Six hours in Doha, featuring the Qatar Airways Al Mourjan lounge (from Summer adventures to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur)
Contents
- Seriously – Take a holiday!
- Morning Manoeuvres in the dark, Terminal 5 and Galleries South
- BA776 London Heathrow to Stockholm Arlanda (Club Europe)
- Exploring Stockholm on the cheap (Travel Plus!)
- Back to Arlanda, Stockholm Arlanda Lounge
- QR168 Stockholm Arlanda to Doha (Hamad International Airport) – (Business Class)
- Six Hours in at Al Mourjan Doha’s Lounge
- QR944 Doha – Singapore Changi International (Business Class)
- Intercontinental Singapore
- Exploring Singapore by boat
- From the Top of the Marina Sands
- Back to Changi T2, SATS Lounge
- MH624 Singapore to Kuala Lumpur International Airport
- Into KL, Holiday Inn Express KLCC, Kuala Lumpur
- Adventures in KL
- KL Tower (or yes, Kevin is in yet another tall building)
- Back to KLIA
- MH611 Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Singapore Changi
- Exploring Singapore again with a tweep
- Back to Premium, dnata lounge, Singapore T3
- QR947 Singapore Changi to Doha (Business Class)
- A Dash through Doha…
- QR169 Doha – Stockholm Arlanda (Business Class)
- From Premium to Economy featuring the Aurora Lounge
- BA777 Stockholm Arlanda to London Heathrow
- To have flown, To Wait…
- I need another break…
With the plane parked at a remote stand, I headed off the plane and into the heat of Doha, and straight into a shuttle bus. The airline offers two sorts of buses – one for its business class passengers, and one for economy class passengers. Whilst not he plushest of buses, it would do for the long ride from the back-end of nowhere to the main terminal area.
QR Boeing 787
QR Birds everywhere
Qatar Airways A350.
Active A350 waiting.
Once the tour around the Hamad International was completed, it was time to re-clear security. With that privilege done and dusted, I descended into the melee that is the main terminal area.
Hey Bearlamp.
I popped into the duty-free shop… and looked for geeky goodness stuff. First up, is that the airport stocks Kinder Eggs with model A330 aircraft in them
Although honestly, I’m surprised they didn’t do a Qatar Airways special version.
In term of other geeky things, they had some vastly overpriced models (all Hogan Wings for the 1:200 models)
Ouch.
Skipping past Duty Free, I headed to my home for the next few hours – the Al Mourjan Business Lounge.
My boarding pass was scanned, and I was let up the stairs to the wonder that is Al Mourjan lounge. When I was here last time, I was banished to the “other airlines” First/Business Class lounges (as I was flying Economy).
This time – a I’m on a full business class tickets, I was directed in to the lounge.
And ran into a wall of metal. It’s art allegedly.
I turned right and headed to some seats that looked reasonable.
The pool
leather seats…
Casual Seats
It is green.
Blue seats. They’ll do…
My parking zone.
Every seat had a fixed tablet next to it, as well as USB and Mains power. And this is useful after discovering that nearly all the camera batteries you are taking with your are pretty much knackered (I’m not kidding sadly).
Charge everything!!!!
Whilst everything started charging, I headed off around the lounge to find some liquid.
Coffee Machine
I was in the mood for soft drinks. Those of you on diets, pay attention – they don’t have diet coke (or variants of it).
Hmm. No diet variants on display. That’s… disappointing.
Once I had a drink – I got on with the task of writing and getting on with preparing blog entries, and getting data onto the laptop.
I managed to get a good lump of stuff done…. and after a while decided that food would be a good idea.
I therefore headed upstairs to the dining area.
To the stairs!
I headed upstairs, and hunted for a nice seat.
Which seat to have…?
In the end I found one, and got comfy… quickly.
Duh.
Place setting
Set up for the morning.
There was a help yourself buffet, so I went to fill up.
Chicken
Fish
Soups
Couscous and salads
Breads
There’s a lot of brown there.
Food was of a reasonable quality – some of it had been out for a while, whilst some dishes were being replenished more often than others. As I was leaving, a new set of food dishes were being prepared.
Think of it as a posh canteen – for this is what it was.
After finishing with a full belly, I headed back downstairs and straight back to my previous seat – 1) it was comfortable and 2) rather quiet.
With a cup of coffee in hand, I caught up with the world.
Light was appearing, and I sneaked under the curtain to take a photo. Guess what I found…
PLANES!
I knew I was in an airport or something resembling one…
There’s lots of little sweet things dotted around the place.
As breakfast time came along, little breakfast bites were also made avalible.
Time moved on, and as 5:30 rolled around, I decided it would be best if I started making tracks to the gate.
I packed up my trash, and headed for the exit.
Reception area
Reception
Security below the lounge, and the main public lounge area.
I headed down the escalator and past the bear lamp… who didn’t look overly happy.
What’s up bear lamp? Tell Uncle Kevin. In fact. Hold that thought – I’ll catch you in 5 days for another chat.
I headed towards to the CDE gates – with my gate going from E21.
CDE!
And passing an F1 car too. Because that’s logical for Hamad International Airport.
I headed up to the transit system to take me over to the far end of CDE, and skipping the long walk.
It was so much fun, I did a Hyperlaspe of it.
With my onward gate being a double-digit number E gate, that would mean one thing – a bus gate. So once again – a semi brand new airport, and not enough gates.
Where does this remind me of exactly in the world?
I headed to the lower gates and passed another duty-free shop. This one had something more interesting the “airplane tat” section – a mug by BagTag Desgin. At 40QAR each (£8.20), it was one of the better bargains in the duty-free shop.
Heading to the gate, boarding was close enough ready to start. Business class passengers were held back, with economy class passengers being boarded first.
At least there was an A380 to see.
One thing to note was that there was a constant stream of people taking pictures of the A380. Like the Boeing 747, it has a definite presence, and an attraction that people can’t help but take notice of.
Eventually, boarding was called for business class. My boarding class was blipped and I was directed to the industrially air-conditioned shuttle bus. And very plush it was too.
With about five people aboard, the bus set off for a trip around Hamad International Airport to my next flight – QR944 to Singapore
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