I just got home from my thrice cancelled trip to Dubai and the Maldives. So much ground covered so I will start by saying that I am now the proud owner of 3 pairs of pajamas from airlines (1 pair from Etihad and 2 from Qatar).
Etihad from Washington was first class and it was really nice. There were 8 seats in first class and 7 were occupied. The Etihad lounge in Washington was closed so I received a pass to the Virgin Clubhouse. I ordered a chicken dish which was okay, nothing special. I didn't really touch much of it because I wanted to save room on the flight. The amenity kit was from Acqua di Parma, but strangely only had 4 items (lip balm, body lotion, perfume and a small tube of face cream). The aircraft looked older, but my seat had plenty of room, a 'buddy' seat and a door for privacy. I tried the caviar (didn't have any taste and the blinis were cold, so I left almost all of it); I can't remember what I had for the main course but it must've been okay because I don't remember being hungry. I didn't have any dessert because I wanted to go to sleep; I still found it difficult to sleep, but got maybe 5 or 6 hours of interrupted sleep. Breakfast was good -- I think it was an omelette (wish I had written the details down).
When I arrived in Abu Dhabi I took a taxi to the Conrad with a stop enroute at the Sheikh Zayed Mosque for some sunset photos (it is STUNNING). The Conrad had upgraded me to a very spacious king suite with a partial view of the Corniche and the ocean. The amenities were crazy: a very nice fruit bowl, large Conrad Abu Dhabi teddy bear and a big box of chocolates. Since I booked through a Virtuoso TA I had a $100.00 F&B credit which I used at Li Beirut restaurant (onsite). The food here was amazing and maybe one of my favorite meals of the trip. After dinner I was going to walk around the mall that was attached to the hotel, but quickly realized that it was a super high end mall and nothing interested me, so I went back to the room for the night. The breakfast buffet was huge and very impressive. I also ordered eggs benny off the menu. Again, the food was outstanding.
I had the concierge book an entry time to the Mosque for me in advance and I took a taxi there after breakfast. Women have to be covered head to toe (literally) and it was as hot as the surface of the sun, so the outdoor parts of the tour were tough, but worth it because the building is simply stunning. I saw some women get off tour buses that hadn't packed a l/s shirt and didn't have a head covering (I packed a light silk scarf that I purchased in China) and they were given long polyester robes with hoods that looked incredibly hot, so it pays to be prepared. I didn't have time for lunch but had leftovers in the fridge in my room from the previous nights dinner, so I made some little pita pocket sandwiches, headed downstairs, checked out and met my driver to take me to the Al Maha!
Things started to go sideways with the RC Maldives at this point. I was scrolling through my Marriott app the night before and noticed the absence of my reservation at the RC (their system had made a duplicate reservation and I guess when they 'fixed' it both of the reservations were cancelled). I e-mailed them immediately, but by 3:00pm the next day I still hadn't heard from them; so I called them (from my cell phone) and asked what was happening and was assured that everything was fine -- I asked for a confirmation in writing. A day and a half later I still didn't have anything in writing and had to call them again and ask; within 6 hours someone in reservations e-mailed me something along the lines of "we are expecting you on September 28th" and nothing else. I asked for a proper confirmation number, which took another 48 hours to receive. But then they took an additional 50k points more than my original reservation. Definitely not off to a good start. It took almost 2 weeks to get the 50K points returned. I had debated switching my reservation to the St. Regis (they had points bookings available) and wish that I had, but I had already paid for my transfer to the RC and didn't want to deal with the hassle of trying to get it refunded, so left it with the RC.
Details of the amazing Al Maha to follow. But suffice it to say that I was starting to feel that this trip was cursed around this time......
