Author Topic: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014  (Read 16953 times)

Offline rots5

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Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« on: August 29, 2014, 01:32:44 PM »
....And here we go....
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Offline Marco Polo

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #1 on: August 29, 2014, 01:33:43 PM »
Fakeout.
Quaerite et Invenietis.

Offline rots5

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #2 on: August 29, 2014, 01:47:05 PM »


Image shack is useless... any other better ideas to upload pics?
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Offline Dan

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #3 on: August 29, 2014, 01:58:26 PM »
I just compress them in Microsoft pic manager and upload them direct.
Save your time, I don't answer PM. Post it in the forum and a dedicated DDF'er will get back to you as soon as possible.

Offline rots5

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #4 on: August 29, 2014, 02:02:42 PM »
I just compress them in Microsoft pic manager and upload them direct.
will try that next week. now just contemplating posting one big tr or smaller ones... :)

PSA: i took that pic :D 
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Offline Achas Veachas

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #5 on: August 29, 2014, 02:03:06 PM »
Tinypic.com

Offline TimT

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #6 on: August 29, 2014, 02:12:25 PM »
will try that next week. now just contemplating posting one big tr or smaller ones... :)

PSA: i took that pic :D
If it's mostly pics do one big TR, if there's gonna be lots to read break it up.

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #7 on: August 29, 2014, 03:36:27 PM »


Image shack is useless... any other better ideas to upload pics?
Is that heaven?

Offline TimT

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #8 on: August 29, 2014, 03:41:10 PM »
Is that heaven?
Must be because I'll probably never make it there. :(

Offline sky121

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #9 on: August 29, 2014, 03:46:22 PM »
Must be because I'll probably never make it there. :(

ALOL.
"Not all who wander are lost"

Offline Novo

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Offline MC

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #11 on: August 29, 2014, 03:49:22 PM »

Where is that?
The thread title wasn't enough of a hint? :P

Offline Yehoshua

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #12 on: August 29, 2014, 03:51:02 PM »


Image shack is useless... any other better ideas to upload pics?
If you have you pics on shutterfly or snapfish you can link to them there.

Offline rots5

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #13 on: August 29, 2014, 04:24:36 PM »
I have some. I'll do it sat night. I have a five page tr written up. Not sure why its so long.
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Offline Yellow

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #14 on: August 29, 2014, 04:27:12 PM »
that pic without a real TR/details is such a tease!

Offline Yehoshua

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #15 on: August 29, 2014, 05:57:35 PM »
I have some. I'll do it sat night. I have a five page tr written up. Not sure why its so long.
If it helps my recent TR was 9.5 pages.

Offline efflpetzel

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #16 on: August 31, 2014, 02:20:45 AM »
Nuuuuuuuuuu

Offline rots5

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #17 on: August 31, 2014, 10:41:19 AM »
Mr. & Mrs. Rots5 TR 2014

So after last years trip to Thailand I knew I had to top it off for this yr  Thanks to all the help from the ddfers I learned a lot more and I knew what I was doing, so this time around  there were less questions asked.
So around the end of December if im not mistaken I heard there would be a UA deval in which biz would go up considerably. So I got on it. I was not sure where I really was interested in going but I made a small list of the options. After my wife met mrs. AJK one Shabbos it was decided that the Maldives was a decent spot for a couple days :D.


At the time I was living in Israel and I didn’t know where I would be living so it got a little complicating trying to find flights. In the end we decided that we would be in NYC for the summer either way. (maybe it was mrs rots5 way of getting us back to the US…. Jk ) So I found decent tickets on UA to MLE all in J:

NYC-LHR stop for 8 hrs on United

LHR-IST 2 hr stop on Turkish

IST –MLE  on Turkish

MLE-Island on Maldivian

Now the question was about the way back, which way should I go and if I should use UA or not. I ended up seeing a deal from Cathay as long as it originated in the far east somewhere. I checked it MLE-HKG-NYC and it came out to be around 1k a ticket in J. I tried with a 3 day stop over and it came out to 1100 or so after taxes and fees. The nice thing with Cathay is that they have a great cancellation fee if need be and I would get credited the full mileage. So I booked it and our  flights were complete.

