Review of Cathay Pacific flight from Malé to Hong Kong in Business

Hello everyone,
This is the 5th leg of my RTW report.
1st leg can be found here: http://flight-report.com/en/report-6256.html
2nd leg can be found here: http://flight-report.com/en/report-6298.html
3rd leg can be found here: http://flight-report.com/en/report-6322.html
4th leg can be found here: http://flight-report.com/en/report-6324.html
3 days in the Maldives was not enough but fun nonetheless. We were sad to leave such a wonderful place but we will definitely be coming back again. Since our flight was leaving at 23:35, we secured a late checkout from our room till 6:30pm. The boat would leave the dock to the airport at 8pm. The good thing about checkout is that you don’t have to take your bags with you from the room. It will be picked up by staff and then you verify your belongings at the dock before boarding the boat.
The first 4 pictures are from the resort as you can tell. It truly was a wonderful place to stay at. Staff was friendly and helpful. Even though there were many guests at the resort (lots of families), you never noticed them on the grounds other than when you were having meals at the restaurants.

The HI sign that greets you on the dock. We identified our bags which were packed in the boat and we got in. There were other guests leaving with us.

Our boat taking us to the airport.

View from the dock showing the main reception and restaurant area.

It truly is amazing to see the moonlight reflecting on the water. We experienced this every night at the resort and it’s good to just sit on the beach and admire the view.

Docked safely at the airport jetty, collected our bags and went inside. Our bags were scanned at the entrance and we proceeded to the check-in desk. Cathay was at the far end and this greeted us at the Business class line.

A pic of the economy line for check-in.

Check-in was done after a 20 minute wait in line even though there were 2 desks for J class. Grr.
Took some pictures of the departures screen along with other airline check in desks.

Went upstairs and proceeded through immigration and security. Once through, we landed up in the duty free area.

Took a quick walk through the duty free and there was nothing of interest to us. So, we headed to the safety of the lounge.

It was crowded when we got in but after 20 minutes, people left and we grabbed these 2 seats near the window.

Emirates being prepped for departure.

Since we didn’t have any dinner, we got some grub at the lounge. Was surprised to see a few good hot items.

By the time I came back to my seat, Emirates was being pushed back.

45 minutes before departure, a lounge agent came around and politely announced for Cathay Pacific guests to head to gate. Got to the gate where our boarding passes were scanned and we headed down the waiting bus.
Turkish A330 that landed approximately 30 minutes before.

Here’s our lovely bird taking us to HKG.

Holy reflection, batman.

I love boarding a plane via stairs. Brings back memories of the old days.

The FA greeted us at the door and when we found our seats, I started snapping away. There were a few J class passengers at this point, so it gave me opportunity to take pics without being interrupted.

Seat pic.

Fresh watermelon juice for the both of us which was sweet. What, no champagne? Guess they don’t serve it on the ground.

Monitors.

Seats controls and other fancy buttons.

Window seat next to me which was empty for the flight.

Flight map.

Headset.

Menu.

Since this was a late night flight and I gorged at the lounge, I passed on dinner. My wife did go for the light meal. When I woke up in the morning and asked her what she thought of the meal, her response was “Eww”. Enough said. :)

His Amenity Kit.

Her Amenity Kit.

We took off on time and once the seat belt sign went off, I put the seat into bed mode and gave the Mrs a good night kiss. Woke up 30 minutes before landing and quickly managed to snap this pic during our descent.

As we flew beneath the clouds, it became really foggy. So much that I didn’t see the water leading to the runway until we were at least 100-150 feet above. No hiccups on landing though.

United birds as we were taxi-ing to the gate.

Cathay A340.

Pic of how foggy it was.

Dragonair A320’s.

Hong Kong Airlines A330. I took this flight from HKG to PEK in May 2013. The hard product was fantastic and the FA service was very good.

More Cathay birds.

Cebu Pacific. I miss the Philippines. :)

We disembarked and made our way to immigration. At 9am, the visitors line was empty unlike our May 2013 visit where the lineup was long. Anyways, we were processed and picked up our bags. Since we had some time to kill before we were to check in to our hotel, we spent some time at The Arrival lounge. It’s a small lounge with basic features and amenities (shower, washrooms etc). After having some breakfast, we freshened up and left after an hour.

Next stop – Kowloon!

Pic on the Airport Express.