Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J, TK whY

[RooFlyer]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J,...

I planned an extra night in Istanbul before flying out for Oman for a couple of reasons: * Same day flight would have meant a transfer from IST to SAW airports which would have been long and tricky (there are no direct bus transfers); I am cautious these days about flight-to-international-flight connections , so I put padding in the itinerary in case of flight cancellations/delays, and * an extra day would allow some insurance for outdoor activities if my first stay was badly rain affected.

So I booked into the Novotel at Karakoy again. Its new, totally 'Novotel' and pretty well located. The area around it is being spruced up, especially the waterfront, so in future it will be pretty trendy. Also, only between 5 and 10 mins walk (with luggage) from the Kabatas tram station, which is one station away from the funicular up to Taksim Square.




Straight Novotel - functional and comfortable without being luxurious. They had me booked into an internal facing room (think of a hollow square arrangement) as I had requested from last time (for the quiet) but on check-in they said that there was going to be 'a big party' at the rear of the hotel, so could they move me? Gee, it would have to be 'a big party' to noise affect an internal facing room in the mid level of the hotel, but sure, move away. As an Accor plat they upgraded to a suite at the front of the hotel.




There is a row of old buildings between the hotel and the water, and they are being done up. This was floor 3 of 5.





I found that I had left my laptop power cord and transformer unit behind in Selcuk :evil: so first order of business was to buy another. Concierge at Novotel over-rode my query as to the location of a Toshiba dealer and directed me to an electronics hub in Sirkeci, close to the tram stop which is opposite the main railway station down town.

A win to the concierge. You would never have predicted what's inside the building on the left. About 6 floors of possibly two hundred or so little electronic shops, much like you see in Asia. After a few enquiries I found a hole-in-the-wall shop that had just the part I needed. He even went to the Toshiba web site to compare the product with the official Toshiba part, and it was all good. A$25 seemed a pretty good price to me too!




Back to the hotel and lunch. Also in the Novotel neighbourhood, behind it land side are a number of streets and alleys which are developing as a great food location (and bars at night). Karakoy Lokantasi is a great restaurant just along the road which the Four Seasons recommended to both amaroo and myself, but for lunch wanted something simpler, so I plonked myself down at Pim. I can't remember what it was called, but I had a sort of ravioli dish with poached eggs on top. It was much nicer than it looks here!

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J,...

I'd been pretty lucky in not having any major problems on the trip so far ... On my last 36 hours in Istanbul, I made up for it!

I had booked into the Karakoy Lokantasi restaurant for dinner on my last night .. as recommended by the Four Seasons concierge ... only a few doors down from the Novotel.

Not according to the restaurant when I showed up. :evil: . Wouldn't budge .. full ... basically 'go away'. I suspect they saw the single pax reservation and decided to make some more money with a later multiple pax booking. I was pretty annoyed, but had to go, in search of dinner. Fortunately there was a not bad looking arcade of good restaurants quite close, so I got a table there. I decided to splurge a bit on my last night, having had too many economical 'kebab-with-Efes' type meals during my stay in Turkey and ordered some red (it was OK) and a special of the night, which sounded good.

Another strike. It was OK, but pretty plain. Desert was an interesting pumpkin based dish. Turned out to be sort of ... I dunno ... glace pumpkin, with sesame sauce. OK to try but I wouldn't have it again.




I had a driver lined up for the trip to Sabiha Gokcen airport (SAW) the next morning. My inwards trip in 10 days before had taken almost 2 hours, so I allowed 1.5 hours to get me to the airport for check-in 2 hours prior to departure. Traffic was light this time and it took from memory about 45 min (Saturday) Across the Bosphorus bridge for some nice views.




Amazingly light traffic; no entry security on approach to the airport, only some witches hats to go around . I copped a bag search going through security; about 25 mins in all through security and exit immigration.



The terminal is very much LCC. I was supposed to get a tax refund for my pottery purchase - would have been worth about A$60, so worth doing. I went to the tax refund counter and queued for about 15 mins ... only to be told, that I was in the wrong area and was brusquely waved away. My final day experience wasn't improving. Eventually I found an info counter and they pointed to another tax place. How does that work? Have they privatised tax here? A short queue this time, only to be told that I was supposed to get a stamp on the landside of security. Nno stamp, no refund. :evil: My BS metre went into overdrive, and I challenged this - what difference does a stamp make? But again, real or faked poor English, he wouldn't budge, so I was out of pocket and I suspect, scammed.