NYC-LHR-ITS-MLE leave Monday night, spend the full day in London, arrive in MLE on weds am
 
MLE-HKG-NYC  leave Sunday night from mle spend 2 nights in hong kong and arrive weds night NYC


Prep for the trip:

I had to now book a hotel for MLE and HKG. Being that chuchum has a very good hand on travel and his advice has paid off in the past I decided to splurge and look for an OWB + Pool for MLE. I found some hotels that fit the bill but they were closer to the airpot but even the expensive ones the bad reviews were all “to many plans, boats always around… and so on” so I was looking for a seaplane hotel as well.re: pool -  I must say it all depends on the person/couple. I happen to not be a huge pool person if there is reef/water right outside my living room so I feel that MLE might be overdone with a private pool, but I def am happy I did it anyways. I was not so thrilled about going to PH (besides the no pool – just wasn’t feeling it). I looked into a few other options. When I was looking on the internet I found that the Viceroy Maldives was having a sale; stay 3 nights get the 4th free. I went onto hotels.com and TA and I did my research on this. After much extensive looking we decided this was a perfect hotel.  Thanks to a special friend who is a huge tzadik in his own quiet way I got a pretty good deal on the hotel. So we were set with flights and hotel in MLE.

I passed the diamond challenge (did the #icebucketchallenge too) with PH and I booked 1 free night and one C+P in PH STS in Kowloon, China. The reason I did that was the first night I did C+P and used a suite upgrade with the intent that they would just keep me there for the second night.

So now I was set.
I went to Costco and asked them for an underwater camera – shout out to SF for the help. They showed me the one they had, as she is showing it to me she slipped it in there, oh and you can even return it when ur finished….  it was a fuji crap…. More about that later.
I now needed to buy food. It was mainly for the MLE part of the trip being that in HKG theres a few places to go out to eat. I went to some local take outs in monsey and bk and pick up some food and I asked them to double wrap it, which was fine. Personally I should have done what Daganster did and was bring a BBQ and raw meat.. next time.


I bought chala the week before and froze it imm. I also brought small milk containers which I froze too for cereal and coffee. I also got the same size mini grape juice bottle for Shabbos. In my local supermarkets besides the take out they sell these boxed meals where you add water to a heat packet and it cooks it. They were def decent enough to get by along with deli sandwiches meat salad and the takeout. MLE is pretty makpid on bringing in alcohol so just a heads up to anyone, though I did bring n a mini livet for shabb day Kiddush. 

I emailed the manager to set up a seaplane flight which was 550 pp.

As time got closer the war began and of course contemplated pushing it off for many reasons, one being the obvious – safety. I asked a few people who I trust there advice, and I spoke to my rabbi. Then a week before I was supposed to go the story with those Israelis happened. I emailed the hotel and explained to them that I was supposed to be coming and should I be concerned. I emailed them as a religion respecting person and im not looking for any trouble or make a rukus. The manager sent me back the story saying this is what recently happened but on the island there is nothing to worry about as long as you live as American and are on a trip not a protest. As time got closer I spoke to cathay if I wanted to cancel (that’s how I know the rules now) and was litt on the verge on canceling. The day I was going to cancel they set a 3 day seize fire, so i left the trip be. At first I was not going to tell my wife about the story, but of course I cant keep a secret like  - lol-  that and she was actually not nervous about that at all. Lol. She was nervous maybe the food would spoil…


