Second Honeymoon in Maldives: Introduction

• Introduction
• Low Cost Portion - 2 flights and an overnight at KUL LCCT
• First time in Colombo
• First time on Emirates First Class – Colombo to Dubai
• Layover in Dubai with Le Meridien Hotel Review
• Emirates Dubai First Class Lounge
• Dubai to Male in Emirates First Class
• Visiting paradise again – Eriyadu Resorts, Maldives
• Leaving paradise - Finifenmaa Lounge and Dubai to Male in Emirates First Class
• 2nd Dubai Layover - Review of Novotel Dubai Deira City
• Emirates First Class - Dubai to Colombo
• Negombo, Colombo
• Getting home on Malaysia Airlines (Colombo - Kuala Lumpur - Penang).
• Conclusion

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We love the Maldives - the sun, the beach, the snorkeling. It’s one of our favorite holiday destinations.  Having just been for the first time for our honeymoon a couple of months ago last October, we were not planning on going back to Maldives that soon. 

We stumbled onto a mistake Emirates first class fare when finding out that they offer a relatively cheap first class flight on the Colombo  - Male – Colombo route giving an affordable way to experience first class on Emirates albeit on a 1.5 hour flight only. (This was before the fare was posted on flyertalk). For some unknown reason, the emirates website was allowing a Colombo – Dubai – Male routing for the same price hence making it an 8 hour first class experience.  We initially hesitated to book as our holiday plans for the year were pretty much set with the trip to Sao Paulo (TK mistake fare which we eventually cancelled), Kazakhstan and Harbin later during the year. We were running low on time off and money for another holiday. The kicker was when Emirates started offering bonus miles for flights in May and June.  For a return first class Colombo – Dubai – Male flight, we would have enough miles to redeem a one way first class ticket on the A380 (the private suites, the on board shower!) on the  Bangkok – Hong Kong flight. The redemption ticket and the amount of Dom we were planning to drink would pay for the ticket itself and the experience to try out Emirates First Class for the first time:)

The flight booking itself was an adventure.  We tried for half a day to book the flights through the Emirates website but the transaction would keep failing when I entered my credit card for payment.  After trying all the credit cards I had and multiple calls to my credit card company that assured me everything was fine on their side, we were going to break the cardinal rule of mistake fare by calling Emirates to try to book the ticket.  We figured it was probably a mistake and the ticketing system couldn’t issue the ticket when it had to, so no harm calling since we couldn’t book it anyway.  The agent we got on the call was really helpful.  She manage to pull out ALL the multiple transactions we had by just the flight routing and names (we didn’t have the PNR numbers yet since the tickets were never really issued).  She put us on hold for a while and when she came back, we were happy to hear that they were going to honor the ticket and the price since the website was showing it. She noticed that we had a 20 hour layover in Dubai and offered to book us the limousine transfer and a stay at the Le Meridien as part of the STPC Emirates program.  We were impressed that Emirates were providing all the services even when this was clearly a mistake fare.  We were definitely not expecting the hotel room.

Instead of the “crazy” multiple Colombo – Dubai – Male runs some flyertalkers (eightblack,ung1,Yurop -!) were taking, we were keeping it “normal” by just booking one return flight only and was going to spend a couple of nights in the Maldives itself.  We were not Emirates frequent flyers and didn’t need the additional miles.

We still needed to get to Colombo from Penang. Award flights on *A were not convenient, having only one daily Penang – Bangkok which would require long layovers in either Bangkok or Singapore.  In the end, we decided on AirAsia Penang – Kuala Lumpur – Colombo routing to get us there that would get us in around 7 in the morning giving us plenty of time to see Colombo which we have not been before.  To get back we decided on Malaysia Airlines as they had a really good fare for Colombo – Kuala Lumpur – Penang. In summary, our flight routing:

• Air Asia: Penang – Kuala Lumpur – Colombo; overnight in LCCT & getting in to Colombo at ~7.30 in the morning
• Emirates First Class: Colombo – Dubai;  ~20 hour layover allowing us to see Dubai during the day.
• Emirates First Class: Dubai – Male; 5 days in paradise
• Emirates First Class: Male  - Dubai – Colombo
• Malaysia Airlines Economy Class: Colombo – Kuala Lumpur – Penang

Sorry for the long post and very few pictures.  The good stuff is yet to come.. Can’t wait for our first flight in Emirates especially in first class! J