Maldives

Half More Day in Maldivian Paradise and the Total Bill for 3 Days 2 Nights

I am sure airlines planned their schedule to depart from Male as late as possible so you can pay extra to spend more time in paradise; a win-win situation! Thankfully with miles redemption, it was fixed miles! Our flight departing from Male was at 11:25 PM so technically I was only 45 minutes short of being in the Maldives for a full day. However, the seaplane from the resort to Male only operates during daylight so I requested the last seaplane but even the resort had no idea exactly when. We didn’t get a late checkout as Diamond member since the hotel occupancy rate was quite high so we need to check out by noon. We treasured every minute in paradise! Our morning was surprised by a visitor on our deck – a crab!

Weather-wise, it was overcast so luckily we had an awesome day the previous day so we took all the photos I planned except at the overwater spa. We woke up early as usual but it was cloudy so we waited and waited hoping for the clouds to clear up….but didn’t 🙁 We took more photos from our deck…some blue sky:

Then, we walked over to Vilu to enjoy our last breakfast in paradise.

We ordered similar items as yesterday that we thought were good – Maldivian omelet, Thai omelet, oyster, mango sticky rice, and mango smoothie:

Unfortunately, the Thai omelet was super oily and salty!!! Once again, they didn’t have Belgium waffles so we didn’t get to try it 🙁 I did checked out the buffet selections, not impressive and no Asian selections.

After breakfast, we walked to the overwater spa for the photos but no blue sky 🙁

We had plenty of time so we walked all the way to the end to the sunset water villas.

The walking path is lush green:

Some plants on the beach, they looked cute.

We saw black clouds approaching so we went back to our room and we made the right choice, it started to pour!!! Luckily, it was passing rain so once it stopped, we packed up and said goodbye to our superior water villa 🙁 We took the Dhoni to the main island and saw George the Heron was having breakfast 🙂

Jason spotted a stingray on the bottom of the Dhoni jetty platform.

The weather got better but I started to feel sick, I really think it was the salty and oily Thai omelet that I had in Vilu 🙁

We walked to the main reception area and hang out in the comfortable “bed” at the bar. I lied down for a bit hoping to get better. Tina came by and told us our flight will be around 3 PM so be back at the main reception around that time. I was feeling so sick that I had no mood nor energy to walk out so I just spent my afternoon in the reception area until 2 PM to have a late lunch.

We had lunch at Ufaa since I wanted some hot noodle soup. I ordered the beef pulled noodle soup; it wasn’t pulled noodle but it was flavorful.

Jason ordered the spicy seafood noodle soup, it was very spicy that it was more suitable for my taste so we both “traded” the toppings.

Our last bill was interesting, somehow we got 20% off as Diamond member!!! Not sure if it was a Ufaa promotion or what!

 

At 3 PM, we went back to reception to “check-out” and prepared for the shocking bill…how much it cost us for the 3 days 2 nights at the Conrad Maldives?

Date Description Charges
11-Jan Ufaa hot pot dinner $261.18
12-Jan Ithaa cocktail $184.80
12-Jan Atoll dinner buffet $251.33
13-Jan Ufaa lunch $72.93
2 nights room upgrade including taxes $492.80
seaplane transfer for 2 $1,120.00
Total $2,383.04

Of course we paid the bill with our Hilton credit card to earn 10x points and being a Diamond member got us extra points…no idea what was the earning formula, our 3 days 2 nights bill earned us enough points for another night at the Conrad Maldives LOL!

When our flight was ready, we walked to the arrival/departure lounge in the middle of the bridge to wait inside the AC room. Once again, they served us slushie but my tummy was still feeling bad so I took a water instead.

This time, we got the front row seat in the seaplane and witnessed all the actions between the captain and co-pilot.

The little fan that helped a lot with air ventilation:

The view was a little bit better on the 1st row than the 2nd row:

Once again, we had a stop to pick up more guests at another resort (forgot the name this one) so we experienced 4 seaplane take-offs in one trip 🙂

I wish that island is mines 😀

Few of the hundreds of atolls that made up the country of Maldives:

The island next to the capital city of Male and the airport where they are constructing apartment condos:

This must be the luxury seaplane with AC in Trans-Maldivian Airways’ fleet?

We “claimed” the luggage right in front of the arrival building, the Conrad representatives took our luggage and transported to the airport Conrad desk, and then it was a chaos. Conrad Maldives ended the free seaplane lounge access for Diamond members after 5 PM (as of Jan. 2018) so we couldn’t hang out in the lounge. The Conrad representative told us that the Conrad van was not able to come to pick us up so we had to take the transfer bus as the locals to the airport hum…what a bad way to end a luxurious vacation! The bus came and the locals basically rushed into the bus and it was filled at no time! The two Conrad guests in front of us basically were told by the locals to let them on the bus and wait for the next bus instead!!! Oh gosh…we waited for the next bus and got in finally. Once we arrived at the airport, we walked to the Conrad desk and got our luggage. We had another 5 hours to go and the check-in counter wasn’t even open until 2 hours prior to the flight. Thankfully, there is a Priority Pass lounge at Male Airport – Wellness. The lounge is the smallest lounge we ever been to; only a few tables and chairs!

The lady came to take our order for a drink and gave us cookies…that was it; no other food!

The lounge was fully packed and there was another section that we discovered that had more comfortable chairs.

I am guessing the capacity of this lounge to be less than 30 people! Thus, they limited the stay to maximum 2 hours where we had AC and wifi. Once our 2 hours were up, we walked to the small food court to have our dinner. We stayed in the lounge first because it was very hot when we arrived at the airport so it was good to have a place with AC. After sunset, the airport got a lot cooler so it was fine to sit at the waiting area without AC. The food court with plenty of tables and seats:

The food selection wasn’t bad for a small airport like this, we picked a Thai fast food:

Prices were affordable (average USD $12 per dish) after seeing the prices in Conrad LOL! Surprisingly, my Pad Kee Mao (flat noodle) with Beef was pretty good!

Our Singapore Airlines flight from Male to Singapore was very good with great selections of movies (unlike Japan Airlines). However, Japan Airlines’ food was much better!

In conclusion, I felt that our 3 days 2 nights was about enough to experience the resort and checked off our bucket list. Of course, if we have another day, we’ll definitely try out the snorkeling or paid activities such as swimming with whales or fishing. We are certainly not into diving or watersports so we had the entire time to take photos and enjoy the beautiful hotel grounds. Stay tuned for the next post for a detailed comparison between Bora Bora and the Maldives!

6 thoughts on “Half More Day in Maldivian Paradise and the Total Bill for 3 Days 2 Nights

  1. Wanted to thank you for your pictures and report. Just returned from 3 days at the Conrad and stayed in Overwater villa 336, which was right by you. Followed your recommendation and did not eat at Atoll buffet but enjoyed sunset grill and Vilu for dinners. It was a great trip and feel this compares to Tahiti, just a lot further away from the US.

    Your pictures depict the beauty of the Maldives.

    Thanks

    1. Thank you Mel for sharing your trip as well, glad you had a wonderful vacation! How do you like the Maldives versus French Polynesia?

      1. Both are beautiful. I only stayed in Moorea and cruised to Bora Bora and other islands, so I did not get the overwater experience in Tahiti. Geography was different in that Tahiti has mountains and varied terrain, while the Maldives are just the atolls. Also in the Maldives if you stay at a resort, you don’t have contact with the local people. In Tahiti you can leave the resort and go into town.

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