holidays of contrasts: Hilton+Madoogali
Emirates flew again, and their connection was inconvenient, so we decided to wrap up in Dubai for a couple of days. There was an idea to look at the city from above - during a helicopter tour. But half an hour of walking at the price of a week in Egypt, the ardor was somehow cooled : )) In general, Dubai, of course, is not a resort at all - the air is under 50, and the water is under 40 degrees - a dubious pleasure . .
Looking out at the balcony in the late evening, we realized: a couple more hours, and it will be cool enough to want to swim : )
As a city for shopping, it is also not suitable for the average tourist - Dubai's cheapness is a myth. The quality is certainly better than for the same money in Moscow, but even at a cost of several hundred dollars, if the item is not a designer item, it will be sewn in China or Sri Lanka. By the way, the prices in the airport duty-free and in the city are exactly the same.
But each shopping center is a collection of miracles: in addition to snow slides and skating rinks, there is also a huge aquarium with acrylic glass and an underwater zoo. To our question at the information desk "Is there a sports bar here? ", the Arab answered pointing up: there is no sports bar, we have a stadium : ))
Hotel. The Hilton in Dubai is quite old - not exactly shabby, but the decoration is clearly out of date. In the standards of good repair 10 years ago. We were offered a more modern room on the upper floors with an additional charge of $150 per night. Among the surrounding skyscrapers, the 10-story hotel building looks like a bus stop)) But in the evening you can view these giants from the bottom up from the bar on the roof of the hotel.
At the reception, two Russian-speaking employees were met, in addition, a Russian lady-realtor is on duty in the lobby, offering "cheap Dubai real estate. " But it is better to avoid all these contacts - the hotel staff does not have information regarding city entertainment, but confidently gives advice. Through their fault, our plans to visit various places were ruined. It is better to plan your time based on information from guides and advertising booklets - there is a special excursion desk in the lobby with booklets in all languages.
Of course, there are plenty of unusual spectacles and entertainment in Dubai - for example, for motorists there is an opportunity to drive analogues of legendary racing cars - the main thing is to have a license with you.
But the sea must of course go to the Maldives! Once again we were convinced that such a sea cannot be spoiled by any service : )
Madugali Maldivian without batting an eye, sells in Russia as 4 *. The Italians have always sold as 3, but in reality it is 2 * maximum. We encountered many things there for the first time - for example, the inability to buy any food during the hours when there is no "collective food". The sandwich will only be made within 2 hours in the morning when breakfast is served, 2 hours in the afternoon during lunch, and 2 hours in the evening. At other times, only drinks or independently "extracted" coconuts : )
There is no room service, which means that you cannot order anything from the restaurant with delivery. In addition, the rooms do not have such standard things (usually available in threes and fours):
hair dryers
tea and coffee accessories
bath or outdoor shower.
There is no pool on the island and the only TV in the bar only shows 1 channel. The administration assured us that they could broadcast any channel from the plate to the bar (we wanted to watch the Formula 1 races), but unfortunately we were informed about this too late. There is also no evening entertainment. Occasionally, Italian animation starts a movie in Italian, and once a week, local amateur performances beat drums . . In these Spartan conditions, Wi-Fi working in the room turned out to be very handy! this is completely atypical for the Maldives, because they provide the Internet either very bad or very expensive. And here - in the room, free of charge and uninterruptedly : ) True, in other bungalows the signal was worse, our room was 14.
The road to the island is also not happy. Gone are the days when seaplanes flew with three tourists - now they are stuffed to the eyeballs, like minibuses, and therefore waiting for a flight can take up to 3.5 hours! (so our neighbors suffered). In addition, there can easily be 3-4 "stops" along the way, and the flight will last 2 hours, instead of the promised 20 minutes. .
Now about the good. About half of the island's 56 rooms were empty, so privacy is really all right there. In addition, the island has its own satellite island, which is uninhabited due to its small size. Trips to this uninhabited island are the best part of the memories. In the morning they take you there, equipping you with a table, chairs and a refrigerator with water and lemonades, at 14 o'clock the boat sails again, 2 waiters cover lunch, after which everything is cleaned and sail away again. And they pick you up from there at 5-6 pm (as agreed). And the whole day you can swim on the reef, collect wonderful corals and shells and swim naked! ! So we spent 2 days, including the last one, and it's better than dinner by the ocean - their cooking is still poor . .
The only thing they did was excellent everyday pizza: a minimum of ingredients, but the dough is excellent.
Also, the reef around the island did not deceive - a riot of corals is rare. Highlight a huge snow-white stingray, several absolutely fearless turtles, large multi-colored jellyfish (never seen in the Maldives before), resting in the holes of nurse sharks, and some really very large ones - in the evening they sail to feed at the pier. Some species of fish, which we considered loners, live there in huge flocks.
I was also pleased with the local water entertainment center and the Dive Center also works very well. They take tea and coffee with them on outings, they treat beginners very carefully.
But for some reason everything turns out to be monstrously expensive, although it is difficult to surprise us with Maldivian prices.
Copies of checks are not given to you anywhere, often a check is brought for signature without an amount or new amounts are added to an already signed check. Keeping track of spending in such a situation is difficult. As a result, it turned out that with such a cost of rest, it was easy to take a hotel much more expensive.
