1. Introduction
   
2. Positioning flights to San Francisco, Sheraton Fisherman’s Wharf, and Some Dim Sum for the Day
   
3. Cathay’s New San Francisco Lounge
   
4. Cathay Pacific First Class, San Francisco – Hong Kong
   
5. The Wing and Cathay Pacific First Class, Hong Kong – Singapore
   
6. A Grand Suite at the Grand Hyatt Singapore
   
7. Eating in Singapore
   
8. Dinner at Waku Ghin, Marina Bay Sands
   
9. Singapore Airlines Business Class: Singapore – Male
   
10. Transfer to the Park Hyatt Hadahaa, Maldives
    
11. Park Hyatt Maldives – Part I
    
12. Park Hyatt Maldives – Part II
    
13. Park Hyatt Maldives – Part III
    
14. Maldivian, Kaadehdhoo – Male
    
15. Singapore Airlines Business Class, Male – Singapore
    
16. Cathay Pacific Business Class, Singapore – Hong Kong
    
17. Conrad Hong Kong
    
18. Cathay Pacific First Class, Hong Kong – Chicago
    
19. American’s Chicago Flagship Lounge and the Final Journey Home

The first night on property we sat out on our deck and ordered room service. That’s not an inexpensive proposition. There’s a $15 tray charge in addition to service charge which I think was 15%. And that’s on top of sandwiches which are priced in the $30s. A single steak sandwich delivered by room service was about $55 later in the week, and was a modest amount of sliced meat rather a steak inside a roll. But service is prompt, they also return to pick up trays promptly when called. And you’re in the middle of the Indian Ocean, things are going to be pricey, and it wasn’t orders of magnitude pricier than a high end resort in the Caribbean though certainly much more pleasant.

I was a little bit surprised when I first learned that breakfast wasn’t a buffet, I’m used to resorts offering extensive buffets but I was ultimately very happy with what was offered. The coffee was very good. So was the juice. And the concept is that they bring three small appetizers to your table (they’ll happily replenish those) and then you each order up to three things off the a la carte menu. And that’s complimentary. It’s plenty of food, prepared fresh, thought the menu isn’t that extensive, I found myself repeating my orders come mid-week.

The appetizers came as a tower a la Lufthansa First Class: (One tower was brought for the table each morning)

Maldivian tuna curry

Eggs benedict

Cocottes

German white sausage on pretzel

Bircher muesli

Waffle

Crepe

The first morning we asked for cream and for soy to go with our coffees. The chef came out from the kitchen to speak to us, he said “we only received your request for soy milk yesterday and have been trying to source it from another resort.” Though I had correspondence with the general manager a couple of weeks in advance, the request must have simply been noted in our reservation and then didn’t get noticed until the reservation itself was pulled on our day of checkin. By our third day, though, they had secured soy milk.

One morning I went out to breakfast especially early and brought my laptop, wifi worked just fine and was complimentary at the breakfast restaurant just as it was in the room. My villa’s wifi was a little bit glitch, whenever it didn’t work properly I would unplug the router and plug it back in and it would work just fine again, I never had to ring for support. While I did use the internet for work, I never did turn on the television at all throughout the stay, so I can’t comment on the channels offered. And I actually find catching up on work while on vacation relaxing, I know there’s nothing back home to worry about and I’m not so overwhelmed the day I return that I’d lose my entire sense of relaxation gained on vacation.

Breakfast is served at the all day dining restaurant beside the main pool, which is adjacent to the resort’s main bar as well.

There’s also a dinner-only restaurant which is being rebranded “Island Grill” though I’m told that the menu isn’t being substantially revamped. It serves local fare, and the curries were quite good and surprisingly spicey. And surprisingly, dinner at this restaurant was also somewhat less expensive than eating in the all day restaurant where appetizers run in the $20s, entrees in the $30s and $40s, and desserts around $20 as well.

Here’s the menu page one and page two.

Appetizers

As we sat and ate dinner on our second evening the sun went down and the lit up sky was beautiful.

The Malidivian shrimp curry was excellent.

The squid curry less so.

Dessert

We also had dinner in the all day dining restaurant.

Goat cheese salad

Crab salad

Pasta

Nasi goring

Some of the most delicious ice cream I’ve had, especially the honeycomb and rose petal

One evening we took the resort up on the evening’s daily event, which was a sushi dinner out at “Drift” the small bar area midway through the walkway along the water villas. For US$75++ they had a sushi chef preparing fresh sushi, and were offering that all-you-can-eat and were pouring all you could drink Piper Heidsieck champagne. That was an especially good value because bottles of wine which would be ~ $15 in a US bottle shop were priced around $75 in the restaurants.

While water is free in the room, in restaurants they charge US$3.50 per person, all you can drink, during lunch and dinner at the restaurants.

The property’s general manager is very active, walking around the property, talking to guests, finding things that needed tidying and doing it himself (which seemed to frighten onlooking staff).

As our stay came to and end, we had one last lunch. On the way to the all day dining restaurant I stopped to settle our bill. Everything was in order, I handed over Hyatt Gift Checks, and got a bit of a perplexed look.

The clerk at the desk had never seen them before and didn’t know how to handle them. He made a phone call, got a voice mail, and said he’d need some time to sort it out. Rather than waiting, I told him I would be in the restaurant and could he simply come find me when he had gotten everything taken care of.

There was going to be an hour boat ride to the domestic airport, a layover, an hour flight, and then three hours or so in the Male airport before our flight to Singapore. And odds on the food in the lounge there wasn’t going to impress. So we needed a bit of food before the journey.

I had the pad thai, which was excellent, spicy, and prepared in traditional thai style baked into an omellette.

After about 40 minutes the clerk came by with a final invoice to sign, having properly applied my gift checks. We finished our meal, settled up, and headed back to our room to do a last check to see if we had left anything behind.

About 25 minutes before our boat departed for the airport, our host came to collect our bags, and the returned to pick us up and drive us to the dock.

The resort staff saw us off

We put on our life jackets, had a seat at the back of the boat, turned back towards resort and looked wistfully on our stay…

This is the only time, while leaving a hotel, that I was thinking about ways to return. Over the coming months both Emirates and Etihad will start service from Washington DC and I suspect I’ll be inclined to use American partner Etihad to fly Washington Dulles – Abu Dhabi – Male, likely with a stopover in Abu Dhabi and a stay at the new Park Hyatt there. That’ll be a much more sane and less arduous routing.

As I said at the beginning of my trip report, this was my first visit to the Maldives, so I can’t compare the Park Hyatt to other properties like the Four Seasons or the One & Only Reethi Rah. But it was a beautiful resort. It could make some improvements. But I cannot imagine a better use of my points, especially as someone that chases aspirational awards, and I’m very much looking forward to coming back.