A short Break

Hubby and I wanted to go somewhere for our birthdays without our son, but work came by and the plan dropped. We realised that it was 2 years since we both went on a vacation alone and it was always with family. So we planned to go somewhere on our anniversary.We had decided on a 3 day vacation, since we were leaving my son for the 1st time. I so badly wanted to go to Taj Madikeri property, but the travel to that property would have taken up most of our 3 day vacation. So, we decided to go to Vivanta by Taj, Kovalam. Somehow everyone was telling me that I should stay at Leela, Kovalam but the recent reviews didn't seem that appealing and I stuck with going to the Taj property.

I got my booking, both Hotel and Flight done through Fernweh. As usual, they were great.  I booked the Superior Charm Room with Sea View under Advance Booking. The rates were much cheaper than breakfast inclusive rate. My flight was at 9:30 am and I reached the airport by 8:45. We were the last person to check in and they gave us seats which were not together :(. Why didn't I check in online?? God knows how I can be so stupid at times!! Anyways, it was a long 2 hour flight and I got super bored. We took a cab at the airport. Turned out to be a very wise decision. Yaj was charging us approximately Rs. 1500 for one way for a 15km distance. The cab costed us around Rs. 500. We reached the resort by 12:15 and it was well before our check in time.

Mr. Ganshyam, took us around and showed us the property. We realised they had booked the twin bed room. He said he would change the bedding style. By then, we went to have our Lunch at Jasmine Bay restaurant near the pool. The food I thought was average and was reasonably priced. Our room was very nice on a lower level and you have a sit out from where you can see the sea at a distance. I took a nice nap while hubby went around exploring the place. We were informed about the complimentary tea & coffee session in the evening and also a complimentary boat ride on the lagoon. We went for the tea & Coffee session on the beach and ended up spending amazing time there. 

Later that night, we went out to Bait for dinner. It's supposed to be their best restaurant and the setup was truly amazing in the night. They gave me a free mocktail and the food was very nice. 

The next day, we went to Jasmine Bay for breakfast. The breakfast spread was good. And guess what?? They gave us complimentary breakfast!! I have no clue why though. After lazing around in the pool, we went for our Spa treatment. It was brilliant and I just slept through. After that we had our lunch in our room and went around exploring the places nearby. There are auto and cabs right outside the property but we started walking to check out the place nearby. We walked to the beach and just lazed around. 

We made our dinner reservation at Leela. They informed us to be there by 7:30 pm to avoid cancellation. The distance between Taj and Leela was about 5 km. We caught an auto right outside our property who gave us his number to call him for our return as well. The view from The Terrace restaurant was just brilliant. I started thinking if I made the right decision by staying at Taj. The dinner buffet spread was lavish but the service was ok and the food tasted good. When I went back to Taj, they had done a beautiful room decor to surprise us on our anniversary. 

That's when I realised that the service and the food was so much better than Leela. Next morning at breakfast I got a surprise cake :) I was beaming like a small kid with all the complimentary things that I was getting and again another free breakfast!!! We checked out that afternoon and had lunch at Curries restaurant. The food was brilliant and the service brilliant. 

They have us a small take away home gift and this break turned out to be the best we've had in recent time. I'm sure to go back again

Lessons learnt from Maldives trip

There were quite a few hitches that I faced while planning my Maldives trip. Just jotting it down, so that I don't repeat the same ones again.

