Trip to the Maldives – the flights part 1
Trip to the Maldives – the flights part 2
Conrad Lounge in Mali and Seaplane to Rangali Island
Beach Villa at the Conrad Maldives
Euro swimsuits and Turtles
The main pool and snorkeling
Our luggage arrives, Vilu, and the Quiet Zone
The employee strike
The strike ends
Ithaa underwater restaurant, Water Villa, and sunset cruise

Back on the airplane into our very comfortable seats, we lifted off from Taipei to Kuala Lumpur with our excellent cabin service for a five hour flight.

The food consisted of:

Fruit Juice, fresh fruits, and yoghurt

For the main course:

I chose the Murgh Lababdar which is a braised chicken with rice and spicy gravy.

My wife chose the Three Egg Asparagus Omelette with a chicken patty, potato wedges, and ratatouille.

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur with an eight hour layover. We cleared customs and went to a baggage holding area to drop off all of our luggage while we went to explore town. Each bag cost about $4 to store. We took the KLIA Express – the bullet airport train into the middle of town. We then switched over to the local subway system and headed out to the Petronas Twin Towers.

We had originally wanted to go to the top of the twin towers – but there are only a certain allotment of tickets given to the public each day at the will call (no advance bookings) and we knew we wouldn’t make it there in time to get tickets.

We went inside the huge, multi stories mall and did some shopping.

There were tons of restaurants and eateries to choose from including some pretty bizarre looking ones – and we decided to eat at one of the restaurants in the food court.

After about four hours at the mall, we decided to head back to the airport as we were pretty jet-lagged even with the nice business class seats and it was incredibly hot outside as well. We entered the airport, picked up our bags from the baggage holding area and headed to the Malaysian Air lounge which was massive. There was plenty of free food including entrees, free showers, a spa, and plenty of spots to stretch out and relax. This was the first time I had actually taken a shower inside a lounge and I must say that it was very refreshing after having to travel a considerable time.

We headed back to the airplane, this time a much smaller business class on a Boeing 737-800 for a four hour flight to Male.

When we arrived in Male, we waited and waited at the baggage carousel. Finally, all the bags showed up and our bags were nowhere to be found. This was a pretty crushing development as we hadn’t packed any additional clothes or toiletries in our carry on bags. We went to the lost baggage department, described our bags, and were issued a tracer number with Malaysia Airlines. We were told that they would contact us when our bags were found. I figured that our tight connection in Los Angeles due to the original flight delay was probably the culprit and that they would appear the next day.

A little discouraged, we went through customs and greeted by both the Conrad Hilton and also Trader’s Hotel.

Originally we had booked a 15,000 Priority Club reward night for the Holiday Inn in Male. However, in November of last year we were notified the the Holiday Inn had been sold to the Shangri-La group and therefore our reward night reservation had been cancelled. We were pretty steamed at this development, and so my wife called up Priority Club to have them remedy the situation. They finally agree to send over a $200 American Express prepaid gift card as part of the Any Hotel, anywhere program. They did deduct the 15,000 points and so we felt satisfied with the resolution.

We went with the representative from Trader’s Hotel and boarded the speedboat for the 5 minute journey to the hotel.

By this time, it was about 11:30 pm and we were ready to go to sleep after a long day’s journey. We informed the front desk of our missing luggage and they quickly put together a toiletry kit for us which meant a lot.

I was very impressed with the room as it was very comfortable, very clean, and very nice. I wouldn’t hesitate to stay at this property again in Male.

We crashed for the night as we had to leave the hotel at 6:30 am the next day in order to go to the seaplane.

Trip to the Maldives – the flights part 1
Trip to the Maldives – the flights part 2
Conrad Lounge in Mali and Seaplane to Rangali Island
Beach Villa at the Conrad Maldives
Euro swimsuits and Turtles
The main pool and snorkeling
Our luggage arrives, Vilu, and the Quiet Zone
The employee strike
The strike ends
Ithaa underwater restaurant, Water Villa, and sunset cruise

We booked our Delta Award tickets via Malaysian Airlines for 120,000 Skymiles each. My wife and I both did the recent Suntrust business and personal accounts where you earned 140,000 Skymiles for $330 and therefore had plenty of Skymiles for redemption outside of all of our credit card spending on the American Express Delta Skymiles card.

