gates/LH lounge

The north terminal at DTW is about as basic as it gets, one long pier with not so exciting shops/restaurants. Most of these were closed anyways.


LH Lounge Entrance

The LH lounge is located towards the western end of the pier, which is more or less the star alliance flight gates. There is also an infrequent flight on Royal Jordanian that stops in Montreal en route to Amman at these gates but otherwise it's where the United and Air Canada flights leave from. This lounge is a priority pass lounge but we got in by virtue of me being a star alliance gold member, as well as having international business class tickets on a star alliance flight.

The lounge has two halves and was recently rennovated. It's a beautiful lounge, and I'm very fortunate this exists at my home airport without any weird hoops (terminal or concourse jumping (like EWR)) required to get in.


The right portion

The left portion

Both of these have apron and runway views of 22L/4R, which is primarily used at DTW. Pre-covid times the breakfast buffet was usually pretty well stocked, but today it was yogurt, some packaged chips, packaged danishes, and soft drinks/bottled beer - the alcohol was off the shelf.


This used to be the restroom - it's now an overgrown jungle

About 45 minutes out we decided to make the short walk over to gate D1 for our flight to Chicago today.

The last bend of the pier - gates D1 - D6, primarily the united gates

Date: August 26th, 2021
Flight: United 3476 (Republic Airways)
Plane: Embraer 170 (N639RW)
Scheduled Departure / Actual Departure: 11:30am / 11:24am (6 minutes early)
Scheduled Arrival / Actual Arrival: 11:44am (central) / 11:40 am (4 minutes early)
Seats: 7C, 7D



On board economy plus with our traveling companions Robin and Cheddar for ORD - these seats are just as good as business class!

This flight was booked in saver economy, despite the rest of the ticket being in business class. One neat feature of United is that when you book a business class award ticket with them, you can waitlist any United segments that don't have saver Business availability at the time of booking. In theory you are supposed to get priority before CPU's however I don't think that ended up being the case. Emily and I didn't end up showing up on the upgrade list until we were fully checked in, and once we were, we were #'s 1 and 2 on the upgrade list. This cabin only has 6 business class seats, however the bulkhead seats on both the E170 and E175 planes are just as good as business class - there is no hard wall in front of you, and the legroom is unlimited. The only difference is we missed out on the already limited service. This was a very pleasant way to hop over to ORD.


I thought I had saw earlier in the day there were some departures 27R or L, which doesn't usually happen, so was excited when we started taxiing away from the usual 22L. We ended up taking off from 21R to the south, before circling back and heading west. We went north of ORD before turning back and landing on 9L, providing us with the airport tour due to taxiing.


This was about as boring and uneventful of a flight as it gets, so no complaints from me.

Getting into Chicago we had several hours to kill. We contemplated going downtown and getting a late lunch/early dinner, but decided not to. Normally this would be a great opportunity to get to the polaris lounge. I was really hoping to take Emily to that lounge however the polaris lounges remain closed due to covid with no future opening dates selected.

All four united clubs are open but I greatly prefer the lounge located at the E/F gates (also known as the lounge farthest away from us). The other United lounges offer a limited view and I just don't care for the ambiance of those lounges. We made the 15 minute walk over from gate C8 to ~ E10.


Looking down the C gates in ORD - business as usual today.

No issues getting in with our united issued ORD-ZRH boarding pass, as expected. I did as to confirm if any of the busses were running to take us to T5 but was told no, as expected.

ORD E/F Lounge


Snack offerings for ORD E/F Lounge - nothing too exciting

Snack offerings were light. Emily and I had a couple vegetable snacks as well as chocolate rice krispy treats. A little bit later they brought out hot dogs wrapped in foil.


This tasted amazing - I'm a picky eater so enjoyed it plain

The hot dogs each took 32 minutes off my life were surprisingly tasty. Kudos to UA for that, they were above average - enough that I'm still talking about them. Slightly better than arena quality dogs.


View looking out the ORD E/F lounge

I love the views from this United Club. It is next door to the delta skyclub which should also have as equal a view but you get a view of the main runway as well as a ton of activity. The above image shows the LOT 787 heading to the gate, but I saw all the widebodies I could - Austrian, EVA, Japan Airlines, a couple cargo planes, and my Swiss plane.

I did get a bit uncomfortable though a bit later - a man came over and sat pretty close and starting coughing pretty frequently for several minutes. I didn't want to be "that guy" or wasn't sure if I should say anything, so we just decided to pack up and move elsewhere in the club. We sat in the open area in the middle which featured these beautiful USB power ports:


These USB ports have seen better days. They didn't work.

I spent the remainder of the time here watching the Little League World Series championships cheering on my home state of Michigan. The wi-fi speeds here are fantastic and provided no issues. With there being no air-side way to get to terminal 5, we both got a bit anxious and decided to head over to Terminal 5 about 3.5 hours before our flight.

Pre-covid there was a shuttle bus that ran from Terminal 3 (the American Airlines gates, which are connected to T1 and T2 (United)) to Terminal 5. With the bus not running, we had to leave the terminal, wait to take a bus over to T5, stop at T3 and wait, and then eventually got dropped off at T5. Despite having a United boarding pass for ORD-ZRH, we decided to re-check in with Swiss (alternatively we could have cleared security and went to the gate and re-checked in).

There was no queue for the Swiss business line but we did need to fully re-check in and verify our requirements. I wasn't as worried, however still a tad anxious that perhaps the agent may have had something else to say about our documents/requirements. It took about 10 minutes but was mostly uneventful, and we were reissued boarding passes on LH Group stock.

Frontier and Southwest use Terminal 5 (as well as many other international carriers), so I was very frustrated to see that only pre-check lite is still being offered at T5. I had to take out all my electronics and my jacket off (always hit and miss), but it didn't end up to be too bad. All in all it took about 45 minutes from leaving the E/F gate to getting through T5 security. This left us with about 2 hours to kill at ORD.

At the time of travel, both the Swiss and SAS start alliance lounges were closed. Business class passengers were invited to use the (unrelated) swissport contract lounge. Right across from this lounge is the air france/KLM lounge which is part of priority pass (along with the swissport lounge), however infuriatingly (to me) they had their blinds shut blocking any view of the tarmac - which I saw was being done in a prior trip report.

I'll just be blunt and say our experience at the Swissport lounge was all around terrible.

When we arrived I gave them our mobile boarding passes and was told we didn't qualify for access. I mentioned we should have qualified under being on Swiss Business class and being a star gold, and was asked to produce my physical star gold card, which I had to dig up on the UA app. I'm not sure why they were asking for that to begin with as I tried to clearly say "The Check in agent said this was the lounge used for Swiss Business Class passengers. My wife and I are both flying Swiss business class" but that was not getting through to them. I dug out the physical boarding pass that had written on it "Swissport lounge" which seemed to make things a bit better but it left a sour taste in my mouth.