1. Ask many travel agents at once. This will help in analyzing cost and also one can get a better deal. I made the mistake of contacting just makemytrip.com and my air fare increased by the time they responded.
2. I always thought it's best to book by oneself but travel agents do give a better deal. I made my booking directly at Four Seasons. I was surprised by the deal I got from my travel agent. 
3. It's better to work with people who are flexible. While working with big companies like makemytrip.com (Mentioning only their name since I've personally interacted with them), they work on fixed time like 10 am to 6 pm and only on weekdays. Getting the quotation and making the booking becomes difficult once it's weekend. My experience with Fernweh and my previous travel agent(who made my booking for Bora Bora) is they are flexible with timing. They work anytime during the day (and night), you can contact them anytime. They treat every customer like king. They come home to pick up documents and other details required. You end up having a personal relationship with them and this goes a long way. I'm definitely going to check the rate with Fernweh, every time I go for my vacation.
4. Never book indian airlines. At least in my case, they had no benefit at Spice Jet like front row for babies. Good thing the flight duration was small. The variety to choose meals is limited unless you pre-book. 
5. Indian airports are not that great. I'm not talking about Delhi, Mumbai or others that I'm unaware of. But Cochin airport was very bad. There is no way one can while away time there. Not many stores, the international airport wore a deserted look. In the domestic terminal, while we were returning to Chennai, the check-in process would not happen before 2.5 hours of flight departure. There was no place to eat inside the airport. We had to request the airport authorities to let us out of the airport, so that we could eat and relax at the food court at the airport. Also, there was no baby room near the check-in counters. The restroom facility that we have in our Indian airports are pathetic. The restroom facility at new terminal of Chennai airport was so bad that it was full of water. 

New destination - Maldives

The quest for a holiday started after I delivered my son. We couldn't go on our birthday holiday, since my son was too young. Post new year we decided we could go on a family holiday with my MIL as well. Our initial plan was to go to Singapore & Bali and made plans around my MIL's birthday. We decided to surprise her and changed the destination to Maldives (She had been wanting to visit Maldives for a long time). For hubby and I, it would be a similar experience as Bora Bora and there is bound to be comparison in our head.

While I was making the plan for Singapore & Bali, I had contacted makemytrip.com. I later informed them about changing the destination to Maldives. There was so much confusion in our head between Four Seasons, Kuda Huraa and Mirihi Island. Since we were taking my MIL to an exotic location, we thought we'll take her to Four Seasons. The makemytrip agent was giving me very good deal. Upon confirmation, she would say it is not available. I would have hardly taken couple of hours to confirm. I was fuming mad as to how it could not be available. She answered saying this was the quotation and upon confirmation from my side, she would check for availability. That seemed absolutely absurd. I did post a complaint at their website. The makemytrip team did apologise but I guess it didn't really matter then.

I had three flight options. A direct flight from Chennai to Male provided by Maldivian airline. The flight timing was inconvenient, so we had to let go of this option. The other one was Sri lankan airline and Spice Jet. I remember Sri lankan airline to be much more expensive than Spice Jet. So we went ahead with Spice Jet (Later when I did check, Sri Lankan airline was cheaper). Anyways I had booked and I didn't want to worry about the difference.

I contacted Four Seasons, Kuda Huraa for reservation. I informed that we would be 3 adults and an infant travelling and I would require the Sunrise Water Bungalow. The price quoted by the team was pretty expensive and I made the reservation for 3 night. It was just a Bed & Breakfast deal and I didn't get any deal that I got at Bora Bora. I was going to be charged close to $5300 for just 3 nights!!! The tax is a killer here, where in you are paying 18.8%+GST. I personally feel, Maldives is much more expensive than Bora Bora. But when you are in a holiday mood, I don't mind splurging once in a while.

All booking made and we were waiting for April 15th to come. During the course of time, my MIL got to know about we travelling to Maldives and the whole surprise got spoilt. A week before we were leaving, I pinged my friend, who is a travel consultant and owns a company called Fernweh. I had completely forgotten about her while making the booking. I casually asked her what is the best rate that can be offered to me and she gave me a quotation of 300$ lesser than that was offered by Four Seasons and an extra night. Now that was a bonanza and I immediately accepted the deal.

Now the painful process was shifting my confirmation from Four Seasons to them, but Four Seasons did do the needful and my plan was changed accordingly. In the last minute I had to change my flight detail and we were geared up for the much awaited holiday :)