DOH-SIN
Heading upstairs to the Al Mourjan lounge, I made a beeline for the showers behind the café at the end of the lounge. With just a handful of shower suites, lengthy waits are quite common; today’s was up to 25 minutes, with no option of a buzzer to take away and return. With under 2 hours until boarding for my next flight, and forgetting at the time about the other set of showers at the other end of the lounge (which I’m sure would’ve been equally busy), I headed instead to the washrooms and used the lone changing room to freshen up. Although these lack showers and the full complement of Rituals amenities that go alongside them, they do offer a private space with a toilet and washbasin which is enough for a shave and change of shirt.
This lounge is in desperate need for more shower suites; it’s really not acceptable to have such long waits. I do wonder whether the showers in the First and Business Class lounges (for status passengers not travelling in F/J) would’ve been more readily available; perhaps something to explore on the next occasion this happens.
I emerged into the café for a light breakfast of bircher muesli, accompanied by some alarmingly concentrated orange juice; it seems that the fresh OJ has been enhanced away from the lounge in a nod to QR’s involvement with IAG/BA.
I’m slightly confused by the service concept in this area; waiters don’t appear to proactively approach you when you sit down, and there is both a buffet and a menu. I guess it operates like BA’s Galleries First lounges in London where the service is mainly self-led with plenty of flagging down required if you want a menu item. I noted that since my previous visit a couple of years ago, the plants that lined the high top tables in the café had been removed, although I gather this is temporary. I’ve yet to try out the more formal restaurant and tended bar on the mezzanine of the lounge, but will hopefully be doing so at the end of this month.
Also in the vicinity of the café, adjacent to the showers, are a number of semi-private quiet rest areas. These have to be reserved at the shower reception, although I made it through unchallenged (albeit briefly) to take a picture. These look to be the best option for a long layover in the lounge, with a comfortable chair and sofa, TV and storage space. There are dedicated family rooms and play/games areas on the opposite side of the café.
Moving back into the main lounge area, I was reminded that I’m not a huge fan of this lounge. The space, ten times that of an Olympic swimming pool, is undoubtedly impressive, but it lacks natural light, any view to speak of, and feels a little clinical with such high ceilings and regimented seating.
A quiet seating room with red armchairs off to one side of the main space is probably the most attractive area of the lounge, featuring its own small buffet and drinks station, the main business centre, a small secondary games room, and a quiet relaxation area adjacent to some windows offering a partially obscured view of the apron.
I wandered up to the end of the lounge below the mezzanine restaurant to find more regimented blue seating and a waft of something obnoxious from the nearby smoking room, so made a hasty retreat back to the centre of the lounge.
One final space to comment on is the small relaxation area to the right of reception, which appeared to be underused in comparison to the other relaxation area and individual quiet rooms.
Present throughout the lounge are self-service drinks stations, and there are plenty of roving waiters if you desire something you can’t easily locate.
Initially fairly busy, the lounge emptied significantly around 07:15, leaving me a good 20 minutes or so with plenty of space before I headed out for the long transit to the gate.
My flight to SIN was leaving from the E pier, or Gate E20 to be precise. I used the train to get there, and took the lift down to apron level as E20 is a remote gate. For a brand new airport, remote gate usage is surprisingly significant. There was a clear priority lane at the gate, with a small Special Services bus waiting to ferry J passengers to the aircraft. This was a definite upgrade over the previous bus journey, with just a dozen or so comfortable armchair-like seats upholstered in plush fabrics. I believe these buses used to be used to ferry First Class passengers from the Premium Terminal at the old Doha airport to their aircraft in the days when QR operated a far more extensive F route network. Nothing beats boarding an aircraft via stairs (provided the weather is amenable of course!); to see the majesty of the A350 up close as the morning sun shone over Doha was quite an experience.
The A350 entrance at Doors 2 feels even more spacious than the 787, thanks to the wider fuselage and the split J cabin with three rows aft and six rows forward of the entrance; I’ll have several full cabin overview shots on the return sector which will illustrate this better than I can describe here. Of course, the lack of overhead bins in J in the central section (common to the 787) also helps with the airy effect.
I was welcomed and escorted to 4K on this barely two year old A350-900, A7-ALM.
I opted for another mint and lime drink with a cold towel chosen this time to suit the local weather. As this wasn’t a night flight, the thick blanket of my previous flight wasn’t offered (neither were PJs/slippers), and instead the pillow on the seat was joined by a thinner blanket that was still more than adequate for a day flight.
A blue Bric’s amenity kit featuring the same contents as that on my previous flight (facial mist, moisturiser, lip balm, earplugs, socks and an eyeshade) was on the shelf beside the seat; the bag itself is very smart and I like the fact that the contents are colour coordinated to the colour of the bag, although the Castello Monte Vibiano fragrance isn’t to my taste (or smell, I guess).