Pretty peeved, I went in search of a lounge which I knew was a third party job. I eventually found it. I had a QR boarding pass, with a nice 'Business' stamped on it, but the lounge dragon wanted a lounge invitation. I explained that I did on line check-in, so couldn't get a lounge invitation, but she continued to insist. :evil: I was on the verge of exploding, after the tax refund experience, but thankfully I think she saw my colour change and 'graciously' (actually, with no grace at all) waved me through.

Just OK for an international departure lounge.




Basic offerings of food and drink.

 

[kermatu]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J,...

I felt my blood pressure rising just reading this.

 

[drron]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J,...

Fortunately we didn't see a headline-Man explodes at an Istanbul Airport.

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J,...

The day isn't over yet ...

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J, TK

A bit of plane spotting, and then my ride arrives at the gate.




Boarding (SAW-DOH) was a zoo. One shouldn't get stressed about these things, but then you (I) think - they do this dozens of times a day, day in, day out. Even with an issue - its unlikely to be one that they haven't seen goodness-knows how many times before, so why is it a shambles? I counted seven uniformed QR staff, and there were 5 guys looking after the wheelchairs. Boarding time came and went, no announcements, just a scrum at the gate. Some guy, ordinary passenger-looking, wandered through the melee, and down the air bridge. No-one seemed to mind. A few minutes later some-one brought him out again. He kept wandering about the boarding area, past staff etc. We boarded anout 20 minutes late, all in a surge.

On board same type of J seat as the trip up. Not bad for medium haul daytime flight.




Menus. There was proper booze on board too.




I had the cured salmon on potato puree, and the vegetable Thai curry. It was only average.




Flying over the mountains in eastern Turkey - magnificent. I'd love to visit, but they are essentially off-limits with Syria etc to the south-east.

 

[amaroo]

Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J,...

I had booked into the Karakoy Lokantasi restaurant for dinner on my last night .. as recommended by the Four Seasons concierge ... only a few doors down from the Novotel.

Not according to the restaurant when I showed up. :evil: . Wouldn't budge .. full ... basically 'go away'. I suspect they saw the single pax reservation and decided to make some more money with a later multiple pax booking. I was pretty annoyed, but had to go, in search of dinner.

That is as "Crook as Rookwood" ... all the more because you'd been trying to get a table over so many nights.

Pity because it's a great restaurant.

 

[Ric]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J,...

Great TR!! Thanks for the memories!!

 

[ellen10]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J,...

Just caught up on your trip report.
Great pics and stories to go with them.
Thanks for sharing.

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J,...

I was really looking forward to the next segment, Doha to Muscat, Oman. Its only about 100 minutes, and normally I'd do that in economy, but it was Oman Air and my Travel Agent had raved about WY's business class (and I knew as much already) so I didn't need much convincing to go business. It was going to be a late night flight, with early morning arrival so I knew that I didn't want to be in a scrum on arrival in MCT as well.

Turned into one of my worst flying experiences! Don't get me wrong, I know it wasn't the end of the world, many folk have much worse experiences, but I AM a DYKWIA

Anyway, we arrived at DOH not much delayed, and then a very long walk, with 4 moving walkways to arrival security, through that and now onto the lounge. I had done on-line check-in with Oman Air having discovered before I left home, to my amazement, that there were no lounge arrangements at DOH for Oman Air. Incredible! Wasn't going to be that great a problem though, the transit was only three hours landing to take-off, so two hours effective, I knew I wanted to do a bit of duty free shopping (ha!) and I had access to the Priority Pass lounge at DOH.

Well, the Al Maha Priority Pass lounge was a dive. It was being renovated, or whatever, so was mostly boarded up, so was tiny, and crowded. The smoking room was open of course, and the smell permeated into the main lounge. There is no booze, and the soft drinks are sitting on the bench, not in a fridge; no ice in the bucket. :evil: Food was the typical basics that you find in these types of lounges. Even the internet was just the airport free internet and was not worth using. I left after 10 minutes.