The lounge itself is small, and tiny. It's located on the interior of the airport so no views - I would liken it to a lunch break room. Seats weren't spread out and it was pretty full, but that's not surprising given that almost all carriers have to use this lounge.


If you've never been in T5 at ORD - this is as exciting as it gets. It's just one giant arch.


Interior of the Swissport lounge.


Swissport Lounge drinks.


Swissport lounge snacks.

The coffee machine had an ad running on it - does that bother anyone else?

I would rate the lounge about a 1.5 / 5. The 0.5 coming from having some basic snacks and drinks. Wi-fi was a bit poor, there was no circulation in the room so it was hot, and it just felt very cramped. As the captioned picture above shows, the coffee machine had an ad running on it which just makes everything feel really cheap to me. We spent about 30 minutes here before deciding to bail and just wait at our gate area, which would be gate M10. Couldn't be much worse, right?



This was our gate for ZRH but you would never know. This is a modern, major airport.

All I could do was just laugh inside that this was the best experience ORD has to offer.


The TV really was like that, it's not a blurry picture from a video.

Not a huge deal for me since I'm a fairly well versed traveler, but there was absolutely no indication that this was our gate to ZRH. You can't see any type of Swiss branding, you can't see outside, there are no monitors that say "Next Flight: Zurich", no mentions of "LX 9" - nothing even star alliance related. The only mention was the departure board and my app saying gate M10. I'm sure you can imagine the chaos this created closer to departure.

With this construction or whatever you want to call it, it was a zoo before boarding. The agents were calling up people to document check who didn't already. I heard one gentlemen mention he had no way to complete the Swiss immigration entry form (which I thought was required to check in) because he had no seat assignment (even though I think that field was optional). There was also no clear boarding lanes, resulting in one giant pool of people waiting to board.

After what was a long 10 or so hours of traveling for the day, we were ready to head to ZRH.

HawaiiFlyerDC8

Nice report so far. I;m looking forward to you getting onboard and continuing the report.

wakesetter93

Following this report closely as the fiance and I are planning a trip to MLE for our honeymoon. Enjoy!

BThumme

PART 4 - Flying to Zurich / ZRH Airport

After a couple uneventful hours at Terminal 5 at O'Hare, it was finally time to board. Having a business class ticket, we were invited to be one of the first groups to board.

I was able to assign seats for Emily and I directly on the LX website using the PNR provided on the UA app. We originally had seats over the wing, 9J and 9K but about a week out seats in the mini cabin opened up - these seats were previously available for a charge, I want to say about $150 USD a person. Moving up to row 4 was a great move, I highly recommend the mini-cabin.


Swiss 777-300 Seat Map


Date: August 26th, 2021
Flight: Swiss 9
Plane: Boeing 777-300 (HB-JNK)
Scheduled Departure / Actual Departure: 7:15 PM / 7:20 PM (5 Minutes Late)
Scheduled Arrival / Actual Arrival: 10:50 AM (+1) / 10:33 AM (17 minutes early)
Seats: 4J, 4K

(I later found out how to turn off the front screen display as it was causing a reflection)


I've flown this route once before but in economy. Right from getting on board, it was a jovial atmosphere and I knew it was going to be a good flight. I didn't get our flight attendant's name, but she was amazing. As the above graphic shows, we were seated in the mini-cabin which had a great ambience to it. We were offered a welcome drink during boarding, and both opted for champagne (despite not caring for it as a drink).


Mini-business class area on Swiss 777


Dinner Menu - and I just realized I snapped a pic of the French language. It's braised beef, shrimp with potatoes, and ravioli.


Breakfast Menu


Champagne Menu



Red Wine menu


Drink menu


Tea/Coffee Menu


Breakfast selections


Tail shots of T5 planes



Tail shots of T5, but this time had the Etihad plane behind us


On board and ready for takeoff!


Getting ready to turn onto 9C

We took off to the north before heading east towards Muskegon on Michigan's west coast, before heading towards my hometown airport of MBS and then continuing Northeast. There were some nice storms off in the distance but the ride was mostly smooth.


Lightning over Western Michigan

To start with I tried both the swiss single malt scotch and then the glenlivet - I really liked the Swiss Johnett single malt but did not get a little bottle to take a picture of like I did the glen.



Glenlivet - actually preferred the single malt Swiss

I'm a bit of a picky eater so airline food, even in business class, is usually hit and miss with me, but the food on this flight was fantastic.


Appetizer

Emily and I both ended up with 2 pretzel rolls to start with. I enjoyed the prosciutto but didn't eat any of the cheese.


Dinner

The dinner far exceeded my expectations, it was fabulous. The only downside was there was only three shrimp, but they were a bit larger in size. The food was served nice and warm, and I'm not sure what else to say - this may be the best airline food I've had (short of the United Sundae's, of course). Emily also went with this and seemed to enjoy it.


Dessert

The dessert - I'm not sure what it was, the menu listed raspberry tiramisu but that didn't appear to be what it was. It was kind of a flan/cheesecake. It was just okay and nothing I would ever go out of my way to get. We also got a couple lindor chocolates.


Post-meal coffee

I got a black coffee to finish dinner with and then the cabin lights dimmed. The flight attendants were very adamant that I fully lower my window shade, even though it would be dark for the next several hours. I wanted to keep it open at least until we got to the eastern seaboard but after being asked multiple times, I lamented and shut it.

My in-flight entertainment seemed to be frozen for the first bit of our flight and had to be restarted. I opted just to keep the inflight map on and tried to sleep, however I'm a slight bit too tall to be fully comfortable. I felt the leg wells were just a bit too tiny to fully get comfortable, and tossed and turned for several hours until we were crossing over Ireland.

Breakfast was served about two hours out:


Breakfast

For breakfast you can fill out your order in advance which is what I had done. I opted for a croissant, fruit, bread, fruit smoothie, and espresso.

I don't know why I was expecting the fruit smoothie to be berry based, but it was more mango/grapefruit tasting. It was also room temperature while I would have preferred it to be a bit colder. Everything else was fine and the espresso was very good.

One complaint I had on this flight was that it was way too hot, and unfortunately the Swiss 773's don't have air nozzles. That made it hard to sleep for me, and I would say I maybe slept 30 minutes on the flight. Other than that, it was a very enjoyable way to cross the Atlantic. The flight from Chicago to Zurich really isn't that long, it was just over 8 hours total time from gate to gate.


We had a fairly quick taxi to the gates. There wasn't a ton of real exciting planes to see, but we did taxi by a Singapore A350, it was the first time Emily had seen a Singapore plane.


Singapore A350 @ ZRH

There was also a united flight taxiing out when we left, and I think an Air Canada plane would land shortly after us. What's nice (but not unique) about Zurich is you deplane right into the terminal. We landed in the remote (non-schengen) terminal which is connected via underground tram to the main terminal/passport control.

