puls

(With apologies to Corona Beer.)

My girlfriend and I were getting a little tired of the daily grind. We needed a change of scenery, and we realized that both of our respective bosses were happy to have us work remotely for a week.

Around the same time, Turkish Airlines was getting ready to start nonstop service from San Francisco to Istanbul and they were selling tickets for surprisingly little money. On the one hand, we had just been to Istanbul two years ago, and maybe we should spend our travel efforts somewhere new; on the other hand, we wouldn’t feel like we’d be missing all of the sites while working all day long.

Of course, nothing’s ever quite that simple. After we went to Istanbul last time with my family, this time my girlfriend’s family decided that they wanted to come along, so our party of two became a party of seven overnight and our work trip became a bit more of a vacation after all. We used Airbnb for lodging in Istanbul for the seven of us.

Then Qatar Airways had a ridiculous fare sale out of CAI, so the two of us added a weekend side trip to Cairo on to the end to position for the trip home, which looks like it might become the main focus of this trip report.

Table of contents:

1. Turkish Economy, San Francisco (SFO) to Istanbul Atatürk (IST)
2. More to see in Istanbul
3. Atatürk International Airport, but without lounge access
4. Turkish Economy, Istanbul Atatürk (IST) to Cairo (CAI)
5. Le Meridien Cairo Airport
6. A quick weekend in Cairo
7. Cairo International Airport (mis)adventures
8. Qatar First, Cairo (CAI) to Doha (DOH)
9. Al Mourjan Lounge at Hamad International
10. Qatar Business, Doha (DOH) to Philadelphia (PHL)
11. When in Philadelphia, eat a cheesesteak
12. US Airways First, Philadelphia (PHL) to San Francisco (SFO)

puls

Turkish 80, San Francisco (SFO) to Istanbul Atatürk (IST)
May 16th, 2015
6:05 pm–5:15 pm (+1)
Boeing 777-300ER TC-JJS “Zigana”
Seats 13E/F (middle/aisle)

We arrived at SFO to see an immense line for checking in.


Or at least an immense line for checkin in for economy passengers. There was no line for business class.


We were more than two and a half hours early, and the baggage belt wasn’t moving yet, so bags were piling up and slowing everything down. As soon as 3:30 pm rolled around, everything started moving much more smoothly.

Straight through security all the way down to G99 at the end of the concourse, where people were already queuing, even half an hour before boarding was supposed to begin.


After a solid half hour of “it will just be a few more minutes so the TSA can do a security sweep”, boarding finally began and we moved swiftly down the jet bridge and onto the plane.



This plane was about a year old, and looked nice and new inside. No comfort class, as this is the newer configuration without. Seats were only 9-across and at 31 full inches of pitch, about as nice as it gets these days. Large hi-def IFE screen with remote and a camera to watch taxi and takeoff!



USB power.



After takeoff, we settled into a movie, “Jupiter Ascending”, which was everything the reviews made it out to be: visually stunning, interesting sci-fi, and not very good at all. An hour into the flight, dinner service started.

“Amuse-bouche” of Turkish Delight.



Hot towel.



Menu.





Amenity kits, super cheap but well stocked.




Maybe three or four red wines and three or four white wines, all Turkish, were available. Cabernet Sauvignon-Syrah, Kavaklidere “Ancyra” 2014.



One-tray meal: chicken/pasta, shepherd’s salad, smoked salmon and celeriac salad, carrot cake. Really delicious, as is everything I’ve ever tasted on this airline.




Other meal subbed out cod and celeriac mash for the chicken and pasta.



Once the movie was over, I steeled myself at the prospect of ten more hours in a small airline seat and promptly fell asleep soundly for seven of them. Not long after I woke up it was time for breakfast.

Single tray with cheese omelet, tomato, potatoes, fruit, tomato, cheese, olives, etc. Maybe a little worse for the wear after 11 hours in the galley.



Time for an episode or three of the only TV show that exists on planes.



We landed in Istanbul just a couple minutes behind schedule and found our way to the extremely long passport control line. Turkey, here we come!

