Maldives Honeymoon
Featuring the worst flying experience of my life
12.12.2021 - 23.12.2021
Well apparently I started writing our honeymoon blog about a year ago, and never finished it.... But since I am about to add our St. Lucia trip to the blog, I figured I better include the honeymoon first!!
Our trip to the Maldives for our honeymoon was a series of extremes: first, the most harrowing traveling experience, followed by the most beautiful and relaxing place I have ever been.
We had planned to take a Maldivian trip back in the summer of 2020, when various travel deals kept popping up. At the time of our purchase, we figured that going for our honeymoon in December of 2021 would be well past the point of travel concerns due to COVID.... And we were wrong.
We also had in mind that we might be able to first go to India for our friends Unnati and Parth's wedding in India prior to the Maldives, so, since it seemed like more complicated or long-haul flights and organizing, we decided to book with a travel agent. Which was also the wrong decision.
As the flight to the Maldives was our first one in which we had to figure out the PCR testing requirements and timeline, we felt a little overwhelmed by it, and reached out to the travel agent for some assistance. And this was the start of our troubles with the agency. We waited ages for a response, only to find out she had been on vacation, with no automatic email response to let us know or tell us who else could help us. Then she proceeded to copy and past the information we already had from them, which turned out to be incorrect. So, in an attempt to make a long story short, we did not have our PCR results arriving in time to board our first flight out of Edmonton. When we were then unable to get ahold of our travel agent , we had to escalate it to a manager at their company to assist us in paying for a whole new flight to reach the Maldives. We had to drive from Edmonton to Calgary, and then make a separate booking for Calgary to Frankfurt, then collect our bags in Frankfurt and check in again for a flight from Frankfurt to the Maldives. It was incredibly stressful. And that wasn't even the end of our flying difficulties, but more on those after the good part!!
OK, so now on to the most amazing resort, and honeymoon.
We went all out on booking a 5-star resort, the Residence Maldives Dhigurah, and an overwater villa.
My favorite part of the villa was the views for sunrise.
The resort is a private island, connected by a bridge to the nearby Falhumaafushi resort. Each villa comes with bikes, which you can ride around both islands.
Brett's favorite part (wink wink) was when I made him take a couple photo sessions on the bridge, and on the beautiful white sand on the sand bar between the two islands
We were also able to access the overwater restaurant at Falhumaafushi, where we had a high tea one afternoon, as well as lunch and dinner.
And we had many more amazing meals, and glasses of wine, while we were there!
Unfortunately, due to COVID, some of the day trips, such as visiting a local village, weren't available, but we were able to do some amazing snorkeling right off the main pier at the local reef. We spotted various fish and turtles while snorkeling, and could watch many baby nurse sharks right off the dock of our villa. We also had a brief glimpse of a few different rays! I didn't manage to snap a picture of the one sighting of a couple eagle rays...
We also took a sunset dolphin cruise.
And were able to use the resort's kayaks and stand-up paddleboards.
We spent a lot of time at the beach bar and pool near our villa.
And had a relaxing massage one afternoon,
And found it easy to fill our honeymoon week with sand, sun, activities, and relaxation!
We took an extra day on our way home to stay at a hotel with a rooftop pool in Male, the capital city.
Then we were treated to the second half of our travel difficulties. Since we didn't make it onto our original departing flight, the airline automatically assumes you did not reach your destination, and they cancel your return flight. The manager at the travel agency let us know that they were aware this would happen, but that we didn't need to worry about it on our honeymoon, and they would speak to the airline to make sure we could catch our return flight... Meanwhile, we get partway through our honeymoon, and haven't yet heard anything from the agency, so we end up having to follow-up with them. I mean yes, we don't want to worry about it, but we also don't want it hanging over our head when we are supposed to be on vacation! I know that this post makes it seem like I am ranting about this travel agency. But this was honestly the first time in YEARS that I chose to book through a travel agent, and I was appalled at their service, and their constant excuses. They are in the business of customer service and they did NOT deliver at every turn.
They finally told us that they had contacted Air Canada and the airline was aware that we would be making the return trip.
SO, we get to the airport, with our first flight being Qatar Airways. And they DO NOT let us on the plane. They say that the flight is not "open" or some other terminology. So Brett has to turn on his phone and call the travel agent. Who ONCE AGAIN IS NOT AVAILABLE. So we call the manager, who is able to take our call. At this point it is about 8:00am on a Monday morning in Edmonton. So I am not sure why our agent wasn't available. Again, for good customer service, when you've booked a trip for us, I'm not sure why you either aren't aware of when our flights are so that you're available for any issues (especially when we already had issues on the way out), or you've at least given us a contact person who will be available. Thankfully we had communicated with the manager previously, so we had his phone number. And, thankfully I had a bad feeling when we couldn't check-in online, so we were three hours early for our flight. And it took us nearly the full 3 hours to get things sorted. Qatar Airways was actually extremely unhelpful. They would not do anything until the seats were marked "open" so they could check us in. Despite there being open seats on the plane, they wouldn't entertain any option of putting us in a different seat, or something like that. I don't even know what would have been possible, but they certainly did not try to help us with a solution. The agency manager had to call Air Canada and get Air Canada to contact Qatar to "open" our seats. Again, despite Air Canada sending an email to us showing that we should be able to check-in, the staff at Qatar did nothing. And it ended up that their system magically updated approximately 5 minutes before they told us that check-in would be closed. So we made it on the plane by the skin of our teeth. That was without a doubt the most harrowing travel related experience of my life.
I prefer to look back at the pictures of the most amazing honeymoon, and feel extremely lucky that we managed to make the flights both ways, and now, in 2023, we don't have to worry about COVID testing prior to travelling!!!
Posted by elliehirch 19:47 Archived in Maldives Republic Comments (0)
