At about 4:30am I got a taxi from my hotel to Bodrum Airport. The ride was about 40 minutes (imagine it during rush hour!) My flight to Istanbul took off at about 7:45am. I arrived in Istanbul in about an hour (8:40am). I checked the availability of flights to Qatar. My flight was leaving at 5:30 pm but there was another flight leaving at 2:00pm. I tried to get on the earlier flight since there was availability but they wanted to charge me a price differential of about $750 (mind you I already had a business class ticket) which I would not pay. But perhaps the worst part is that Qatar Airways will not check you in until 3 hours before the flight (in my case, 2:30pm) which means no access to the business class lounge (which is airside and where I wouldn’t mind killing a couple of hours) and so I had to wait in the general departures hall before security. It was a long wait. Finally, they opened the gate, I checked in and went to the lounge. The flight took off at about 5:45pm and we landed in Doha, Qatar at about 10pm. The best part was yet to come, however!
Since Qatar Airways classifies its business class flights within the Middle East as “first class” (mostly for the benefit of the locals, who frequently take these flights between the Gulf countries), I was given access to the new exclusive Al Safwa First Class Lounge at Doha Airport Qatar. This is probably the holy grail of airport lounges. Its design is modern and its scale and size will leave you speechless. It actually looks like a terminal! I wouldn’t mind spending a few days in this lounge! It has a sushi bar and a deli. It has an elegant ala carte restaurant with a bar serving any beer, wine, cocktail or champagne imaginable. It has a game and play room for kids and a room for their nannies. It has a spa and doctor’s office. And who needs an airport hotel when you can sleep in a 2 bed quiet room, complete with a shower.
All in all it was a great experience! And even though I only spent about 2 hours in the lounge, I knew in 2 weeks I would be able to visit it again on my flight from Dubai back to Qatar. And I was also looking forward to my flight from Qatar to Dubai in a very special aircraft!