Directly above where we entered the terminal is an observation deck, which is fantastic. The weather was perfect and we took a couple minutes to just relax after our flight before making our way towards the Swiss lounge and then the main terminal for passport control.

Here's a quick walk around video of the Terminal E observation deck:


Taking a look at our plane from the observation deck


Mini swiss plane at the observation deck!


Cheddar and Robin are clear for take-off!


Fun fact: I believe this plane had more legroom than our actual seaplane flight would


There's even replica displays in this!


My first time seeing a Pegasus plane

After spending a little time at the observation deck we decided to head to the lounge really quick just to refresh and also get access to wifi. ZRH requires you to either scan a boarding pass or get a text message to get wifi at the airport. We didn't originally spot one of the machines nearby but they had them in the lounge.



View after entering the Swiss Terminal E (non-schengen) lounge

The Swiss lounge also has an observation deck, however it's a bit lower and only faces inwards. It's still great, but the observation deck gives you a little bit more complete of a view. There wasn't much food left, and also a sign mentioning the lounge was closing at 2pm. We went over to the quiet area in the back which has some of the recline chairs that tilt back when you sit back in them, but just used this as a chance to clear out some emails and check on a couple things.


Swiss lounge chairs

We had an 8 hour layover in ZRH, but that is also from arrival to departure, not boarding time. Still though, plenty of time to head downtown. I've been to Zurich once before for a couple days, but this was only Emily's second time heading overseas, so this was a new country and city for her. We left the lounge and went down to the train to the main terminal, and then were met with a huge line for passport control.

There was no line for schengen members who had access to the egates, but for everyone else the queue completely stretched the length of the ropes, plus spilled out into the terminal connector area. It took about an hour to get through - I'm not complaining because I realize European's at American airports can have awful waits - I was just a bit surprised as I haven't had that experience at many European airports. By the time we got to the front of the line (to pick one of the 6/7 passport lines), the queue was almost gone behind us so I think we just showed up at a bad time.

Once through we put our documents away and proceeded downwards to the trains where I bought two roundtrip tickets for a total of $28 USD. We grabbed the next interrail train and headed for the short trip downtown.

kaskade916

Great stuff so far! Can't wait to read the rest. I'm in the same boat as you with the nerves... heading to Dubai, then the Maldives in less than three weeks and I've never been such a wreck before a trip.

BThumme

I saw your thread - sounds really fun. It does kind of deflate you a bit though not knowing if you're going to be able to go or not - isn't the time leading up to the trip supposed to be the best part? I probably can't offer much advice you don't know, but try to quarantine yourself as best you can for the previous 2 weeks leading up to your test. My thought process was to take a test as soon as I could, and if for whatever reason that came back positive, wait until the last minute to try and get an express rapid test done.

Have you been to the Maldives before? Having never been there before that added to my anxiety. It sounds like you have an awesome trip coming up, so I'm sure you'll be fine and I look forward to reading up on it!

BThumme

PART 5 - Zurich
We didn't really have a plan for Zurich. While doing some searching on flyertalk ahead of time, I found a very helpful thread that I used for inspiration for trying to find some inspiration. I also came across a post (or maybe it was a blog post) about someone being told of a chocolate tour - I reached out to the tour operator but never heard back.

The plan was to pretty much make a loop around downtown, maybe check out a couple tourist shops, then head back to the airport, and that's more or less what we did. There was one place I wanted to stop at - TopTop Donuts - that we planned to end up at before heading back to the airport.

We took the train to the hauptbahnhof and got off there before making a large counterclock wise circle around the city.


Narrow walkway in Zurich

We stopped at the middle bridge to rest for a little bit - at this point, we were really both starting to feel it. It's been over 24 hours of travel, and we still were only halfway to our resort. Not sure why I never fully realized this, but the ZRH-MLE flight is actually longer than ORD-ZRH. And with not having had much sleep, my excitement for being in a major international city was starting to wane.


Robin and Cheddar on The Limmat

We decided to just head right for the donut shop, however my offline google maps copy that I downloaded wasn't bringing it up as a result - I knew the general vicinity of where it was, but not exactly. I was able to get some wi-fi at a nearby shop while my wife was browsing one of the souvenir shops to get directions again.


A Red Wings banner in Zurich! Awesome!

After getting a couple souvenir pins, we walked over to the donut shop, only to find there was a handwritten sign that they were going to be closed for the weekend. D'oh! We took the public tram back to the main station, but decided to do one lap around Platzspitz which was a bit of an open air park just north of the train city, before heading back to get on a train back to ZRH.

It's not that we didn't enjoy ZRH, but after a long day of traveling and with more to go, we were both a bit exhausted which took away some of the luster. I was also a bit surprised at the amount of people who were smoking in the city which took a little bit of enjoyment away for me. With that said, public transport was widely available and I think it's a beautiful city, and would definitely like the chance to spend a bit more time there formally in the future.



Entrance to LH Group Checkin Counters

We got off and made our way to the Swiss check in counters (Edelweiss doesn't have their own counters). I wasn't sure if we needed to check in for a third time or not but we just decided to do so to be safe. While checking in, the check in agent did give me a concerning feeling as he was trying to do the math for our PCR tests. I also had to explain that we weren't originating in ZRH as I'm sure that caused a little bit of confusion too. Another 10 minutes later all was good, he confirmed our bags were good to go, and mentioned that we were early and that no gate was assigned yet.

Being a non-schengen flight I knew it would leave from the remote terminal, but we decided to head to the main terminal's Swiss lounge for a little bit. Once we cleared the efficient security and made our way to the lounge, we were greeted with a very long queue to get into the lounge - they were at capacity. The line was probably 30 or so people long, and we really just wanted a place to sit down, so decided to head to the remote terminal and go back to the lounge we were originally at.

After clearing passport control and taking the train back to Terminal E, we headed to the lounge only to discover it was closed. I did recall seeing a sign that said the lounge closed at around 2pm (I think), but I figured that was only for a couple hours. I mean, there's a whole bank of evening flights out of this terminal, you would think the Swiss lounge would be open...right? Well, it wasn't, and wouldn't be.

I have a priority pass membership so decided to head the next lounge over, which was the primeclass lounge.



Primeclass lounge entrance

The Primeclass lounge seems to be the partner lounge of choice for most airlines out of this terminal. We waited about 5 minutes while a gentlemen ahead of me tried pleading with the check in agent to look him up in the system as he had just gotten a new credit card with membership and hadn't gotten his priority pass card yet.

They gave up and let us check in which we were able to without issue. The lounge was all around average in my opinion.


Primeclass lounge food area


Primeclass lounge snacks


Primeclass lounge...lunch


Also Primeclass lounge lunch


Primeclass lounge drinks



Primeclass Lounge Drinks

I'm a picky eater so what was being offered for lunch as shown in the pictures was not for me. There was also no set of snacks (chips/crisps, junk food, etc). I just grabbed a glass coke for a bit while we looked for a comfortable place to sit down.