I did want to buy a new Sony camera, so I went to check out the duty free area. The central concourse was also a shambles - workmen installing some high end car display & 'supervisors' en mass, and you had to walk a long way around the work. It was no surprise that here, the flyers come second to high end marketing.




On checking, the 'duty free' price of the camera I wanted was more expensive here than normal retail in Australia! I knew D/F wasn't generally that good a value these days, but that was a shock.

Now the fun begins - not!

40 mins before departure, I went to the departure gate B5, near the end of one of the side concourses. No airline people, which is ominous, but a zoo of pax. At 30 mins before departure, a guy comes and announces a gate chance to C27 - the end of the main concourse!! The guy leads about 100 pax on a 15 min fast walk to the new gate, the entire length of 2 concourses; what fun. On the way there, I notice the screens we pass are saying gate C22 for our gate. He ignores that, and takes us to C27, where he discovers, yes, its actually C22 we should be at, so takes us there.

Now for the almost best bit. After rushing to the new gate, he then announces a 2 hour delay!! What the F%$#*!! for F%$*&!* sake! We find out that the in bound plane hasn't arrived - they knew that hours ago, let alone when they told of the gate change. One of the most contemptuous displays from an airline to its passengers that I ever want to experience.

Drron, if you wanted to see a headline about a passenger exploding, this would have been it. :evil: :evil: :evil:

Back to the cough lounge. I look up the in-bound flight on flight tracker, and its not being tracked. No info on it at all, which is ominous. I'm getting the felling of a cancelled flight. Current ETD is 00:45 so I head down to the food court for some dinner. Pretty crook options, but I have some curry slop rather than my WY J meal.




As a cautionary move, I go up to the airport hotel and check on room availability and pricing. A couple of hundred dollars, not too bad, as WY will be paying if I need to crash there for the night.

Now my flight has disappeared from the screens. The lounge dragons are useless of course.I decide to call Oman Air customer service to see what's up. the moron there tells me that my flight has left. Ummm .. no it hasn't ... He insists that it has. I ask about the inbound flight. He tells me that there is no inbound flight; next one in 2 days! Yeah, thanks, Oman Air.

Back to the gate at 11:30pm as instructed and its a scene of utter chaos. Almost all of my fellow passengers are from the sub continent. They fly via MCT on their way home after a work stint in the Gulf. About a hundred or more are besieging the desk en mass. Its ugly. I was told that ETA is now 'after 1am'. Back to the lounge, where I'm now directed to the adjacent one - Oryx, I think. Its much better!



The screen is still showing 00:40 departure but the lounge dragons are now aware of the WY situation and assure me that their screen is saying 1:15am. I check the weather back home, to find out that Tasmania has been enhanced off the map.




To be continued ... and continued ... the night is but young!

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J,...

Back to the gate at 00:15 and if it was a zoo before, its mayhem now. Four or so agents are trying to re-book the 100+ other pax onto other flights to the subcontinent. No orderly line or processing, just shoving and shouting. I could but stand back and watch the spectacle. After a while one of the agents notices the Anglo standing back and comes up to me. He couldn't say when the flight was going to depart, but offered to see if he could get me on another flight. There was a QR flight departing in 30 minutes but its full. What a surprise.

Back to the chaos.

At 00:30am and someone starts calling people forward to board. Hooray! but then some-one else comes over and counters that. :evil: This happens a couple of times - I'm not kidding.

At 00:45am business passengers (3 of us) get called forward and yes, onto the bus. To wait 15 mins while they drip feed others on. LH pic is the luxury DOH terminal waiting area. No seats, no amenities. RH pic - my forlorn look back at the gate as we stand on board, in the heat and humidity while they drip feed others onto the bus.




We board, everyone there it seems by 1:15am but now we just sit on the tarmac, bus still outside and stairs still there. I ask for a bevvie - the only white wine on board are little bottles of chardonnay and they can't serve booze until the doors close. The happiness with WY business class continues :evil:. Fortunately the lady FA is a gem; totally understanding the situation, and how J pax will be feeling and tries to look after us. Arabian coffee and dates are offered; its soothes a bit.


