Adventures of Lydia & Calvin: Second Honeymoon in Maldives:Leaving paradise - Finifenmaa Lounge and Dubai to Male in Emirates First Class

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We were initially supposed to be leave Male on the night flight but decided to change last minute to the morning flight as we did not want to have to wait for 6-7 hours in Male (The resort only transfers to Male latest by 4-5 pm which would mean a relatively long wait in Male for midnight flight). We would then have a longer layover in Dubai which would allow us for more shopping time in Dubai.

Emirates Airlines uses a contract lounge in Male. The lounge has adequate sitting and a basic selection of drinks (although no alcohol) and food. The thing I liked about the lounge was the view of the tarmac. We spent the 45 minutes in the lounge catching up on the real world and email and having a Coke.

View from the lounge

On a side note, we weren’t sure if we would blog about every single of the Emirates flight since it was supposed to be pretty much the same experience with the same seat type and catering. As it turns out, the last 2 flights on Emirates had something unique about them.

We lucked out as we would be the only passengers in first class again. 2 private cabins back to back – score! As usual, we had Dom for our pre-departure beverage. The first glass we had was completely flat. After take-off, I inquired if they were using the same bottle from the flight from Dubai but the stewardess denied it saying this was a new bottle. She immediately got us a new glass and opened a new bottle wish was fresh. We kept drinking throughout the flight and halfway through the flight, she evened opened a new one just to make sure the Dom was fresh even though we didn’t get through the bottle yet. Good service!

Since we only had a light breakfast, we wanted the meals served earlier during the flight. The stewardess screwed up and passed the wrong menu giving us the choices from the Dubai to Male flight. None of the choices for the Male to Dubai flight seem all that interesting and I asked about having the choices from the previous flight. They declined saying the food was probably not good anymore with the 4 hour flight before and the ~1.5 hour stop in Male. Having settled for the noodles, I was pleasantly surprised when they showed up with poached eggs, smoke salmon and lamb chops. The poach eggs were good! Never thought you could have runny eggs 30000 feet up in the air.

We had another good surprise where the stewardess shows up with a Polariod camera and asks if we want pictures. I did not know Emirates (or any other airlines) that did this.

The rest of the flight continued with more Dom (I think we finished 1.5 bottles) before finishing off with a glass of 21 year old Glenfiddich whiskey that tipped me over the edge. We arrived to Dubai to a relatively long immigration line even for premium customers.