While I’ve had good experiences in the past on shorter flights on Turkish Airlines, I was eager to see what they’re like on long-hauls. And even though we were in economy, we had a very comfortable flight and a very positive experience. It didn’t hurt that the plane was less than a year old with the latest in in-fight entertainment.

The food continues to amaze me compared to literally every other airline, and while Turkish isn’t known for having the greatest onboard service, this crew was as nice as could be. For the price we paid, this was a really wonderful flight.

puls

More to see in Istanbul

Raise your hand if you’ve seen this skyline.




Or the Blue Mosque.




Or the Hagia Sophia.



Because if you haven’t, stop what you’re doing right now and plan a trip to Istanbul! These are some of the world’s great historic places, and you owe it to yourself to experience them.

Okay, now that you’ve done that, on to the other stuff we saw.

We were staying in the Beyoğlu district, which is as hip and lively as it is gorgeous:




Our accommodation was on a quiet side street with a distinctly old-world feel.




Did you know that Istanbul is home to the second-oldest underground transit in the world? There’s an underground funicular (unimaginatively) called the Tünel that dates to 1875.






Almost directly above the center of it is the Galata Tower, built in 1348.




There’s also a nostalgic tramway (or as they say in Turkish, “Nostaljik Tramvay”).



We dined at a number of restaurants with carefully positioned rooftop terraces providing those million-dollar views.



Istanbul still has cats everywhere. Remember, you’re on the Internet, so I have to show you cat photos.










All in all, Istanbul remains one of my favorite cities on Earth. Having been twice now, I’m not sure when I’ll have another chance to see it. But if the opportunity ever arises, I’d go back in a heartbeat. It’s a huge place, and there’s a limitless amount of stuff to see. Highly recommended if you’ve never been.

puls

Atatürk International Airport, but without lounge access

Much as we had when arriving five days prior, we took the light metro to the airport. It's a pretty long ride and not very direct from the center of the city, but the price is hard to beat at under a dollar and it never gets stuck in traffic.




Atatürk is a very nice airport; we waited no more than a minute or two here or there in line for security or checkin or passport control or security, with everything organized and staffed well.




With no lounge access this day, we let ourselves at the mercy of the terminal and its services. First up: dondurma. Yum.




We walked around a bunch, bought some Turkish Delight to bring home, and settled down at a bar/restaurant with our laptops and a couple big glasses of Efes.




Just like Istanbul itself, Atatürk Airport is a bustling, energetic place that works hard to make everybody feel welcome. What a great place for a layover or to depart from, even if you don't have access to the spectacular Turkish Airlines lounge.

puls

Turkish 694, Istanbul Atatürk (IST) to Cairo (CAI)
May 22nd, 2015
6:05 pm–7:15 pm
Airbus A321 TC-JMH “Didim”
Seats 20D/E (exit row aisle/center)

We arrived at the gate five minutes after the boarding time on our boarding passes to a gate area with everybody ready to board but no plane.






A representative from EgyptAir stopped by the gate a couple of times to collect any passengers who were supposed to be on the EgyptAir flight instead, netting a couple each time. Just to make everything extra confusing, both airlines not only have flights between Istanbul and Cairo at the same times, but they also codeshare on each other’s flights.

Turkish Airlines pushed the departure back by about ten minutes every ten minutes or so until the plane finally did arrive, and boarding commenced about an hour late. Note the seat map that bears very little resemblance to the actual seating plan of the plane.






Is there any place in the world where the boarding gate doesn’t get swarmed by all of the passengers at once?




We were on TC-JMI, the next plane in the fleet, in 2013, and we found it to be pretty sad on the inside. This one had at least in the intervening years been reupholstered, but it was otherwise pretty sad: really low-def IFE, kinda dirty-looking, and otherwise seeming much older than its age would indicate.




Exit row legroom!




Though it kinda kills the view out the window.




We pushed back an even hour late, and had a very bumpy taxi to the runway where we finally started the journey to Egypt.