Its an A320 I think; three rows of 2-2 config; seat not bad. Armrest TV and OK headphones. IFE selection pretty dated.




At 1:30am an announcement - its phones off for departure. Hooray!

At 1:40am nothing has happened. Door still open and stairs still there. :evil: An announcement - they are unloading bags. Apparently some-one has only just realised, that all those pax they put onto other flight had bags, and they need to be taken off this flight! They had an hour to do this .... FFS!

At 2:04 I see one of the flight attendants outside going round shining a light on the plane. So pre flight inspections are now done by the flight attendants, are they?

2:10am and the nice FA tells me that no-one has told them what is happening at all. Ground crew have come and gone a couple of times into the coughpit with paperwork. I get the idea that there is something wrong with the paperwork (probably pax list). After the third visit, I can see through the open coughpit door that the guy in the RH pilot seat is getting ****ty. That's not good!!

2:20am and the doors close. I make a voice note in my phone that I don't feel very safe.

Take-off about 2:30am, 5 chaotic hours late.

A quick G&T. Prepare the meal service; paper table mats. Ultimately I waive off the meal - its the middle of the night and I'm just pissed off.

Another shot of the seat (back), and mid-flight, the info screen at the front of the cabin carrys on the performance of WY in general so far.



Touchdown MCT at 4:50 am local; its morning. A huge taxi; off the bus at 5:00am.

Its visa on arrival. Fortunately most pax are doing transit. The visa on arrival booth is un-attended. I ask some-one what to do. Official (guy) asks for my passport and examines it minutely, page by page. After a few minutes he points to a different area which sells visa on arrival. What the F was he going through my passport for?

At the counter. Lady does the processing thing then asks for X Omani Ryals; I proffer a credit card. No cash? She asks? I said no. (NB there are no FX shops airside at DOH). She says I can't process without cash! What do I do? I ask? She has a brilliant idea. "The next person can help you". FFS x 10! Why not just say that! it took about 5 mins to get the VoA processed.

Immigration - one bully in charge. Shouting at poor sub continentals who happen to be in range. My passport gets passed between 3 of them. More chaos.

At last I'm through. No more official airport taxi (taxis in Oman are notorious for having broken meters). But I do get one at the curb, with a meter and its off to the Millennium Apartments, arriving at 6am.

Sorry for the long whinge - I have a masochistic streak and I wanted to relive all the gruesome detail (courtesy of voice notes on my phone).

Oman Air business - fail on every aspect.

 

[pagingjoan]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J,...

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
Hope the visit itself restores your spirits.
Although I've a feeling that may take some doing!

 

[drron]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J,...

I think you need to go on a wine tour.

 

[kermatu]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J,...

I check the weather back home, to find out that Tasmania has been enhanced off the map.

That is the final straw.

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J,...

I planned several days in Oman, and decided to splurge for a holiday doing relatively little to rest from the Turkey part of the holiday which I knew would be (and was) very active. My main stay was to be at the Shangri-La, mainly after a review here on AFF. As its pretty expensive, I wasn't going to spend that much $$ for the short first night (planned hotel arrival at 1am), so for the first night I booked the Millennium Apartment Hotel, not far from the airport. The plan was to do the Grand Mosque, also not far away, and then decamp to the Shangri-La, which is at the extreme end of Muscat, which is essentially linear along the coast.

I'm happy to report that after the previous day's shemozzle, everything went as planned!


... especially not staying at the Shangri-La at first ... I arrived at the Millennium at 6am. Tried to get some sleep, but no chance. The Millennium is an echo-y marble and polished travertine place, about A$150/night which is good value. It has the virtue of being attached to (but not part of) of the Oman Avenues mall.






Oman was very hot and very humid the entire time I was there. Mad dogs, Englishmen and RooFlyers go out in the pre-noon sun, so I went ahead with a tiredness-fixing walk along to the Grand Mosque, a little over a km away. Water in hand, I set off, and was wilting within minutes! No other nong was out walking.

The mosque was well worth the walk, though. Unfortunately it was closed so no looks inside, just a good look around the outside and the well maintained grounds.

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J,...

By the time I was half way back walking to the hotel, I was very thirsty and just made it to the mall and headed for the juice counter and downed several.