Edelweiss A320 sighting!

There were some good views outside, but everything else inside left a bit to be desired. Power plugs weren't readily available in a lot of the seating areas, but they were in these tables next to these blue chairs that I thought were very uncomfortable:


Primeclass Lounge seating...not the most comfortable

We spent about an hour in the lounge but got bored and decided to head back up to the observation deck. At this point we had about 3 hours still until boarding. I did notice there was a WK A340 parked out in front of the window, and this plane would end up being our one to take us to MLE. It had arrived from Larnaca earlier in the afternoon.



View of our WK A340 that would take us to MLE as seen from an adjacent gate

There was a fair bit of activity at the airport in the afternoon, and even though we were at the remote terminal, it still provided great views of the main terminal, as well as runways 28 (primarily used) and 16 (used a bit). Landings were primarily occurring on runway 14 which you could see until shortly before touchdown, where trees blocked that area. My favorite highlight was probably a Swiss 340 that took off.


Anadolujet 738 for SAW


Swiss A340 taking off

I was starting to fall asleep and made sure to set several alarms. Emily seemed to have no issue passing out. The weather was nice and cool and the sound of airplanes is particularly soothing for me, and it was a great way to spend a little bit of the early evening ahead of our flight to MLE.

With about an hour and a half to boarding, we decided to try and check out the other priority pass lounge in the terminal, the Aspire Lounge.

Oh wait, that was closed too. We reluctantly headed back to the Primeclass lounge. While sitting down near the checkin counter, I did overhear several occasions of confused people trying to find a lounge they were eligible for since the Swiss lounge was closed. I don't think having an edelweiss J pass, or a swiss J / star gold will get you into this lounge, so noticeably there were some frustrated people, and I don't blame them. However they weren't really missing out.

With about 45 minutes to boarding we headed downstairs to the gate where we had to have yet another document check (despite checking in at the main counter), as they had to stamp our boarding passes.

I didn't really know what to expect as there isn't a ton of trip reports about Edelweiss Business class, but was mainly looking to try and sleep for a bit. The excitement was starting to build up again though!

kaskade916

It is one of the best parts... I love spending time planning, researching and counting down the time to a trip. COVID is def taking a lot of the fun out of it though. We are planning what I'm calling a "self imposed lockdown" starting in two days... no eating out, I'm not taking in person meetings at work, wearing kn95 masks. Like you said, mitigating as much as possible, but I know a big part of it is out of our hands and hope we'll come out ahead.

First time to both Dubai and Maldives for us!

HawaiiFlyerDC8

Really good so far. You're having a long day of travel. Thanks for allowing us to virtual travel with you.

BThumme

Part 6 - Edelweiss and MLE

Date: August 27th, 2021
Flight: Edelweiss 66 (Swiss 8066)
Plane: Airbus A340-313 (HB-JMD)
Scheduled Departure / Actual Departure: 8:30 PM / 8:29 PM (1 Minute Early)
Scheduled Arrival / Actual Arrival: 9:00 AM / 8:49 AM (11 minutes early)
Seats: 17A, 17B


Finding consistent information on Edelweiss was a bit harder than other airlines. Edeleweiss is essentially Swiss' holiday charter airline more or less, flying to more leisure destinations then Swiss. I was pretty excited because it's getting harder these days to actually fly on an A340, and I've never been on one. Lufthansa occasionally still flies the A340 to DTW, but that is becoming pretty rare.

I'm also a bit mixed on the livery - sometimes I look at it and love it, sometimes I hate it. But since I now associate it with the madlvies, I tend to like it more times then not. I didn't know this until I reached it, but the livery on the tail is actually supposed to be a flower. I know this is also a weird thing to think is cool, but this plane had a name - Glacier 3000 - I don't get to fill that out on most of my flight diary entries.


Boarding Gate - Not flashy but gets the job done

One more Front View of our plane Glacier 3000

First thing to note is that the WK 340's have a bit of an odd layout - the premium economy seats are in the front, rows 1-9, followed by the middle 8 rows being business class, and then the remaining economy.



Seat selection was/is....interesting, for Edelweiss. You can't pick the seats on United, and if you enter the Swiss PNR on Swiss' site, it mentions that it's an edelweiss flight and to go to their website to pick your seats. The process was pretty straightforward, however you enter information without any real confirmation. What I mean is that there is no checks for what you're entering. I had to enter my name, my flight date, my flight destination, and the number of passengers flying. I was then taken to what is presumably a live seating chart and picked my seats. I did get a confirmation email afterwards saying it was successful, with a random confirmation code (not a PNR) from Edelweiss, but the seats never showed up as assigned on LX and United. I did try to do this process again and did see that the seats were greyed out, so it looked good.

About 3 days before my flight (which is right after the cutoff of when you can request seats on WK's site) - my seat selections showed up on United and Swiss, so that was good. So in the end it all worked out as intended, it just seemed a bit disconnected.

The business seats are pretty much the same was what we flew in on SWISS's plane, but with newer cloth on them. I think I prefer the Swiss colors to the bright blue, but I get the vibe they are going for.

I wanted a window seat, and ideally a couples seat. As you can see on the seat map, that only leaves 3 rows - 12,15,and 17. Both rows 15 and 17 were available however 15 has a misaligned window so I was able to reserve 17A and B.



Seats 17A and 17B

Like most of the edelweiss 340 fleet, this plane is a former Swiss Bird - flying for 15 years from 2003-2018 before moving over to WK. It was a really nice night out, but darkness quickly descended as we pushed back and got ready for takeoff.


Right before pushback

The airport was pretty quiet, at least from where we were. I'm sure the Schengen area was a bit more active, but we had a quick taxi over to runway 16 without seeing any other planes moving around, before a long roll for takeoff.

Low and slow - that's how I would describe the takeoff, it felt like we were barely climbing! Staff on the flight were noticeably younger then my previous flights. There also seemed to be much more enforcement for wearing masks than SWISS was doing.


Menu Pic

Dinner Menu Pic

Service was a bit disappointingly slow. It was over an hour after takeoff until drinks started to come through. In addition to the drinks listed above, alcohol included mini bottles of Bombay gin, Smirnoff vodka, and jack daniels. It was probably another half hour or so until our actual dinner request was taken (SWISS had us ordered before we even pushed back). We were the very last ones to place our order as there was just one attendant that went down the right aisle first, taking orders for all middle seat passengers and right window customers, before coming down the left side. I wasn't quite feeling the above dinner menu but was hopeful there would be some fish left.

Emily asked for the mushroom tortelli, however was asked for a backup choice and went with the fish. I also ordered the fish but requested no sauce if possible, and was told they would try to accomodate. We both ordered the smoked salmon appetizer.





Waiting for our appetizer to come out, we were given the above crackers. I thought they might be cheddar based crackers since that's a common snack and the right goldfish looked yellow, but they were plain flavored. It took another 30 minutes or so for our appetizers to come out. The bread was lukewarm, and the smoked salmon was okay - not bad, not great. I didn't like the potato mousse.