Our routing was Salt Lake City – Los Angeles – Taipei – Kuala Lumpur – Male all in business class.

Salt Lake City to Los Angeles
We took the opportunity to use our American Express Platinum card to go to the Delta SkyClub in Salt Lake City. I usually don’t like to hang out at airports more than I have to – so this was actually the first time I’ve ever been in the SkyClub.

A pretty non-descript flight to Los Angeles and very short. There were some delays in getting a slot to land and we ended up having to jog a little over to the International terminal.

The gate agent was very friendly and offered to give us our business class lounge vouchers. Er – no thanks as they’re already boarding the aircraft.

Luckily there were still plenty of people trying to board that aircraft and not very long security lines to get to the gate but the short connection time ended up costing us dearly which I’ll explain later.

Los Angeles to Taipei
Boarding the flight, the business class seats were huge and spacious. It’s one of the first times I’ve actually been glad that I was having a long flight. The seating was 2 X 3 X 2 and we had two on the side.

The announcement from the captain was that the flight was 14 hours. Each seat had their own video on demand system that included movies, tv shows, music, and games. I have never been so glad to have that long of a flight.

The first meal was Supper.

The appetizer was Malaysian Satay with charcoal grilled chicken and beef skewers with a spicy peanut sauce and a seared Ahi Tuna (which I didn’t eat since I dislike fish).

The main course I chose was the Oriental Style Braised Beef.

Dessert was Fruit Bavaroise with raspberry coulis and fresh fruits.

The seats nearly reclined all the way flat. In fact it was comfortable enough that I slept for 9 hours straight (with no medication). I have never slept that long on a flight and it was certainly welcome.

After waking up, I navigated the video on demand system and watched two episodes of Glee for the first time. I’m not sure if my life is better off now for seeing my first episode but it did make we want to download the Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross duet “Endless Love”.

I also watched the movie “Inception” for the first time.

The service was always top notch and we were always well taken care of.

For breakfast, we started with a health drink, fruit juice, and fresh fruits.

Then came muesli with low fat milk which was very delicious. My favorite muesli is still Frebaco’s “Musli Frukt” from Sweden but this muesli was very good.

For the main course of breakfast, I chose the Vegetable Frittata that had chicken sausage and hash browns.

It was about the fastest 14 hours I have ever experienced and was very enjoyable. When we landed in Taipei, we all had to get off the plane and so we searched for an airport lounge. We were denied entry in both the Skyteam lounge and the Priority Pass lounge even with our business class tickets and American Express Platinum card. I’m not really that detail oriented – and probably should have read up on all the terms and conditions but since we were only going to be in Taipei for two hours – I didn’t really have the energy to try and dispute. Besides, why waste your time in an airport lounge when you can walk the halls of the Taipei airport with construction everywhere and overvalued goods to buy!

We reboarded the plane and had the exact same plane with our exact same seats again.

I’m sitting in the spacious Malaysia Air lounge writing this quick update – after a four hour flight from Taipei to Kuala Lumpur – and an eight hour layover we’re about to board flight 4 of 5 – a quick four hour flight from KL to Male. Then it will be a quick boat ride to the former Holiday Inn – now called Trader’s Hotel. Holiday Inn stepped up and honored our previous award reservation that was cancelled during the brand change – well done Holiday Inn.

I spotted a lot of American restaurants here including a Kenny Roger’s Roasters? Do they even exist anymore in the US? Perhaps someone should inform the Malaysians that Kenny folded a long time ago?

This lounge has a full spread including a spa ( you have to pay).

I’m feeling great after 9 hours of sleep – I don’t even get that much at home – my wife is fading fast.

That’s all for now – next update from Male.

We’re in Taipei on a two hour layover on the way to Malaysia. The business class seats are incredibly roomy, the food fantastic, and the service spectacular. I slept 9 of the 14 hours so I’m feeling pretty refreshed at this point. We were denied entry into China Airlines business lounge though it had Malaysia Air as a partner and we also had Platinum American Express.

Other than that – fantastic start to the trip.