The IFE wasn't functioning at all, so we got to watch a full reboot cycle.






Full dinner service and two beverage rounds on a sub-two-hour flight combined with moderate turbulence most of the trip meant the flight attendants were under a lot of pressure.

Menu.






Whole meal on one tray.




Once again, firmly in the realm of “I’d pay money to eat this.”

The flight was so bumpy and short that the flight attendants were still on their after-dinner coffee service when the captain announced final approach, so several passengers had coffee cups in hand for landing, which became a problem when the landing was just as bumpy as the flight: coffee went flying.

Intensely nervous moment #2 of the trip was fast approaching, as we had read on the Internet that Egypt was suspending visa-on-arrival the week before our trip and then we read that they had suspended the suspension, leaving us wondering what to believe of things we read on the Internet.

But visa-on-arrival is alive and well, with no signs that it ever had been or will be to the contrary, and the authorities were eager to let us in to the country as quickly as they could.




Bags took forever to appear, but eventually we were on our way to the hotel.

Bretteee

31" is not so generous.

A few airlines still offer 32."

The meals they serve are similar to meals even US airlines served in the 1960s.

puls

Le Meridien Cairo Airport

Based on a number of recommendations, I booked a room for two nights at the brand new Le Meridien next to the airport’s new Terminal 3.

While I usually make a point of saving my Starpoints to transfer to airlines and the paid rate was only about $130 per night, it was also only 3,000 points per night as a Category 2 property on a weekend. Though I suppose that still makes it the most expensive Starwood property in Cairo.

We walked across the skybridge (and yes, through the metal detector midway across) to a hotel that is really beautiful and almost eerily quiet. Checking in was quick and pleasant, with a Gold upgrade to the club level.

Welcome gift.



Coffee maker.



Nicely sized and appointed.









Also a great breakfast spread in the club lounge.









Breakfast with (not much of) a view.



On our second day, we checked out the pool.



We went to the coffee bar and got one of their ridiculously good looking desserts.





Overall, a great hotel experience. Very convenient to the airport (clearly) and very inconvenient to the rest of Cairo. You may want to think twice if you’re planning on staying here more than one night, just because it’s far from pretty much everything that’s not the airport terminals. But if you’re just passing through, you really can’t beat it.

matthandy

Great report so far. Thanks for posting. Istanbul is certainly on my 'must visit' list. TK seems to offer a pretty good product overall. The food looks particularly impressive.

arlflyer

Nice TR so far; brings back some good memories I have of Istanbul. I agree that if anyone hasn't seen in person the sites that your photos show, they need to drop everything and go to right now (well, maybe not right now, peak season is approaching, maybe in September or October...).

If I'm going to fly long-haul Y, it's going to be TK. I haven't been on their newer planes like in this report, but I kind of like the 330 because of pairs of couples seats on the window sides.

Also very much agree with the choice to stay in Beyoglu. As a first-timer I stayed in Sultanahmet like most tourists; it was absolutely fine but you get bored of the sights and there isn't much to do once you've seen them. The area where you stayed is where it's at; and at the end of my trip I definitely made a mental note that I would be staying over there next time.

LeisureClassy

Agreed! I really don't mind economy on Turkish, and the food is always great (even the vegetarian option).

Istanbul is one of my favorite cities, too. Absolutely gorgeous, with so much to do! I look forward to reading about Cairo.

puls

Thanks for reading, LeisureClassy! Cairo segment coming up shortly.

Definitely. We did, too, and while we found nothing wrong with the area, the night life is a bit more limited to a number of pretty similar restaurants and hookah bars.

Thanks, matthandy. I'm guessing that some day Turkish will serve us something that's not good, but it hasn't happened yet. Their ground handling seems to have really improved in the two years since we last flew with them as well.