It was then almost another half hour before meals started to come out. We were last to be served due to our seat. However when being served, mine came out (with sauce, whatever) but they did not bring Emily's. After finishing my meal, one of the FA's came over and apologized that t was taking longer than it should for her to get her meal. Mind you - it's around 2.5 hours after takeoff now. A different came to collect our plates and silverware but we had to explain, three times, that Emily hadn't gotten her actual meal yet. The previous flight attendant asked if there was anything else she could bring for her since they were still waiting for the fish to cook, and she asked for something sweet - we were brought a handful of taffy-like candy before she got her meal.



Like above, it was perfectly average. I scraped off the sauce and ate most of the fish, the vegetables, and some of the rice. We both did not like the dessert - I ate a little bit of the mango but that was it. Overall I would rate the service around a 5/10 - it wasn't bad, it was just slow and unattentive. The food itself was more deserving of an economy class meal.

Around this point we were over Greece I believe, and I was once again being told to shut my window. I did, but kept it a bit cracked to look out the window as I've never been in this part of the world. I stayed up just gazing out the window until we were about over Dubai, at which point I tried to get some sleep.



Once again though, the cabin temp was way too hot, and there were no air vents on planes. WHY??? Does warm air actually make people sleep better? (Science says no). I'm not even sure how people could want blankets on a flight like this. I tried to sleep but once again could only toss and turn due to how warm it was, and with again a smaller footwell than what was comfortable for me.

About an hour and a half out I gave up on whatever sleep I had gotten as I started to look outside, getting giddy that we were getting close. Breakfast was served a bit later and once again, was just average. I had asked for a black coffee and proceeded to watch the attendant start to put crčme in my coffee, so had to stop them and ask for a new one.



Before I forget to mention this, there was a duty free catalog that got passed around, and I was happy to see that there was a model A340 edelweiss plane for sale for a very reasonable 25 CHF (~$27 USD). I'm happy to report post-trip that it's a really nice model, and I'm really happy I was able to get one - I like to collect the model planes, but only of airliners/aircraft that I've been on. One other interesting thing, not sure if unique to WK or not, but flight attendants started passing around waste bags for the island. I guess they have a program where you can collect your waste and when you return, edelweiss will transport it back to Switzerland free of charge on your flight to help keep the island clean. We had asked how that would work for us with us flying Qatar on the way back and the attendant had no idea, so we decided to leave the bag on the plane. Even if we could have made it work, having the seaplane transfer would only make things harder with that.


Edelweiss Waste Bag for MLE

We were also given a gingerbread-tasting cookie as views of the various islands came into view. From what I gather looking on flight radar, most landings occur from south to north on runway 36, so I was hoping we would circle over the island for me to get a proper view of downtown male (and see the planes on the ground as we landed), but instead we made straight in landing to the south on runway 18 after what felt like a very long flight.



Edelweiss Cookie before landing


...Unpackaged!


We landed and went all the way down to the end of the runway before turning around and heading back north on the runway before pulling off to the parking area, which is only accessible via a bus from the main terminal. Planes on the ground included an Aeroflot, 2 Qatar, an Emirates, a Sri Lankan, and sticking out like a sore thumb due to its size, a flyDubai 737 at the end.





After parking, it took a couple minutes for a ramp to be pushed off to our plane. Business class passengers were allowed to disembark first, and as we were getting ready to, it started to downpour. It is monsoon season in Male, but I wasn't complaining - I was actually looking forward to a couple of these storms to hopefully offset some of the heat. It really did start to pour.

All around though, the flight was just very average. Certainly there is the convenience from flying from ZRH which no doubt has value. I don't know what cash prices are like on business on this route to compare it to. I do believe cash upgrades were being offered from economy to economy max for I want to say 2 or 300 CHF, which probably isn't a terrible value but I'm sure there were plenty of open seats in economy that you would be better off just having a row to yourself. I don't have any real highlights to point out other than the novelty of being on a 340. There was no wifi on board, service was slow, the food was mediocre, but it got me from point A to point B on time and safely, and I guess that is worth something. Unfortunately for WK for my review, the lackluster options at the ZRH remote terminal left me yearning for more on this flight which I didn't get.

Overall I give this flight a 5.5/10. If price isn't an option, going on Emirates/Qatar is probably a better option due to more flights and better on-board service. I was looking for TK or LH which I would imagine would have offered a slightly better experience as well, but award availability never came to be - there were some business awards, but very sparse.


For boarding the bus, business class was allowed to deplane first. It looked like slightly more than business class pax were allowed to board, but thankfully they didn't stuff us in. It was about a 5 minute ride as we drove north, then turned around and headed back to a rather plain looking immigration area. The bus we were on was leaking pretty bad as the below image shows - look at that puddle in front of the door. And the water was coming from above, not from people when they walked in. There was another back corner of the bus that was also leaking pretty bad and forming a puddle.



Emily and I were the first off the bus and headed to what felt like an empty warehouse inside with about 3 immigration lanes open. We had to present immigration forms and our QR code to enter the country, but it was fairly painless. In the same open room at the end was the baggage belt. Luggage was already starting to come off the plane, but it was the crew bags. It took around 15 minutes or so for bags to start comming out, at which point the area was starting to get crowded with people waiting for bags.

To the star alliance's credit, bags tagged with priority were the first bags out, and our bags came out about #5 and #6. My suitcase had several red stickers to report to customs on them - oh no, what did I do? We did pack a fair amount of snacks/cookies - was it that? I went over to the customs area to report and had to put my suitcase (but not my backpack through the scanner). The guard asked me to come around and look at his screen and tell me what something was - It was hard to read the x-ray as I had a ton of junk thrown around in it, and x-rays just look weird to me. We opened up my case and it was a handful of bottles of liquid - 2 bottles of sunscreen and one of aloe. After showing that I was told we we're good to go - it was a really painless process that I was freaking out about. But finally, finally! we were now 100% good to go as we exited immigration into a really active arrivals area.

There were a ton of hosts around with signs for all the resorts as we tried to find the conrad host. After going back and forth over the 40 or so people, I started to panic a little bit again as I couldn't see ours. Did I miss up the date on my request? One of the hosts asked Emily who we were looking for and told us to go to stall 19. Behind the hosts are a bunch of stalls, I think numbered up to 50 - with what I assume are all the resorts. Sure enough ours was #19, and there was a Conrad host helping out another family. All good!

We would be transferring to the seaplane terminal, operated primarily by trans-Maldivian airways. TMA has a pretty strict luggage allowance - 25kg (55lbs) for checked luggage and 5kg (11lbs) for hand luggage. I was traveling with several electronics that I did not want to check, unfortunately one of which was my xbox series x which weighs 4.45 kgs, but knew I would have to. TMA charges $5USD plus taxes for each kg you go over, so I had also packed (and practiced with before we left) a baggage weight handle. It all worked out pretty much right to the limit, as my bags were weighed at 25kg and 5kg each. Here's a quick video of the environment from the check in counter for the Conrad.


