The Five Yen of Happiness! Four and Half Hours in Doha Airport

The Five Yen of Happiness! Four and Half Hours in Doha Airport

• I give in – I need a break (Introduction)
• To Heathrow and The BA Galleries North Lounge
• BA902 London Heathrow to Frankfurt Airport in Club Europe
• Bumbling around Frankfurt Airport with random #AVGeek spotting
• Meeting the A350 and the Air Canada Lounge
• Qatar Airways QR068 Frankfurt to Doha
• The joy of Hamad International Airport, and The Oryx Rotana Hotel
• Qatar Airways Flight QR812 Doha to Tokyo Haneda
• The Hotel JAL City Haneda Tokyo
• Shikansen Adventures to Hiroshima!
• Time in Hiroshima (featuring the ANA Crowne Plaza Hiroshima)
• Hirosihima – 70 years on
• A day trip to Itsukushima
• More Shinkansen fun to Kyoto (Featuring Kyoto Tower Hotel)
• A trip up to Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine
• Dinner with The real_jetsetr!
• The JR Central SC Maglev and Rail Museum
• Shinkansen to Tokyo
• The Strings by InterContinental
• Cheap evening – From the Tokyo Metropolitan Building
• The JR East Railway Museum, Saitama
• Shibuya nights
• Akihabara Days
• Gotta Catch them All! A few Pokemon Centres.
• Off to Narita
• Nartia Airport, The JAL Lounge
• Qatar Airways Flight QR807 Tokyo Narita to Doha
• Four and Half Hours in Doha Airport
• Qatar Airways Flight QR067 Doha to Frankfurt
• More time in Frankfurt
• BA8735 Frankfurt to London City Airport (Club Europe)
• Homeward
• Memories
• And about that Five Yen Coin – The Sensoji Temple, Asakusa

With an exit from the plane, I was into the heavily air-conditioned jet-bridge, and on my way into the terminal.

Once in the terminal, there seemed to be actual separation (compared to last time), with everyone being directed upstairs to filter through to Doha Arrival and Transfers. That’s an improvement on last time where transfer passengers were filtered into the main terminal.

Eventually, I reached the translators to a transfers, security and directions to arrival area.

Remember this Advert screen. I’ll come back to that later.

Security was… I’m going to be nasty – pretty much a farce. It was aimed at getting everyone through as fast as possible as far as I could tell, with security guards looking at and on their phones as opposed to looking who was going through the security gates.

Compared to some of the stricter procedures I’ve been through, this seemed like tick boxing, rather than carrying out security.

I was soon on my way to the main terminal, where the bear lamp was still waiting.

I’m sorry Hamad International Airport. That bearlamp can’t save this airport.

Next was the fun of finding the right lounge I was meant to be in. Qatar Airways have some peculiar rules on who can access their lounges – and what lounge you can access:

• Oryx Lounge – The 3rd party lounge
• Qatar Airways Al Mourjan Lounge – The Qatar Airways First/Business Lounge for Qatar Airways first business passengers only
• Qatar Airways Business Class Lounge – for those with Emerald and Sapphire customers travelling in Economy Class cabins on Qatar Airways and other oneworld members flights.
• Qatar Airways First Class Lounge – for those with Emerald customers travelling in Economy Class cabins on Qatar Airways and other oneworld members flights.

Got that. Good. Because you’ll need to memorise it at Doha Airport… because the signage is so poor. Whilst there were directional signs, there were no Oneworld totems, so guessing which lounge I had access to was akin to rolling the dice and hoping for the best.

This is such a basic thing. Proper signage would make the world of difference.

Nope. Wrong lounge again. Lets head back down to Duty Free.

Eventually, after the 3rd try, I found the right lounge. Another 30 minutes wasted traipsing around this “world class” terminal.

Qatar Airways First Class Lounge.

The lounge entrance – taken in the “day”. 

I was directed to the First Class side of the lounge, and pitched up some comfortable looking seats. Others were making this place their home for the night too.

Lounge seating

They’re trying the nature theme.

The bearlamp in the distance.

Arty lamps. And yes, that’s my duty-free bag. I spent some time consolidating in Doha.

Anyhoo, the lounge suffers a major issue. Remember that LED screen from earlier. Well, the top of the lounge is exposed to the terminal elements… meaning the first class lounge is bathed in LED lights. Which at light is more than distracting.

Red…

Blue…

And red again. It was more than distracting.

So, whilst there’s a massive LED screen that’s rather hypnotic after a while, what else is there? Well, there’s a useful passenger experience bonus… and its the plug. You have a good  Multi-plug which can take all sorts (including the good old BS1363 compatibility), there’s also two USB sockets to charge your devices.

A shame the USB Plug output rating isn’t shown…

Catering in the lounge was restricted to cold breakfast items.

Cereals

Cheeses and meats.

Fruits.

Breads.

Not the most exciting catering selection here.

As it was Ramadan, there was no alcohol on offer – so it was a selection of soft drinks, hot drinks or Arabic coffee.

I did take the option of a shower whilst I was here – it was good to get some of the sweat of the day off my body as opposed to make anyone else suffer (although I was going through my mini can of Dove deodorant like it was going out of business this trip).

Lounge attendant waiting.

The showers themselves were well maintained and spotlessly clean – with fresh mini cleaning supplies. They were branded – but I forgot what they were…

Whilst  I was in the shower, I made sure none of my stuff went walkies… well, no one was coming in and also, I got a guardian out.

Yes, Flight Attendant Pikachu on Duty. Here for my safety (although it is depicted as a female Pikachu – you can tell by the tail. Female Pikachu’s have heart-shaped tails. Because that’s how it is).

With 6am coming, and my flight going jut after 7am, I made a beeline for the exit.

Down the escalators we go!

One last time to look at that Bearlamp. Even my Flight Attendant Pikachu has more fur than that thing.

I did a little duty-free shopping on the way – mainly as I wanted a model plane (which you can get a Doha Duty Free – I got a Qatar Airways 787 in 1:200… and it’s a decent model by Hogan Wings)

I stopped by WHSmith (there’s a name a long way from home), and got a bottle of water for the flight ahead. I saw that WHSmith were not sticking to the script selling Qatar Airways branded items…

Lets all hum Lakme’s Flower Duet shall we? Flying the flags so far from home…

With a bottle of water in hand, I headed towards the gate – at the back-end of the B gates

Yes, still Ramadan.

Arriving at the gate, there was a slight delay in being processed as there was a big family in front of me. Once they were through, I was cleared in a few seconds .

There’s an A350 somewhere there

Waiting.

There was a short delay before boarding commenced, but soon enough families, then business class and elites were invited to board.

I took my opportunity, and headed for the plane back to Europe.

Off we go!

Next: Qatar Airways Airbus A350 – Hamad International Airport, Doha to Frankfurt

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