Renato1
Established Member
- Joined
- May 1, 2015
- Posts
- 1,730
We flew Qatar Melbourne to Stockholm last year, then Venice back to Melbourne. What was very good was that Qatar's total return price was less than other major carriers were charging just for the first leg to Stockholm alone. So choosing Qatar was a no-brainer, and their service was excellent. I couldn't put my finger on it then, but I knew something was better in that flight experience, than that with other carriers I'd flown.
We've just returned after again flying Qatar, this time Melbourne to Tunis then Venice to Melbourne. They were again easily the best on price for the direct flights. After four hours on the first leg out to Doha, I had very bad back pain for the remaining nine or ten hours, and spent much of the time in agony walking around the front bit of the plane, and at the side of the toilet area - where I could stretch and try relieve the pain.
This actually proved quite instructive as I figured out why Qatar flights are better than other carrier's flights - namely, the staff are constantly cleaning the toilets. It didn't matter that there may have been a long queue to use them, Qatar staff went in and cleaned them.
Meals.
The meals are basically a choice of
Regular beef type meal, or
Weird Chicken (i.e. something Asiatic I never heard of), or
Something Vegetarian e.g risotto or noodles.
Only problem for me was that on flight Venice to Doha, I was in row 18 - fairly far up towards the front of the A330 - and my wife got the last beef meal. I was stuck with the chicken meal, which wasn't too bad, except for one big lump of chicken with chicken skin on it - which I automatically gag at the thought of eating chicken skin. On the flight Doha to Melbourne in the A380, we were only four seats from the front, and I noticed everyone around me, except for one woman behind me, ordering the beef meal. I suspect some may have missed out on the beef further back.
The other oddity is that while they provide tasty foccacia bread on their flights, that one has to ask for butter to go with it, rather than it being automatically provided. Problem with this was, that as we were having the last meal of breakfast (scrambled eggs) and I asked for butter...... and they had run out of butter on the plane.
On the plus side, the one thing Qatar did better than Emirates (last time I flew with them was four years ago), is that they serve drinks with the meals in one go, using one cart. On Emirates one cart would bring out the food and later another cart would bring out the drinks. The Emirates system worked okay on smaller planes, with the drinks arriving about a third of the way into eating the meal, but was hopeless on the A380 with the drinks arriving at near the end, if not the end of the meals when I last flew with them.
Qatar does do the the same thing as Emirates if one asks for a soft drink - they open a can and give you a little glass of it. Always remember to ask for and get the full can. I can never understand why if one asks for a beer, one gets a full can, but if one asks for a soft drink, one gets a tiny glass.
It used to be a downside for me that the Venice- Melbourne trip had an 18 hour wait between flights at Doha - which meant having to get a hotel for the night, and taxi fares. But now, because of my back, I treat the rest as a positive. Huge 55 to 60 square meter hotel rooms aren't expensive in Doha, and my wife and I really enjoy lounging around in them, going out for occasional excursions to shopping centres (since we saw all the major sights last year). Doha is a place we feel quite safe and comfortable in.
In fact, the cost of the hotels - even if you don't get the special deal that Qatar often offers for them - added to the price of the trip was still less than the Emirates price for the round trip. Seems like a bargain to me.
Regards,
Renato
We've just returned after again flying Qatar, this time Melbourne to Tunis then Venice to Melbourne. They were again easily the best on price for the direct flights. After four hours on the first leg out to Doha, I had very bad back pain for the remaining nine or ten hours, and spent much of the time in agony walking around the front bit of the plane, and at the side of the toilet area - where I could stretch and try relieve the pain.
This actually proved quite instructive as I figured out why Qatar flights are better than other carrier's flights - namely, the staff are constantly cleaning the toilets. It didn't matter that there may have been a long queue to use them, Qatar staff went in and cleaned them.
Meals.
The meals are basically a choice of
Regular beef type meal, or
Weird Chicken (i.e. something Asiatic I never heard of), or
Something Vegetarian e.g risotto or noodles.
Only problem for me was that on flight Venice to Doha, I was in row 18 - fairly far up towards the front of the A330 - and my wife got the last beef meal. I was stuck with the chicken meal, which wasn't too bad, except for one big lump of chicken with chicken skin on it - which I automatically gag at the thought of eating chicken skin. On the flight Doha to Melbourne in the A380, we were only four seats from the front, and I noticed everyone around me, except for one woman behind me, ordering the beef meal. I suspect some may have missed out on the beef further back.
The other oddity is that while they provide tasty foccacia bread on their flights, that one has to ask for butter to go with it, rather than it being automatically provided. Problem with this was, that as we were having the last meal of breakfast (scrambled eggs) and I asked for butter...... and they had run out of butter on the plane.
On the plus side, the one thing Qatar did better than Emirates (last time I flew with them was four years ago), is that they serve drinks with the meals in one go, using one cart. On Emirates one cart would bring out the food and later another cart would bring out the drinks. The Emirates system worked okay on smaller planes, with the drinks arriving about a third of the way into eating the meal, but was hopeless on the A380 with the drinks arriving at near the end, if not the end of the meals when I last flew with them.
Qatar does do the the same thing as Emirates if one asks for a soft drink - they open a can and give you a little glass of it. Always remember to ask for and get the full can. I can never understand why if one asks for a beer, one gets a full can, but if one asks for a soft drink, one gets a tiny glass.
It used to be a downside for me that the Venice- Melbourne trip had an 18 hour wait between flights at Doha - which meant having to get a hotel for the night, and taxi fares. But now, because of my back, I treat the rest as a positive. Huge 55 to 60 square meter hotel rooms aren't expensive in Doha, and my wife and I really enjoy lounging around in them, going out for occasional excursions to shopping centres (since we saw all the major sights last year). Doha is a place we feel quite safe and comfortable in.
In fact, the cost of the hotels - even if you don't get the special deal that Qatar often offers for them - added to the price of the trip was still less than the Emirates price for the round trip. Seems like a bargain to me.
Regards,
Renato
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