At the very end of the video you can see the TMA checkin desk nearby.



After a couple minutes of getting our luggage ready, our hosts took our luggage as well as the other family's and led us to the TMA counter. There was a long line for the counters however we were able to bypass it with a separate line following our hosts that pretty much took us to the front. We were asked for our passports as well as bags to be weighed. Our host (not to be confused with our island host, let me be clear) - pretty much handled most of this process. Check-in took a couple minutes but was otherwise uneventful. I thought I read that we would keep our checked luggage until checkin but that was not true - they took our checked bags.

Afterwards our host led us outside where he called the Conrad shuttle to take us over to the seaplane. We had a couple minutes to wait and spotted a really cool welcome to the Maldives sign, so used it as a fun photo opp.


Welcome to the maldives sign!

The terminal is a bit open air - while the area we were was covered, there isn't any doors to enter/leave the area. I was fully expecting to be hit with this intense hot and humid heat waver however it was not that bad! It definitely felt muggy, but not unmanageable. The closest thing I can relate it to feeling like was Houston in the late summer. About 10 minutes later our vehicle came and we were ushered into the air conditioned minivan.

I took a video of the drive over to the island, but it wasn't the best for views by any means, the route to the seaplane terminal is covered for the most part by walls. It's pretty boring but this gives you an idea of what it's like - I bounced between both windows depending on what I thought had the more interesting view but it's pretty restricted.



It took about 10 minutes for the ride as we pulled up to a bit of a decrepit building that I would have never thought housed the lounge. We went in to what looked like a check in counter, however our driver led us off to the side to an elevator where we took it up a floor to the lounge.

We were led in and asked to sit wherever we liked, and then our passports were taken. There was one other couple in the lounge, as well as the family that was with us at the airport who had a separate vehicle to the lounge. There was a little patio area that I snuck out to see:


View of the seaplane aerodome from the Conrad lounge balcony

The lounge was nice, but basic. There was no food out, but we were offered drinks, so I got a coke and a water. Emily and I also both shortly after went to each take a much needed shower, which was refreshing, although with the humidity I was never able to fully dry off. Here a couple views of the lounge.


Conrad Lounge interior


Conrad Lounge Kitchen (empty)


Alternate view of conrad lounge main room


Conrad lounge hallway (bathrooms/showers straight ahead)



Conrad lounge other hallway looking outside


Conrad lounge shower

Masks were not mandatory in the lounge, but were for staff members. As there was only 6 of us in the lounge, I felt safe having it off. We were originally told it would be about 2 hours for our flight, so at this point it should have been about another hour. One of the hosts came back with our passports and asked for a credit card to use for the pre-authorization charges. I also had to fill out an electronic form with my information on my stay. One thing I noted was it had my room number listed - room 420. This was a specific villa I had requested as it's considered one of the best water (jacuzzi side) villas. It's right at the end of the pier of grand water villas at the Conrad, and has a nice mini-reef behind it, as well as sunrise and sunset views. I had made this request a couple times, but of course knew it couldn't be guaranteed. I was thrilled to see were able to give us this room!

Another host came over with a small electronic menu of food options - I opted for a fruit plate and bread.



Conrad lounge fruit platter and bread

I started updating my flightmemory page as the food came out, and before I could take my first flight we were told we were going to be boarding soon. So I quickly snacked down the doughnut and some of the fruit before we were led out to a couple minivans to head to the actual seaplane terminal.

It felt like things were going pretty fast at this point. I started to take a video, but then thought we were going to actually board that second, so had to stop. But since I haven't seen many pictures of this area, here is a quick video of me walking from the van to the seaplane gate where we had to show our boarding pass and then take a seat again:


The seaplane terminal had a large waiting area that I didn't have time to snap a picture of as we were led to a smaller gate A (with flights 1, 2, 3) outside in the back. it was a very basic waiting room with no amenities, but we would only be sitting here (unknown to me at this time) for about 5 minutes.


Seaplane "gate" area

Ourselves and another resort were called out - I didn't fully hear the name, but would later find out it was the Diamonds Athuruga. I was also excited that it would be our first stop - so I would get two takeoffs and landings. It's weird, I know, but I wasn't complaining!

We walked out to the pier behind our pilots and TMA (gate agent?) towards the end of the pier. There was one TMA plane with a different livery that would end up being our plane (full picture coming in next post).


The room was tight, there's no other way to put it. I wanted to be first to board so that I could sit as close as possible to the front being an avgeek, but the bulkhead has almost no knee room. I would have had to practically put my feet in the cockpit, so opted for row 2 while Emily sat in row 1. The plane ended up being full, so Emily moved back to row 2 with me. While we were waiting, it was getting pretty steamy in the plane.


Cheddar and Robin ready for the flight!


We sat together since the flight went out full


DHC 6 Twin Otter safety instructions

This was my first time being on a seplane so I was really giddy, despite being very hot and cramped. Compared to most flights though, everyone is in a really good mood. After boarding we only had to wait a couple more minutes before we started to get on our way. I was trying to make out markers or buoys or something to try and determine how the pilots know how to takeoff since there are no "runways". We had about 8 minutes of taxiing before taking off to the northwest.

Apologies in advance for this and actually a couple videos, gopro automatically chapters long videos, so videos get split and I don't have the time/patience just yet to combine videos, but this does capture the taxi and takeoff



Right after takeoff
It was cool being able to check into the cockpit to pretty much follow our navigation. I was in the aisle for legroom purposes, and had the engines out both my windows so couldn't see much. After the first 60 seconds in the air, there was a bit of a realization just how spread out the madlives is - the Garmin was showing that we had ~ a half hour at our current heading to the hotel, which was fairly accurate. After about 15 minutes in the air a bit of the excitement started to wear off a bit - it was more or less a normal flight at this point, with a hot cabin, and not much to do other then try and stay excited.


View through the cockpit - it didn't provide the best views - this is on approach to the Diamonds Athuruga

About a half hour later, we were descending. Cruising altitude for us was about 2,400 feet, so it didn't take very long to get down. Right before landing the stall warnings kick on, which is a tad annoying but understandably loud as it's a critical safety component.

Unlike the Conrad, this resort has a remote stand for passengers. It's just a square wooden platform that's not that big floating in the water, where we had to wait for a nice looking yacht to come get those passengers. About half the plane got off for here. We were also very much a boat, bobbing up and down in the water. The resort looked okay but from what I could see, I was really looking forward to finally seeing ours in person.

Once our pilots came back in, they said it would be about a 10 minute flight over to our resort.


