Our return Sea plane trip from Milaidhoo island was schedule for 11:40 am, due to weather condition’s at the Male airport, the sea plane had to post pone their pick up time to 1:20 pm. Our International plane from Male airport to Colombo was scheduled to leave at 3:30pm . So we had a 35 to 40 minutes Sea plane ride to get to the airport and have a 15 minutes transfer by road to Male airport.
Normally international airports, you have to report at least 3 hours in advance, but here we are scheduled to leave only 1:20pm which means we have only 2 hours and 10 minutes for our plane to depart and we are still in the island, waiting for the sea plane to arrive. As usual, I am the one to be stressed on such situation. We had such a nice vacation and I don’t want to miss the flight to Colombo, which would disrupt a lot of our plans.
We talk to Milaidhoo island representatives ( our island host) and they are doing everything to assure our final experience of leaving from the island. They assure us by saying that there should not be any problem in catching our international flight.
My husband is mostly used to catching flight as the last or one person before the last one at the airport. He had some experience with this, me I have to be in 1 hour in advance waiting at the gate, so I can be stress free .
But this time my husband is also kind of getting stressed, because its taking a boat, sea plane and then travelling on the road to the airport. Why would an international flight wait for you if you are delayed and it would affect the rest of our vacation plan in Colombo.
I have built enough of stress for my reader, let me continue on my story. Finally the Sea plane arrives at our resort at 1:25pm and we board the plane with all our luggage and saying proper good-bye to the island staff. Our Island host accompanied us on our boat to the sea plane pick up point to send us off.
I have to say a few words about our island host, she made sure our 20th wedding anniversary experience was much more memorable, then what we would have planned. She took extra care of such small details in making our visit very memorable, Thank you very much Tatiana and Milaidhoo team.
I am getting distracted with continuing our experience about getting to Male airport . We finally get to the place by boat to get onto our Sea plane ride to the airport. We get into the plane with all over luggage. We are now thinking that we should reach the airport by 2pm the most and some how make it to the airport and get through security check and sit near the gate. That is the time the Sea plane steward mentions that he has one more stop at a different resort to pick up two more passenger to the airport.
We both start looking at each another’s face thinking that, here goes our plane ride to Colombo. How is it possible that we could get to this stop pick up passengers and then go to the airport. But the sea plane Steward starts assuring us not to worry and assures us that you will catch the plane. We decide to relax, because at this point there is so much only you could do and hope for the best through the Sea plane ride.
Finally the sea plane makes its stop at an island which is about 30 minutes away from hours and we start heading back to the airport with all the passengers. We finally reach the sea plane airport after about 1 hour and 20 minute sea plane ride, the time at the airport at that point was 2:40pm and our flight leaves at 3:30pm. There is another Milaidhoo island staff waiting for us at the small airport to escort us to the main international airport with a van. We hop into the van with our luggage and the island staff assure us, there should not be any problem in getting us through the airport.
It felt like seeing a racing scene in the movie, that is how the driver drove us through and we reached the airport in about 8 to 10 minutes. We reached the airport entrance by 2:55 pm and anxiety is building up for both of us. We still have to go through check-in and baggage drop, immigration, security check and then head to the gate where our flight boarding would have already started.
These are the times, when you will realize how fast time starts moving. The time we enter the airport is 2:57pm and then we run to the airlines counter, I realize that they are all excepting us . The check in staff are extending their hands out for our passport information, we give it to them quickly and they do the needful and print us our boarding pass and check in our luggage. Then we say good-bye to the island staff and he assures us that we will not miss the flight and everyone has been notified of our delay at the airport. Then we move towards immigration staff, they are also waiting for us to handout over passport, we finish that and head to security check, where you have to get your hand luggage’s scanned. We finish that and we start running towards our gate like mad people, not wanting to miss our flight. I run through several shop at the airport wondering if we would have come earlier, I could have got some time to browse through them, and we reach the gate some how by 3:05pm. I need to catch my breath, because I was running with a back bag on my back, which is usually little difficult for me.
I see a few passenger near our gate standing and sitting, so I am asking my husband probably they have already started boarding and calling zones. That is when I hear the staff at the gate make an announcement and they are just making ” boarding announcement”. With Adrenaline rushing, we both starting laughing with Relief at the whole episode of getting to the airport and getting to the plane, we go and stand in line to board.
There are two-lines in front of me and I choose one and stand along with my husband, waiting to be asked for our boarding pass. The airline staff is allowing people to board through one line and suddenly she opens another and we are the first passengers in that line to show our boarding pass and passport and get through to the Tarmac in order to board the plane. We start boarding the plane with Relief and laughing at our star’s for making it to the airport. We were among the first few people who boarded the flight. We had a good laugh before we settled down in our seats.
This was an amazing experiences through and through in this vacation to Maldives we will not forget any of the experience we have had. Sitting on my seat Relief coursed through me . This felt like the perfect ending to 20th Wedding anniversary experience.
Have any of you had such experience and would like to share, please share in the comment box so I could get to read them and reply. Enjoy reading our adventure.
So well expressed that itz like experience first hand
I could feel the adrenaline rush even while recollecting and writing the post. Thank you for reading.
Aren’t the Maldives just beautiful? 😃🦉
It felt like we were in a very colorful vivid dream