Yes, This Is Real Life Part 10 - Royally Jordanian

Yes, This Is Real Life- Preview

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 1- Location, Location, Location

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 2- Brits In Beantown

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 3 - Shades On, Wheels Up

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 4 - Welcome to Ghost Port

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 5 - When You Layover During Ramadan

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 6 - Birds In Doha

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 7 - Dealing With Dragons

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 8 - A Place Most Exceedingly Rare

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 9- I Still Can't Believe This Is Real Life

This is not a post about flying Royal Jordanian.  I have, to date, not flown Royal Jordanian.  It is, however, a post about transiting their home airport of Amman, Jordan in all of 90 minutes, and I thought it a rather snappy title. 

Even for me, this day of flying pushed the ridiculous.  Now that I'd been re-routed, my layover was shorter and I literally flew the same plane in and out of Jordan right back to Doha.  It was about a three hour flight each way.  I had the same cabin crew, and even the same seat.  You've just got to laugh sometimes.  My flight attendant sure did.

So, here's how it went-

I left the lounge, and boarded on time for AMM.  They fly a a330 between these cities, which is still definitely a widebody plane, but not as big as the 777 or the 350.  The seats are lie flat, but not nearly as spacious as the 777 seats, or the 350 seats.  It's still fantastically comfortable for this length of flight, and would be fine for an overnight as well.  The cabin is laid out in a 2-2-2 configuration, so the window seats don't have aisle access.  Once again, I had no one next to me.

Instead of a pre departure beverage, since it was Ramadan and they weren't serving alcohol on any planes flying soley between middle eastern destinations, the cabin crew came around to offer coffee and dates while the rest of the flight boarded.  They did serve a meal on the flight, but also offered a boxed meal to go to passengers observing the holy month.



Regional amenity kit

I ordered the ful medames (quickly becoming my local go-to, the same way I always grab a bowl of congee in Asia) and pita as a snack, and kicked back to watch the IFE and doze a bit.  The flight went quickly, and we arrived on time to AMM.  Here's where the fun started.

Now,  I've done several transfers between itineraries like this, where you can't check in for your onward flight until you get on the ground at the destination, and so you don't have a boarding pass to clear transfer immigration.  The most hair raising example of this was definitely going through Jakarta, an experience I'd prefer not to repeat...but if I'm honest...I probably will at some point.

I had asked if I could get my AMM-DOH boarding pass on leaving DOH, but since the itinerary was technically a separate one way ticket AMM-DOH-IAH, they couldn't print it.  They did, however, print me the read out of the booking details so I had that to hand over in AMM.



Waaaaiiiittting to get my passport back

The transfer desk/area doesn't have a Qatar agent at it, and so I had to hand over my passport to an airport employee who then left to go down to the ticketing desks to procure my boarding pass.  This is simply never a good feeling, but is unfortunately how it's done many places.  I had to wait 30+ minutes for him to return, all the while staring out the window at the plane I arrived on, and was scheduled to depart on shortly.



Finally made it back upstairs- AMM Airport

The total transfer time I had available was only 90 minutes, so by the time I cleared security and was sent back to the departures level, I just headed back to the plane and boarded a few minutes later.  This was quite entertaining to my flight crew, especially as I was in the exact same seat as before. 

It went something like this:

FA: Welcome, boarding pa... Oh, it's you again!

Me: Um, yep. Again.

FA: Seat?

Me: 4F, again, apparently.

FA: (Laughs)  You missed us?

Me: It's a long story...

On arrival back at DOH, I took a few minutes to check out the arrivals lounge, simply because I hadn't been before and I'd gotten in earlier than the prior two days.  It's reserved for business and first class arriving passengers, and is located past security.  There's a made to order menu, not as extensive as the airside lounges, but plenty of options, as well as drinks, places to relax, and showers.  I didn't spend too long, just enough to get a look around.



Arrivals lounge seating



Menu

Since I also had the 'stopover package' for this night, I'd stopped and been given my hotel and meal voucher, as well as my info for the free shuttle before clearing immigration.  As seemed to be the most common set up, I'd been given a night at the Oryx Rotana hotel, which while not the Ritz, is still quite a nice hotel to have for free.  It's not in the main part of town, or up by the Pearl, but since it caters to one night stopovers that's no big issue.