Nav system showing the hotel navaids - in our case, VRCON

Not much else to say/fill in at this point other then it was a quick takeoff, and quick flight. I wasn't sure what side we would be approaching our island from, but it turned out to be the right side. Here's the takeoff:

And here's us landing and taxiing to our resort.



Getting ready to land at the Conrad! Look at that water!

After what seemed like an eternity, finally, we had arrived.

From door to "door" (defined by me as getting off the plane - we had a delay getting into our room), it was ~ 43 hours.

perkerkeem

Great TR so far - sorry to hear about missing out on EY F or the downgrades in services of Polaris lounge closures, having to fly out of T5 ORD (*shudders*), ZRH lounges, etc. Atleast it seems you got CMRI to work out well which is the most important part (atleast for your wife - I just care about the flying part of the trip!)

Hopefully QR doesn’t let you down like the LX downgrade from EY - q suites are among my favorite flying experiences and I’m sure your wife’s mind will be blown

BThumme

Part 7 - Conrad Maldives Days 1, 2

Emily and I were both really giddy as we landed. The water looked just as it did in all the other pictures and videos. We were taxiing towards the island so didn't have a great view of much until we turned around to line up with the docking platform. It felt great to get out of the plane after being in that sardine can. We had finally made it! This is something I've been waiting and looking forward to for over 10 years. We were greeted by several island hosts and led directly inside to a small air conditioned waiting area while bags were unloaded.



Mandatory Picture welcome picture


One proper view of our plane 8Q-TAN

Each group of us was assigned a host, and ours was Isaam, who took great care of us. We were offered welcome drinks - fresh coconut water right from the coconut. I'll be honest, it was pretty mediocre since it was room temperature water, it would have been nice if it was slightly chilled somehow, but I drank what I could. We didn't actually have a ton of time to drink these.



Welcome drinks - (warm) coconut water

We were told our room wasn't quite ready yet, but that was no problem at all for us since I felt the resort was already doing me a huge favor by giving the specific room we requested. Isaam gave us the choice to walk or take a buggy over to the lobby area of the resort and we opted to walk. It was perfect outside - being on the water has a nice breeze so it wasn't too hot out at all. I was just trying to take everything in. Isaam was telling us about the resort and a lot of the perks, but we knew it all - in the weeks leading up to this Emily and I had probably spent countless hours obsessing over the incredibly helpful Conrad Maldives Flyertalk Thread. This is seriously the bible on this resort, you will not find any more information on this place anywhere else.


Our guide leading us to the main area


Looking off to the SE side towards Sunset Grill/Ithaa

We were told it wouldn't be too long and opted to wait right next to the lobby outside the Rangali Bar. I was given contact information via whatsapp which is how communication is primarily handled for guests with their hosts. We went to connect to wifi however were unable to, so our host was able to log us in while we waited for our room.



Infinity Pool at CMRI

We were relaxing for about 45 minutes before our host came back and apologized that our rooms still weren't ready, and offered us a complimentary lunch from the Rangali bar. I tried to mention it was really not that big of a deal, because they were already doing us a favor by giving me the room I wanted - but they insisted so I ordered a plain burger and fries, and Emily the pizza. We received some complimentary bread and then our food came out. This would have cost around $75 if we had to pay for it.



Burger and Fries


Pizza with peppers

The burger and fries were good, and Emily's pizza was surprisingly good (no pepperoni/pork since it's a Muslim country). We had to move inside as it started to rain. As we moved inside we were informed our room was ready so finished up and proceeded to head back to the lobby, where we were greeted with a buggy ride to our room. The following video shows the ride - it takes about 5 minutes via buggy or about 20 minutes walking. We did both options several times, and what I will say is that it's much more muggy while you're on the island itself. Once you get onto the pier with the water villas, the breeze really cools things down. It probably doesn't show, but I was slightly terrified as we were cruising down the pier - it's not that wide - about two golf carts wide - but we were hauling down. Here's the ride and our first experience getting to the grand water villas:





Our hut - 420!

You Tube

CMRI map with arrow showing our room

There are two types of grand water villas, the main difference being that half have a mini infinity pool, the other half have the jacuzzi. The infinity pool rooms actually cost a premium over the jacuzzi ones, even though I think that's backwards. In the picture above, the two at the end of the pier are both infinity pool rooms. The one at the end is room 421, however there are plenty of arguments that can be made that 420 is just as good if not better. What's mainly important about these ones though are that they are at the end of the pier where the pier bends around, so it's even more private and provides a view of both sunset and sunrise, AND there is also a small reef directly north of room 420.


View from the bedroom - my favorite view


Honeymoon welcome


View from the back patio


Alternate view from back patio


Night view of the transition from beach villas to grand water villas

After our host showed us around, he informed us that it was actually his last day working, but that we would be given a new host who would take care of us. After saying goodbye and wishing him the best, we were excited to share some pictures and videos with some friends back home who were looking for updates from us. The CMRI uses it's own timezone instead of Male - it's an hour ahead - so the time difference ended up being 14 hours (If it was noon here, it was 2am back home for us).

Our bodies were noticeably confused so we decided to take a nap. We had thought about going to the daily happy hour which we had access to by being a Hilton Diamond member but slept right through that. Around 8 or so it got dark out really fast. We probably could have just slept through the night, but decided to try and get up and checkout the live music at the Rangali Bar. We had brought several snacks for our trip, however we were still full from the lunch that we weren't expecting to have.

We walked down from our pier to the Rangali Bar which took about 20 minutes. The pier is very well lit up at night so it was no problem for us to see where we were going. It was almost chilly out there, it felt great. But by the time we got to the bar I was sweating from the humidity.

The live music was two guys playing guitar covering some songs. I also didn't care much for the bar because it always had a lingering smell of smoke. We didn't order anything at first as we just wanted to catchup on some email/social media, but eventually decided on just ordering dessert - the Strawberry Romanoff. The menu said it was strawberry ice cream however it was more like vanilla ice cream and strawberry gelato.



Strawberry Romanoff dessert

I believe the dessert was around $20. Still, it was pretty good and a nice sweet treat to end the first day of our trip. Before heading back to our room, we walked back onto the island connector bridge which was lit up. The photo below shows the view facing the lobby/rangali bar, note though that the iPhone has low-light correction, making it appear slightly more blue and lit up then it really was.


View of the island connector bridge at night

On our way back to the island we had our first George sighting. For the uninitiated, George is the name given to any grey herron on the island. He was out looking for a late night meal it appeared.


George!

After one of the best nights of sleep I've ever had in my life, I had to force us to get out of bed so we could get breakfast and get ready to head to Ithaa for the happy hour visiting event. I went outside for a little bit just to take in the view.