In a welcome change to the seat design compared to the 787 product, the shelf beside the seat does away with the small privacy shield which annoyingly almost blocks one of the windows on the 787; this is where the water bottle is stored on the A350 (despite there also being space in the armrest alongside the headphones).
Aside from that detail, the seat is virtually identical to that on the 787, with a storage drawer in the back of the seat in front at low level, a large side bin, two side shelves at differing heights offering plenty of space, individual reading lights at high and low level (the latter being adjustable for direction and intensity) and, that most welcome of features, personal air vents (including in the washrooms!). Connectivity options are decent, with a power socket and USB port at each seat and wifi available. The seat controls are intuitively placed without the need to reach far.
The materials and finishes around the seat are both elegant and practical, and the whole cabin exudes understated luxury due in part to the ever-changing ambient mood lighting.
These finishes extend to the washrooms, which are positioned ahead of Doors 2 rather than aft of them as on the 787. Unfortunately, the washrooms are a little on the small side and lack a window, although the quality of the vanity unit is a step up from the 787. All of the same amenities from my previous sector were present here, and once again standards of cleanliness were high.
Our captain announced a flight time of 6h55 with a cruising altitude of 41,000ft; menus and wine lists were handed out at this time and orders taken as we pushed back. Note that the wine list was the same on all sectors on this trip. A passenger ahead of me across the aisle commented to the crew that she was surprised breakfast featured as the main meal service on this flight; with a departure time of 08:30 local (13:30 in Singapore) and a 7-hour flight ahead arriving into SIN in the evening, a more conventional lunch/dinner selection would be far more suitable.
We took off from Runway 34; I put the A350’s external cameras to good use, cycling through the different views as we soared over the Persian Gulf.
Annoyingly all window shades were lowered automatically after takeoff, although after a brief pause they could be (and were partially, in my case) overridden by each passenger. I commenced proceedings with a drop of the Lanson Brut Rosé, served along with a ramekin of tepid nuts (not pictured here).
Firing up the IFE system, I settled down to watch Victoria and Abdul, not usually my first preference of movie genre but one that paid off in a well shot, charming and at times poignant story. The A350 version of the Oryx One system is more intuitive than that on the 787, and response times were better although still far from smooth. The headphones that QR use are unbranded, and although they offer decent sound quality, become quite tight after any length of time, even though they are adjustable. I would like to see QR offering Bose or similar premium headphones; this is perhaps the only area where AA beats QR!
Breakfast commenced with an individual selection of artisan breads and a strawberry and banana smoothie; the pastries were not quite to the same quality as I recall from my previous QR breakfast experience in 2016. In what was an otherwise flawless service experience, I noted the crew member who had laid my table had forgotten to place the butter and salt/pepper cellars on the table (but rather had left them on the bread plate); if that’s my only complaint, we’re doing well!
Next up was the beautifully presented seasonal fresh fruit, followed by bircher muesli (rolled oats mixed with yogurt, fruits, almonds and cinnamon) and my chosen main course of tomato omelette with grilled beef patty, served with Lyonnaise potatoes, grilled mushrooms and roasted tomato; this was superb, although the portion size was on the small side. As breakfast concluded, a hot towel was offered and I requested a cappuccino.
As Victoria and Abdul concluded, I tried out the wifi service. A paltry 10MB/15 minutes is offered to all passengers free of charge, although the speed (or lack thereof) rendered it pretty much useless. The excellent crew regularly stopped by to see if I needed anything, and drinks were free flowing. As we moved into the latter half of the flight, I watched the latest Murder on the Orient Express movie; as something of an Agatha Christie fan, this particular adaptation left me feeling slightly cold, but it was nevertheless a passable update of a previous adaptation that didn’t really need updating. I do wonder why more airlines don’t adopt HD screens in premium cabins; I tend to avoid watching major movies (such as Dunkirk) on flights for this reason, as the visual quality is generally iffy.
A little over three hours after the conclusion of breakfast, it was time for a snack; the grilled honey mustard chicken breast with mesclun leaves, bocconcini with pesto, sun dried tomato and roasted almond flakes was smaller and less interesting than I was expecting, but once I’d selected one of the three(!) oils and mixed this with the leaves, the salad was more than passable. Sadly the bread that accompanied the salad was uninteresting and a little stale.
I gave the pineapple punch a go alongside the salad, a refreshing concoction of pineapple, orange and lemon juice, soda water and a slice of lemon.
An Americano (to keep me awake) accompanied the selection of individual indulgent desserts; the menu wasn’t specific on what they were, but I believe they were some kind of pistachio layered cake and lemon éclair – whatever they were, they were delicious.
At the top of descent, a third round of hot towels was made as the sun set outside. Once on the ground, there was a short wait before we could park at our stand at Changi’s T3; dual airbridges had me thinking we would be exiting from the forward door, but it was the second airbridge that connected first and so we were bid farewell at Door 2L. After a short ride on the transit train, there was no queue at immigration and I was soon in a taxi on my way to the InterContinental.
Next: The Club InterContinental experience and four days in the Garden City.