Checked out about 11am and I got a taxi to the Shangri-La, abut 20 mins away down a freeway. I forget how much it cost, but relatively expensive, as things in Oman seem to be. Once we got out of the city the hills were totally barren.




There are 3 separate hotels at the Shangri-La, at different standards. As this was a splurge, I chose the highest level - Shangri-La Al Husn, and I had a deluxe room (just below suites). I also had Shangri-La Jade status, thanks to AMEX

Check in was odd. I was sat down in the check-in area by the doorman, given apple juice and a cold towel, which was nice. There was a guy at the counter who seemed like a difficult guest checking-out - they seemed to be debating about paying or cash or credit card. No probs, sitting is nice. But it went on and on and on ... eventually there were 3 staff behind the counter. However, eventually things got resolved and the guy left.



And so did all the counter staff.

Was I invisible?

I went up to the counter, no bell, so I tapped on the counter. Some-one came out and asked: "Hello, can I help you?"

I replied: "Hello, yes, I'd like to check in."

Boy, did that get their attention! Profuse apologies etc etc, (but I wondered what they thought I was doing sitting there ..) and I'm happy to say it was the only discordant experience while I was there (well, almost, and there was a reason for this, I learned later).

The room was superb. Luxurious furniture and fitting, high quality everywhere; the type of carpet you like to dig your toes into. Couldn't fault it. Chockkies and fruit bowl, and the fruit was actually ripe, so was edible. Mini bar was free (softies and beer), but the full sized bottles of scotch, gin etc had to be paid for if opened at all :shock:





View was over the pool and beyond that, the sea. I'm going to enjoy this :mrgreen:

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J,...

I'm not a beach-resort type of person, but I was determined to give it a good go here.

And who could resist. First the infinity pool:







Al Husn has a private beach.

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J,...

My TRs are usually pretty sparse in respect of food and bev experiences, mainly because my holidays dining is pretty basic. That's about to change!

After I got back from the beach, it was time for afternoon tea, complimentary of course and served at the Sultanah restaurant at Al Husn. See the last, 'paper clipped' image below. I don't know why its displayed that way - it loaded in the normal way.

Anyway, the afternoon tea was superb!



After that, I waddled around the hotel complex- its very large when you take the other two hotels into consideration 9see the RH pic in the last image). Night fell, and the hotel lights up pretty spectacularly.



Dinner at the Shahrazad restaurant at Al Husn - Moroccan. I've been to Morocco three times and like to think I know my Moroccan cuisine, and this was the real deal. Good live music as well.




Unfortunately my menu pics didn't come out and for some reason I didn't do the main course, But it was a Moroccan soup to start with, and poached pears to finish. Everything was fantastic.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J, TK

Gee I think I would have needed a change of underwear, hitting a power line

For anyone doing balloons in Cappadocia in the future, I would really recommend Butterfly Balloons who we used last year. They are incredibly safety conscious and even take off totally away from the other balloons. Their chief pilot is Mike Green and he is very well known in the ballooning world and has been know to refuse to fly even when balloons from other companies are, as he doesn't think the conditions are safe.

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: Historic Turkey (and 5 airports!), finishing in Muscat,Oman. QF, QR and WY J, TK

Coming out of dinner, I met two GMs - the Food and Bev GM and I think the 'Activities' guy. Good that these guys are circulating; they knew my name (and Shangri-La status) on greeting. I commented on how few guests there appeared to be at Al Husn - it wouldn't be more than 10% full, if that.

Reply was that Ramadan started in (then) two days. It was the day I was leaving, so wouldn't affect me, they said. The hotel is closing down then, for a month of renovations. That was the first I knew about the timing of Ramadan - I had researched it but for some reason thought it was still a week or 2 off. So obviously the only guests that are here are the ones leaving in a day or so, like me. And it might explain the odd check-in I got. It was apparent that the staffing levels were commensurately down, not that it impacted me, but I think some of the remaining staff might be on the lower range of experience. Just a theory.

I went for another walk about the hotel. If it looks a bit kitsch, or Vegas-like, it isn't. All very nicely done.






When I got back to my room, I found that the GMs had been at work . On the right, just some of the wall decorations.