After a short shuttle ride, I was checking in to my third and final hotel of the weekend.  How the last night went, is coming up.

 

~CruisingAltitude

 

Read next: Yes, This Is Real Life Part 11: Up All Night To Get Miles

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 7: Dealing With Dragons

 

View from the DOH-CMB flight

It's the turn-around point!  But first, the story so far:

Yes, This Is Real Life - Preview

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 1 - Location, Location, Location

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 2 - Brits in Beantown

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 3 - Shades On, Wheels Up

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 4 - Welcome To Ghostport

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 5 - When You Layover During Ramadan...

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 6 - Birds In Doha

Welcome to Columbo, for the second time.  Last time I passed through here, I dealt with the trials of getting onward tickets from Sri Lankan for Qatar, and the entirely underwhelming absorptive properties of the towels in the shower at the UL (Sri Lankan airways) lounge.

This time, I had vague plans of actually leaving the airport.  There were a few attractions nearby, and while the CMB airport falls into the 'it's fine' category, it's not an epic lounge destination like HKG.  However, as I went on about previously, mileage runs are trips where you react in the moment to what simply sounds the best.  In this case, what sounded the best....was a nap.  So, we took a nap.

CMB Airport

 As it so happens, CMB is a great place for this because there's a small transit hotel right in the airport that doesn't require clearing immigration to get to.  This was even better, because another large factor in our staying airside was that they wanted someplace around $40 a person for a visa on arrival.  While that's not really all that much in context, it starts to feel obnoxious when there's two of you, and you only really have about 5 hours on the ground to start with.

The transit hotel hallway.  Nothing fancy, but perfect for a nap.

The day rate at the hotel was less than the visa price (bless cheap SE Asia), so we split a room for a shower and a solid couple hours of downtime.  To get there, head toward the exit, past the transit desk and shrine in the center of the terminals, and follow signs to the Hotel.  The rooms aren't anything fancy, but they're clean (enough) and quiet.  The timing couldn't be better for trying to stay away from heavy jetlag, since for 'us' it was still the middle of the night. 



This way...

Feeling better, we did of course go for a little lounge time before our outbound flights.  Here's where some shenanigans started up again.  Now, here's an (exceedingly) rare moment where I'll have to admit I was in the wrong.  I know it's impossible to believe, but stick with me.

The Oneworld rules for lounge access state that a OW Emerald, such as myself, gets 1st class lounge access "when the next onward flight is on a Oneworld owned and operated flight."  The same rule applies to guests.  They don't have to be on your same Oneworld flight, just a Oneworld flight.

There are actually a couple lounges up by the transit hotel, including the Emirates and a small Sri Lankan.  The bigger, better, Sri Lankan lounge is in the main terminal though.

Unfortunately this time, my travel companion and I were preparing to go separate ways after flying together up to this point.  I was headed back to Doha on Qatar, and he was flying back to the US by way of Dubai on an Emirates award ticket.  What this resulted in was us each having good lounge access, just to different lounges, and neither of us could rightly guest the other in.  This is not to say we didn't try at both places.... but it didn't work out.  I was hoping that given that the UL lounge was empty, and he did have his Oneworld card on him, we might slide by.  However, the lounge dragons, after some chatter amongst themselves, thought otherwise. 

As I said, I knew I was in the wrong here going in, so there was no point in protesting.  We said our goodbyes, and each spent a few minutes in our respective lounges before going to our gates. 

Bar at the Sri Lankan lounge.  I like the "airplane" motif.

My time at the lounge was, I'll admit, true to form for my jetlagged-delirious self at this point.  I was nearly the only one there, and there were few staff of any kind.  In a matter of about 30 minutes I managed to spill cylon tea on myself, raid the bar fridge and open my own bottle of champagne, and on account of not reading Tamil well, blow right past the sign that said the buffet was temporarily closed while they changed from lunch to dinner dishes, and help myself to the food, distributing my own serving utensils as I went.  Not super proud, but no regrets either.  Really, they should have let my buddy in as I clearly needed adult supervision.

