Originally Posted by
IAN-UK
Jeddah's heating up. While you can still find delightfully temperate evenings, generally it's already uncomfortable at night. Probably not a good opportunity to explore, especially with jetlag and carry on bags to deal with.
In any case your body will probably thank you for finding a hotel room. The in-terminal Aerotel (myaerotel.com) is super-convenient, and if you book six hours it's going to be around EUR100. Close to the airport, the Clarion is probably cheaper: it comes recommended by friends because of a free shuttle service to/from the airport: maybe they were lucky, I'd certainly budget for having to take an Uber in at least one direction.
You could always tough it out in the lounge. If you get there in time you can join the anti-socials and spread yourself out across seats/sofas and try for some shut-eye
Saudia is now restricting lounge access. Apparently its a new policy. Absolutely Bullcaca. can only enter for 3 hours, 4 hours before flight. You will have to find a spot in the gen pop to wait out your time or use the paid lounge if they finished renovations.... just found that out in February... Had to have a long Karen moment to convince the lounge manager to let me in. I REITERATED THAT THIS IS THE ITINERARY THEY SELL.... THERE IS NO SHORTER CONNECTION AVAILABLE... SO THAT'S ON THEM TO OFFER MORE CONNECTIONS, OR ALLOW ACCESS. But good luck.. I have a career in argumentation... and it was a close to fisty cuffs, before I finally convinced staff to let me and all others on the same itinerary in. Yes I fight for all, not just myself.. it might have helped my argument that I had a crowd behind me (literally and figuratively) to represent and add more weightto my cause...