Apparently not. According to First Choice "all-inclusive" includes "... flights, in-resort transfers, hotel accommodation, three meals a day and unlimited drinks as standard."
But, from reviews, this is open to a potentially expensive misinterpretation. "...unlimited drinks", like the "...three meals a day", appears to be entirely dependent on where, and when, they are served. Take a bottle of water out of your mini-bar, for example, and you'll get charged $4.00. Bottle of Coca Cola $4.50... that's £2.85 at today's exchange rate.
So, let's deal with solids first. "... three meals a day" means three meals a day in the Main Restaurant that seats an intimate 430. That's it. You get given a table at your first meal and that's where you stay for, in our case, two weeks... For 42 meals that table will be our gastronomic home... If we want to go to eat at The Grill Bar on the beach, which sounds nice, or the Fine Dining Restaurant, which doesn't, we will pay full menu prices. The "Themed Nights" , which I believe are held in the Grill Bar, and the "Beach Party" are not included in the "all-inclusive" price. The "Beach Party" is, apparently $10 a head, and well worth it. So... so much for solids.
Now, down to the important stuff. The liquids. Thomson quote "...selection of local spirits (I didn't realise that there were any "local" spirits in the Maldives. Moonshine Malibu perhaps?), draft beer (that works for me...as long as the glasses aren't those silly 33 cl European things) and wine by the glass (okay... now let's assume they're tight and serve their wine in 125mm glasses; that's 6 to a bottle). Can one only have a glass of wine? Heaven forbid! Sims is not a "glass of wine" kind of woman. Her wine consumption is not measured by the unit, the pipette, the test tube, the glass or the goblet. Sims measures her intake by the bottle - the standard unit of wine measure in our house. What horrors are we to encounter in fulfilling our usual consumption? Will the assembled frown upon us? Will the Muslim waiters condemn us, under their breath, to a life of purgatory? Only time will tell...
In one review the contributor states that the all-inclusive cocktails are poor. In another someone states that cocktails are not included in the "all-inclusive" price. Who knows? Paper umbrellas, cocktail sticks and maraschino cherries surely have to be imported? And, to be frank, who cares? After enough tequila Sims and I would be on the beach; locked in a life or death struggle with each other; imagining that we are stranded luminous sea creatures of the deep. Tequila is to Alcohol as Heroin is to Paracetamol.
In one review, in August 2011, the reviewer suggests that the service is deliberately slow to limit one's alcohol intake and that one has to wear "stupid armbands"... Huh? Really? Armbands? I have this mental picture of having to wear an inflatable water wing with luminous lettering spelling out "All-inclusive; Serve slowly" in Dhivehi. Perhaps he meant wrist bands?
Taking six beers and a bottle of plonk back to your room appears to be a big no-no. However, everyone agrees that at midnight, like Cinderella, one's "all-inclusive" status reverts to being a pumpkin and you pay for your drinks. Whether or not you can then take your expensive after-hours drinks back to your room remains a challenge to be grasped with both hands, wallet and cargo trouser pockets.
It is impossible to tell what these two weeks are going to be like, or how much the "all-inclusive" price will cost us in alcoholic exclusions but, one thing's for sure, by the time I've finished you'll know more about an "all-inclusive" trip to Meddhupparu than you ever cared to do... And, most importantly, I'll have been with Sims for a couple of weeks with the phones turned off.... :)
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