Yeah.... I went there.

 

I ate whatever this was, even though they weren't serving yet.

After all of that, I said goodbye to Colombo and got back on my next Qatar flight. As was becoming the theme of this amazing weekend, I was once again nearly alone on my flight.  The plane was a 777-200, which Qatar has business class laid out in a 2-2-2 configuration.  On this one I had the entire row of 6 seats behind the bulkhead to MYSELF.  Basically a whole mini business class cabin.  Unreal.

Miiiiiine, all mine...

So I flew out alone, right back to another sleepless night in Doha....

~CruisingAltitude

Up next- A Place Most Exceedingly Rare: My triumphant return to Doha (again), thoughts you didn't ask for about IFE, and a primer on Qatar transit visas.

Havana Running Part 12- Can You SEA Me Now?

 

Preview: What Would Hemmingway Do?

Part 1: Relaxing

Part 2: I Promise Not To Call This Sleepless In Seattle

Part 3: Just Sit Anywhere

Part 4: Taking It South

Part 5: Bienvenido a La Habana

Part 6: Day Into Night

Part 7: When the Rooster Crows

Part 8: Shopping, Stumbling Through Havana

Part 9: When Life Gives You a Night In Cuba...

Part 10: Good Morning and Goodbye

Part 11: Miami Vexed
 

And now, the conclusion....

Well friends, here we are, the last flight of the weekend.  I'm sitting in 1C to finish it off.  To say the least this trip has been an experience.  I didn't end up getting stranded (read released) in LA.  The Miami flight made up time, and the Seattle flight was a few minutes behind so trying the 'I couldn't make my flight' argument wasn't going to pass the sniff test.  

My family is out of town, so instead of fighting through LA traffic at 5pm, I've taken a little jaunt up north to Seattle.  My total ground time was about 20 minutes.  It was just enough to remember how late the daylight lasts here this time of year.  8pm and it's not even dusk yet. 

The flight up was beautiful, watching the desert fade into hills and mountains.   There's the added bonus of having the same flight crew on the turn around.  I'm enough of an oddity/amusement tonight for the 1st cabin flight attendant he's got my order down when I walk back on the plane.  It's the little things.  Besides, I'm okay with being an oddity, clearly.

As usual, the end of a mileage run is a high altitude mix of satisfaction, tiredness, and a fair amount of nostalgia.  There's both the exhaustion of flying for what amounts to days on end, combined with that let down feeling of coming back from vacation.  You both want to be home badly, and are bemoaning it at the same time. 

 

On the bright side, it seems like my precious cargo is surviving the journey, and for once I've managed to keep up fairly well with writing my posts (if not actually posting them). 

I've come to realize that you get a strong sense of a place from just a day or two there.  I've said that mileage running is essentially having a 'first date' with cities around the world.  You know whether you want to try it again.  Havana is intriguing- I think a second date is in order if the flight deals are right, but I'm not about to move there.  I'd definitely encourage anyone who's curious to go check it out, and the sooner the better before people realize it's so accessible now. 

It's been great to have so many people who (seem anyway) to be following along with me on this trip.  I mostly write about my travels for my own sake- to remember the details in the moment for later, but if it provides some entertainment and information to anyone else, all the better.

This year has been busy so far.  Between mileage trips, work travel, and family vacations, I'm headed for requalification early.  I have one more scheduled trip soon that's wonderful and convoluted and takes me through Doha x3 with side trips to Colombo and Cairo.  I'm just putting together the finishing touches on the itinerary- hotels, 'one thing to see,' and the like.  Since it's Summer in Doha, the hotel and tourist deals are amazing (like free night at the Ritz, too good to be true so I'm skeptical even with a confirmation number in hand amazing).  I'm hoping to have a preview post up of it all soon. 

Next after that is family travel to Europe!! We're taking Baby Flyer to Helsinki (thanks to Finnair having some great award space in business class this Summer) and then on to Tallinn and Copenhagen!  We'll be keeping up with this one over on Baby Flyer Blog, which is where we post about travel with the kiddo- the good, the bad, and the things that make it easier (even fun). 

Until the next flight, travel well,

~CruisingAltitude