Well, sure, Bretteee, though maybe not so much over the Atlantic. It's really the nine-across seating on the 777 that impressed me, since a lot of airlines are going ten-across but Turkish is still doing nine-across on these brand new planes.

puls

A quick weekend in Cairo

Based on their stellar TripAdvisor reviews and other recommendations around here, we contacted Egypt Last Minute to hire a guide and a driver for the day. We were told to meet our guide Mimmo in our hotel lobby at 7:30 in the morning (yikes!) and sure enough, he was waiting for us when we showed up.

Cairo’s traffic is legendary, and our itinerary started with a visit to the Egyptian Museum when it opened at 9 am. Thankfully, Saturday morning is light for traffic and we had an extra hour, so our guide took us to the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, finished in 879.








We returned to our driver and made it to the museum in Tahrir Square by about 8:45, giving us a chance to clear the first security checkpoint before the museum opened. There’s a some interesting stuff in the garden in front of the building; we couldn’t take any photos inside.










After about two hours at the museum, we returned to our driver and headed towards Giza. Our guide took us to a quick stop at a local juice stand.




Our guide then told us he was taking us to the “Papyrus Museum”, which was really just a store that wanted to sell us a bunch of mass-produced “artwork” at ridiculous markups. One more hour wasted and we made it to the necropolis. We looked around the pyramids in the intense heat, did our best (with help from our guide) to avoid all of the people trying to scam us out of money, and went inside the Pyramid of Menkaure.










After we had seen as much as we wanted, our guide took us to a second thinly-disguised captive sales opportunity “museum” about essential oils.

We had lunch at a restaurant with a killer view pretty much directly in front of the Sphinx.








We met a couple of solo travelers who were almost certainly FlyerTalkers, as they were Americans in Cairo on their way to the Maldives, something that nobody would ever do unless they found a cheap mileage run.

After lunch, it was back to our hotel, occasionally stopping to let a camel cross the road.




Our driver returned us to our hotel around 4:30 pm, and we were ready for a nap. Overall, we were pleased with the tour and the opportunity to see a bunch of amazing sights, but a bit disappointed by being sold a full day tour and ending up with only half a day of what we were paying for and another half day of being sold things we didn’t want, with a bunch of upsells along the way.

Still: totally worth it.

puls

Cairo International Airport (mis)adventures

The front desk people at Le Meridien offered to call us a driver to get from the hotel to the terminal. We tried to suggest that we’d just take the sky bridge to Terminal 3 and then the people mover to Terminal 1, but they were having none of it and asked us to wait just a minute or two for our driver.

After a five-minute drive, we arrived in the Terminal 1 parking lot since the drop-off line had more traffic than our driver wanted to wait for.




What followed was intensely nervous moment #3 of the trip. After the completely amicable pushing and shoving match to get through the doorway metal detector, we approached the Qatar Airways check-in desk only to be told there was a problem with our tickets and have our passports handed off to another agent who told us to take our bags and follow him.

Uh oh.

The agent escorted us all the way across the building to the onsite ticket office, where we waited for five minutes for somebody to show up and help us. I was having visions going through my head of people losing their entire reservations after booking on QR’s website.

I was getting pretty nervous when the ticket person showed me a printout, highlighted a couple lines, and said “one of your flights had a schedule change, and we need you to acknowledge and approve it before we can reissue the ticket.”

The schedule change was that our flight from Cairo was an hour earlier because of the time zone thing. One quick nod later, we were walking back to the check-in desk and a few minutes after that we had boarding passes, bags checked, and departure cards, and we were on our way.

I suppose it was just mismatched expectations: I'm used to that kind of thing being handled automatically and online, but this is not only a foreign airline but one of their foreign ticket offices.

In hindsight, they actually handled the situation very well; the language barrier was really the source of our nervousness moreso than any customer service breakdown. All of the agents involved in the process were as courteous as could be.

Umpteen more passport checks later, we were in the lounge, which is a strange place. Parts are open to the terminal, parts aren't, the decor all changes, there's some light refreshment.






Decent plane spotting from the upper levels of the terminal.