I was also a bit nervous about finding my way around and calls so I decided to call a sim rental company and spend the extra money for the peace of mind. Advice: don’t use sim rental companies. Don’t be lazy and just buy one when u get to these places. Of course they sent me the wrong APN and only got my phone to work on my way out of LHR which was very disappointing. I then was in HKG and just bought a sim in the airport at HKG for 8$ with 5gb of data at 4G. I paid more than that per day . Useless… nu nu.
Day of: our flight was at 9pm out of ewr which makes monsey life pretty easy, but I had to be in BK for a job interview at 11 and was there for 2 hrs. As I was leaving I called in Chinese in monsey (mandarin) and they double wrapped my food for the flight. We got to the airport at around 7 ish and everything was smooth, checked in, and if you are flying UA they have a pre check in lounge where they do it all for you and have a private security line. Got to the lounge and I figured I would have my Chinese and take a shower, but the lines to the shower were around 2 hrs and as I entered the lounge she said to me you have any food? Well please leave it here…. So there went that. At 8:30 we boarded our flight and left…. I am still at that stage where I don’t mind flying business and I am not makpid on the hard product as long as it’s a bed and quiet.  one day…. Flight was great – food was not good at all. (though I ate some of it and konked out before I can eat the Chinese I still had). Issue is that its only a 7 hr flight between the food and movie, I slept maybe 4 hrs…
As I stated I didn’t do much research about London and we were going to be there for short, but thanks to CHAIM’L I had a mini trip planned. I found online before the trip there is an express train called Heathrow Express takes you to Paddington. Before paying for it look online for a promo code, I got 30$ off on the spot (ht: chsim’l). With CHAIM’ls help I was told that I can get off at Paddington buy a full day tube pass and use to get to the big ben. Took a picture of it and the London eye, and hopped on another train to the Palace. Was great, took another few pictures and left back to the airport. Everything worked out so smoothly. On this stop over I took my carry on the whole time, I wasn’t looking for the hassle to find a place to drop it off. It wasn’t so hard to walk around with it all day. 
Got to the airport (LHR) and went to the Turkish lounge and waited there. It’s a decent lounge, I took a shower (was not great) and then boarded the next flight to IST. It was a short flight, we arrived at IST at 11pm and our flight to MLE was at 1 so we waited in the IST Turkish lounge. Don’t look at batchys pics, they don’t do justice to that lounge :D … we were so tired so we just spaced out. I of course had to wlk around and fully see it all. In the lounge I kept looking for my flight to MLE but the time wasn’t on the board yet, which I was very hesitant bec I didn’t know where the gate was and how far we were from it. Around an hr before the flight I went to the front desk and asked what gate is my flight, they told us to run bec its far… we ran and we were the last ones to make it to the bus that took us to the plane… nerve wracking.


We boarded the flight and I asked the ‘chef’ to warm up my Chinese and she said no bec it would melt in the oven… so I had my Chinese cold, which was still amazing. By this time we had been up for almost 2 straight days. So I didn’t need much help from JACK but it helped ;) and I was out in seconds. We arrived in MLE at 10 am and my luggage was the first to come out. We went thru customs (being that we flew business they give all J flyers a fast pass card to skip all lines) was one two three. We came out of the airport and we met the VICEROY hotel agent. He showed us to the TMA (trans Maldivian air) desk which they checked me into the next flight and charged me another 90$ for overweight bags. (max at 20kilo pp). they then brought us to the viceroy lounge in another building around the corner from the airport. The lounge was cool and nice, stocked with some kosher food (granola bars, pringles, and cookies). We waited around an hr and the next set of ppl came and we were ready to go. We boarded the seaplane and flew off to the Island.
The flight took an hr but it was gorgeous, seeing those islands on the way and all. Was amazing! We arrived to waves from the staff which was different than when I come to my in laws  they gave us some fruit drinks and showed us to our room. Our room was an OWB and was gorgeous and big. It had a sitting and lounging area as well as a big deck with a pool outside. On the side of the pool there were steps farther down to another deck that was litt on the water. With steps that led into the water.  The villa was private and had huge 20ft ceilings. There were signs of wear and tear but that’s only if you looked for them, don’t forget it was on the water its hard to upkeep a house in middle of the water. The way the villas are arranged is that the and part of the island ends and then theres a walkway that’s over the shallow water and all the villas are over shallow water. When you look out from your room you see green crystal clear water. Its breathtaking. Anyways, my hotel package included breakfast and dinner but no drinks. The head chef knew I was ‘kosher’ and he came over to me a few times asking if there was anything to do. The hotel gives free snorkel gear, which we took adtv of. The house reef is great and the snorkeling was amazing! you can go snorkeling right outside your room if you want, which is what we did once we realized that we can. The beaches are white soft sand and the whole island is empty. You can walk the whole island in 20 minutes. They have activates planned if ppl are interested, and there fitness room is open 24/7.


On Friday morning I went scuba diving. It was more expensive than other places ive gone but on the advice of AJK I must do it, which I would do again anytime. I love the whole fish scene the instructor saw I knew what I was doing so he just let me go on my own for the most part while he tagged behind. It was an hr and I prob could have stayed even longer. As AJK initially said ‘get your license’ and I stand behind that. My camera: I started using it when I went snorkeling and the pics were just barely decent and that’s stretching it. SF suggested a diff camera but they didn’t have it (no blame to him). I took it snorkeling and before I got to even 5 meters the camera stopped working and then it just died. I saw water get into the lens and so on. After I finished snorkeling I opened the battery pack and my SD card was corroded and ruined – If anyone knows how to get the pics off that card I would greatly appreciate it till then I lost 20gb worth of previous pics). For the rest of the day we just snorkeled and chilled.  We watched the sun set which is amazing to see, being that it sets pretty quickly there, and we had our Friday night meal. I told the head chef that I would like to eat fri night there, so he set up a private porch off the main dinning room that is on the beach on the water. I gave him all my food beforehand with strict instructions which was perfect.


