I woke up with such mixed emotions today. On one hand, I was so excited to be back in Abu Dhabi, and on the other, I also knew it was the last day of the trip. When we booked our two nights in Abu Dhabi we knew it was more of a stopover than an actual destination. Luckily having visited here two years ago there wasn’t anything we necessarily missed seeing then so today was all about just enjoying being back here.

The flight to the Maldives was nearly 20-hours worth of flying, not to mention we had an 8-hour layover in Abu Dhabi. So although this is a post about September 18th it does contain a few hours of September 17th when we arrived in Abu Dhabi.

It’s been 795 days since Jenn and I last left the country on a vacation together. When we arrived back from Singapore in the summer of 2019 there was no way that we could have ever imagined such a long gap; thanks COVID. But after a lot of trial and tribulation two weeks ago we booked a 10-day trip from New York to the Maldives.

When I woke up this morning I was in disbelief that today was already our last day in Abu Dhabi. It felt like just yesterday we were driving past the Grand Mosque on our way to the St. Regis. And yet like clockwork the alarm went off at 9 AM and we were down at breakfast for one last run. Jenn had an omelette, Jake had an egg white omelette and I stuck with a light buffet breakfast. We took our time before heading back up to our room and packing up our suitcases.

Yesterday we went to three incredible destinations in Abu Dhabi which made for quite the day. I still can’t get over how beautiful and memorable each of the destinations were. To follow all of that up we decided that we wanted a more relaxing final day in Abu Dhabi. We woke up at around 9 AM and Jake and I went for a quick work out downstairs. We came back up and got ready and the three of us went down for a lovely quick breakfast. I’m still blown away with how great of a breakfast spread The St. Regis puts on.

I cannot tell you how nice it was to start today with some relaxation. We all slept in without trying after staying up relatively late the night before and didn’t let the bright Arabian sun wake us up. When we finally rolled out of bed Jake and I went down to the third floor to get a workout in while Jenn slept. Even after we arrived back in our room after an almost hour long workout Jenn decided not to join us for breakfast downstairs. She really missed out because like every St Regis we’ve visited they sure do know how to put on a breakfast spread. They had a little bit of everything along with a menu to order different egg items from. Jake got some eggs benedict and I just stuck with a light breakfast from the buffet. We had a nice little brother date in the beautiful breakfast room before heading back up to the room.