After about 45 minutes, it was time to board.

puls

Qatar 1302, Cairo (CAI) to Doha Hamad International (DOH)
May 24th, 2015
18:10 pm–10:25 pm
Boeing 777-200LR A7-BBB
Seats 2J/K (First)

Our boarding passes said boarding time was at 5:25, 45 minutes before the flight, but by the time we cleared passport control at 4:40, the monitors already said our flight was boarding. The inbound had just touched down, so I suppose they wanted to get people to the buses?

Seems like Qatar Airways doesn't mess around when it comes to moving planes, even if their ground services are a bit questionable.

In any case, we showed up at our bus gate at 5:20, five minutes before our stated boarding time, to hear an announcement of final boarding call. We inched our way through the security checkpoint, where half a dozen uniformed and armed guards were pretty much ignoring the metal detectors and thoroughly patting everybody down, only to be told to wait for a separate first class bus.




After the bus that was loading was full, two more (identical) buses pulled up and we were shown to the one in front. There were maybe eight people on the bus.




Quick drive down the tarmac to our waiting chariot. I think the flight was scheduled on a 77W, but this was a 77L.








Coming up the air stair, we were met at the door be a veritable gaggle of flight attendants, one of whom escorted us to 2J and 2K on the right side.

Our flight attendant Sherisse introduced herself as soon as she saw we were situated. She offered us a beverage, and we chose champagne. Billecart-Salmon Brut. Arabic coffee and dates came around shortly thereafter. Sherisse also took our dinner order before departure.








Seats were comfy, if lacking direct aisle access from the window seats. Headphone and power ports were snuggled up next to the seat under the armrest.




Water bottle holder in the armrest.




Maybe 15 minutes ahead of schedule, we pushed from the remote stand and started a very long taxi to the runway. Lots of interesting plane spotting along the way against a beautiful desert sunset.






Eventually we got to the runway and rocketed into the sky. It didn't even feel like the pilot was using full thrust, but we quickly went aloft.

We perused the dinner menu, presented nicely in a black binder.
































At 10,000 feet, the crew instantly sprang into action.

Amuse bouche of chicken and bell pepper terrine with herbed crème fraîche.




Burgundy, Bouchard Père et Fils Beaune du Château, 2011.




Sauvignon Blanc, Esk Valley, Marlborough New Zealand, 2013.




Showtime.




Classic Arabic mezze.




Beef kibbeh.




Moroccan vegetable harira soup.




Panko and lemon zest crusted hammour.




Chicken stuffed with walnut coriander mixture.




Cheese plate.




Port, Kopke Colheita 1974.




Ladurée Plaisir Sucré.




For our dining entertainment, we discovered in the “new releases” section three episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, a show that premiered 25 years ago this month. What a trip down memory lane.




Shortly before landing in Doha, the crew played a short video about the new airport and how wonderful it is. Clearly a point of pride.






This was far and away the best medium-haul flight I've ever been on, and I can't say enough good things about the product and service. It was clear we were in for a treat as we landed in Doha.

puls

Al Mourjan Lounge at Hamad International

The monitors onboard said “NA” for our arrival gate, and indeed, we turned right to park at a bus gate just outside the terminal.

We walked down the air stairs next to that gigantic GE90 turbofan to a trifecta of a BMW 7-Series (VIP), a bus with seats (us in first class), and a few standing buses (economy class).






Transfer security was extremely fast as the area was empty, and we cleared and took a look around the terminal.

That teddy bear is still creepy.




The play areas are cool, though.






Up to the Al Mourjan lounge.




As has been extensively covered on these pages before, we went straight upstairs to the bar where a very Japanese-looking man named Rupesh was happy to pour us a couple of glasses of Krug.

We hung out at the bar for an hour or so, which is as beautiful as it is comfortable. The notorious overcrowding seems to have subsided with the opening of the Oneworld lounges; while the lounge was certainly bustling and busy, it never felt crowded or noisy at all.




















Making our way to the gate.




There's an overhead people mover, reminiscent of Detroit.




All in all, this airport is all kinds of amazing. While we’ve had great airport experiences before, this ended up being kind of a combination of all of them.