On Sunday they asked us in the morning if they can move us to a beach front room for the afternoon until out flight. In that room there is a sign that says keep doors closed but you still might get the garden geckos, which are common. So there is a downside to being on a beach front room…


We boarded out seaplane flight back to mle at 4 ish and with a quich stop at another resort we were back In the airport at 6pm. My flight to HKG wasn’t till 1030. I wasn’t so thrilled about taking a local tour of Male, and we couldn’t check in till 830. They have a priority pass lounge before check in at the domestic side, so we stayed there until 8 ish. When we went to the cathay line and they brought us into the pre-check in lounge where there was someone who checked us in while we sat in the lounge. The cathay lounge after check in was nice and comfortable. We boarded our flight at 10 and we were off to HKG. The food on the flight was amazing! Hermolis was the catered food, we had lamb chops which were very good. Horrible movie selection, but we lived 


In the end  We decided to cut the HKG part very short and we made that to be only an 8 hr stop. With the help of MEIR613 and AJK we had another mini trip planned. The plan was to hop on an express train to Kowloon and take a ferry to vic peak and then back to the tram and to the flight. So as Mrs AJK can attest us men need working phones… mine didn’t work it took us a couple extra min to get a new sim and get it to finally work. But in the meantime my wife wanted to go to the ladies market and she wasn’t in the mood of doing a full run around and I was fine with that. It wasn’t the main part of the trip and we decided we have a place that we can go revisit now .


In addition this time we decided it was time to not take our carry ons around being that everyone advised us there is a lot of walking. In terminal 2 in HKG there is a baggage off and is very easy to find. Not far at allfrom the cathay security check and it was easy to pick up. That worked out great. Just remember that in HKG they do not give any priority to ppl flying business so you will have to wait at customs at the same line and security too.


 SO we took the express train to Kowloon got off walked around and walked to the ferry and figured wed go over to HKI but the ferry wasn’t able to take us at 10 am for some reason unless I bought one of those 3 day hop on hop off passes, so we just walked down the ave of the stars which was cute and then we got to Chabad for lunch. Lunch there was a fortune but I love Chinese and it def made the list of the top three Chinese ive ever had . From there we hopped on a train to Mon kok station where the ladies market is. My wife found tons of stuff that she liked and souvenirs for the siblings. My flight back to JFK was at 430pm at 2pm we made up that we should head back to Kowloon station and then to airport. We tried finding a cab and of course they were either full or didn’t want to take us… I started to get a bit nervous being that we still had to pick up our carry on and then go thru security. We ran around 3 blocks to a block which was not bumper to bumper found a taxi and threw him a 5$ bill and said drive to Kowloon quickly and ill pay the meter as well. Lol we were there in 3 minutes… had no idea the oriental knew how to drive cars I though they just do manicures and clean clothes…. Just kidding. We got to the airport and we got to the first class lounge 50 min before our flight. It was crazy hot that day so we were able to get in a quick shower which was super clean and amazing….then we boarded.
We both slept most of the 15 hr flight being that we were just flat out exhausted. Food was great again. Arrived in NYC at 9pm and was home by 1100, and life starts again…

Of course my wife and I pointed out certain details and said ‘don’t forget to add into the trip report’ of course I don’t remember them all. :)

Thank you to everyone who helped with this fantastic trip, including all those who gave me the time of day to answer my PM’s and whats apps, and thank for reading. I will try to post more pics over the next couple days.



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Offline MC

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #18 on: August 31, 2014, 12:52:20 PM »
Woah sounds amazing! Can't wait for the pictures :)

Offline Yehoshua

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Re: Mr & Mrs. Rots5 MLE TR with a stop in LHR and HKG 2014
« Reply #19 on: August 31, 2014, 01:30:31 PM »
Great trip! Now my wife wants to go in January. We'll see about that... Can't wait for the pics.