Crab bro - one of many that called our back patio home

I had decided to call in a buggy for us for breakfast, which we did most days. It would take around 10 minutes usually for one to get to us. We waited out front for ours to come when the wind blew off emilys new sun hat into the water. I had to quickly run back into the room, throw on a pair of swim trunks, and swim through our villa to get to the front area where I was able to get guided to the hat that had sunk to the bottom. The water was bit rough this morning, and would be for the first couple days in our trip. I went back inside and tried to dry off quickly as our ride was here. After making it back outside I apologized to our host for making him wait while I fished out the hat. He didn't actually mind as he said he's fairly busy in the mornings so it was a bit of a reprieve for him. We were then on our way to breakfast.

We were dropped off nearby and walked over to an outdoor seating area, where we were asked for our room number and our temperatures taken. Our temperatures would be taken prior to every meal. Here are some pictures from breakfast - it was pretty much the same thing every day - the doughnut and muffin flavors would change, and the dim sum variety would rotate, but this should give the idea of what was available. Everything was buffet style so we could help ourselves. There was also an egg station in the back, and pancakes available on demand.


View from Breakfast day 1



Breakfast sweets


Breakfast breads


Breakfast Hot items


Other breakfast hot items


Breakfast fruits


My first breakfast - wholesome and nutritious, I think.

My very first pass I opted for a potato hashbrown, beef bacon, a chicken sausage, a doughnut, and a chocolate muffin. As mentioned on Emily's pizza, with this being a muslim country there is no pork bacon. The beef bacon was okay, it was like really thin beef jerky, but just not the same. The hashbrown was okay - they would always be hit or miss from me depending on how fresh they were.

I had also ordered a coffee and pineapple juice while Emily ordered a tea. When our coffee came out, I was a little surprised/disappointed that it was room temperature. Emily's tea was too. I figured that maybe that's just how it was served, since the pineapple juice was warm. About 15 minutes later a couple of the servers came by to everyone and apologized - it sounds like the water was on the burner but didn't actually heat, and no one noticed. They brought me back a fresh coffee that was great. The CMRI uses bodum french press coffee mugs, and it was always delicious after that first one.


Ithaa Undersea Restaurant Entrance

We went back to our room to change back. Breakfast ends at 10am I believe, and the Ithaa visting hours were from 11-12. Ithaa right now is only open on Sundays and (Thursdays, I think?). Ithaa does Visiting Hours, Lunch, and Dinner, however it is fairly pricey and the food is a bit too fine for my picky tastes, which is why visiting hours was an attractive option for us. Visiting Hours is basically a happy hour event, it costs $75, and you get a free mocktail or champagne and a small canape. There is also the option to use HHonors points - 25,000 points a person. 25k points for $75 is generally considered not a great use of points, however I have a fair amount of points floating around so didn't mind the redemption, which was 50k total for us both.


Closeup entrance of ithaa

It's a pretty cool site just how small the actual location is - on the outside/above the surface, it's just a small hut not much larger than most living rooms. There is a spiral staircase that leads down to an aquarium-like tube. We had got to Ithaa at 10:55 but there was already another couple inside. Shoes/sandals must come off, and there is a casual dress code that I'm not sure is enforced or not, but I had to ditch my Red Wings shirt for a faux hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts.



Walking down the stairs in ithaa

The below picture is the view from the back of Ithaa facing back towards the stairs. It's not that deep underwater so the natural light still permeates the area well.

View of Ithaa


Robin and Cheddar in their new Hawaiian shirt look


Mocktails with Robin and Cheddar

I don't quite recall what was in the mocktail but it tasted kind of like grapefruit/mango/orange something. Like my previous refreshment drinks, I wish it would have been served chilled but it was still good. There ended up being about 4 other couples and one small family joining us, which is probably the capacity of this place. I will say, it was a very jovial atmosphere, and probably the most lively that I would see for the entire trip. It was just lots of people taking pictures, offering to take others pictures, talking with the staff about the fish, etc. If you were looking for for a place to grab a drink and just sit and relax - this probably is not quite what you'd like.


Robin with a shark overhead


Cheddar with another reef shark overhead


Lobster tempura was the canapé offered

The canape served was a lobster tempura bite, which was very tasty. I didn't try the cheese it was served with. The highlight was probably the 3 or 4 reef sharks we saw swim around. The pictures are kind of deceiving - they are not really that big. They are also not a danger to humans. It did start to sprinkle a little bit which gave the roof a cool looking effect.

Silly pose trying to point to a shark


Conrad welcome chocolates - I didn't have anywhere else to put this picture, probably should be closer up to the top. This is right before we ate them.

I think the visting hours is a great compromise for those who want to say they've been to ithaa without spending $250/pp+ for lunch and dinner. At $150 (plus taxes) for an hour it's pricey, but a cool experience, which is why I opted to redeem HHonors points.
We took a buggy back to our room for our daily afternoon nap, and I woke to the sun starting to set. We got a buggy back to Ufaa for lunch, which was the same location where our breakfast was held for the stay.

Sunset view

We got a similar table to where we've eaten breakfast. If you look at the picture below, the hut on the left you see is ithaa, and the one on the right is Sunset Grill, which is where we would have dinner the next night.

Dinner view from UFAA

Ufaa is a Chinese inspired restaurant, and of course I had some concern as a picky eater, but two things stood out to me - both fish and beef with a black pepper sauce. I love Panda Express' (I know, I know) Black Pepper chicken so was pretty excited to see something similar offered. All dinners came with the below flavored sticky bread - it was okay, I prefer normal flavored bread but it was a good start.

Flavored sticky bread

Emily has class so was able to use chopsticks, I just used my hands like a heathen. Also to note - at all these dinners, the still water offered is a L of VOSS water - at an unfortunate price of $15USD plus taxes. You can see it off to the left side of this picture.

Eating said sticky breads

Each of these meals priced out at about $50 before taxes. We both shared a bit of each other's plates - they were good. I wish the portion sizes were a bit larger though of course. I give a slight edge to the beef, only because fish is served at pretty much every restaurant.

Fish with Black Pepper sauce


Black Pepper Beef Tenderloin

We didn't care for the dessert offerings at UFAA so headed next door after our meal to the rangali bar for dessert and a drink. For dessert, we chose the black forest cake:

Black Forest Cake Dessert

For a drink, I ordered the Orange Sherbet Mojito ($23 plus taxes). This was very good, and I would say probably the best drink I had during my stay. I would have gladly downed several of these if they weren't so costly (remember all these prices are before two different taxes). It was also a movie night at the bar, and Dumbo was playing.

Orange Sherbet Mojito

We were treated to one final show for the night - George made a trip to our dock, perhaps since we had the lights on. (Warning: Tad bit descriptive nature example coming up) - we watched George go and catch a fish, and then proceed to slam it against our deck before pecking it and then swallowing it. We saw George on our deck two more times but never able to get a fish.

George!

motef

We have had to postpone our wedding and subsequent honeymoon to CMRI two times now over the last 2 years due to COVID. Hopefully Jan - Feb 2023 so this TR is amazing!
Thanks so much for all the effort.
I am living vicariously through your trip.
Have a great time and enjoy all your hard work in planning and this special time in your life. 👍🏼