London to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur
If you’ve not read my report on my choice of tickets for this trip then that’s a must, read it here. I bought very unusual tickets for this journey making the most of quirks in the system.
To recap, this trip is:
- London to Paris on Eurostar
- Paris to Singapore, via Doha, on Qatar.
- Singapore to Kuala Lumpur on Malaysia Airlines
- Kuala Lumpur to Manchester, via Doha, starting on Malaysia Airlines for the first leg, then Qatar on the second.
Positioning to Paris
In order to start flying from Paris, I needed to get there of course. I booked a Eurostar ticket in Standard Premium, (the train equivalent of premium economy). It comes with decent seats, drinks and a light meal on board. You have to buy business premium for the top service and lounge access, the cost of that was too much for this 2-hour train trip.
I booked the 7pm departure on the evening before my flight, arriving into Paris at 10pm local time. I did this to make sure that there was no chance of missing my flight, I’d never get the train to Paris a few hours before a flight in case there were any delays or cancellations. The train was on time, and the journey itself was fine, nothing much to talk about here. When I got to Paris I took the RER, (local railway), line out to Charles de Gaulle (CDG) airport. Despite there being multiple notifications of engineering work and buses replacing trains halfway, the train actually went straight there with only one stop. I think a temporary service after work had finished for the day as it would normally be a stopping train. Both Google Maps and CityMapper were very confused as they were convinced there was a bus involved, but the train went straight through.
I’d booked myself in the Hilton Airport hotel, one of many I could have chosen, but I needed the points. The hotel is a short walk from the airport station, down a lit and covered pathway that leads towards a cluster of hotels. It became a little odd as I turned right off the main path towards the Hilton, it became very narrow between some bushes and was unlit all the way up to the entrance. I checked upon arrival and that was the main official path. Anyway, I checked in and headed to bed, ready for my early start the next day.
The Hilton was a good hotel, very nice bar and restaurant area under a glass sloping roof. There were great views, for some, over the airport. Alas, at this time of night there was not much to see.
After a solid 6 ½ hours’ sleep, I woke and headed back out to the station. The airport has a free transit to shuttle passengers between the station, car parks and various terminals, so I took that to get to terminal 1.
At the airport – Paris
The terminal 1 building at Charles de Gaulle airport was designed by Paul Andreu and completed in 1974, with a very deliberate 1960’s feel to it. It’s a fascinating design concept for an airport terminal. The main central hub is a circular building 10 stories high, which has all the main services in it, check-in, baggage reclaim, lounges etc. There were 7 satellite buildings, each with 4 gates, surrounding the hub, I say “were” because it looks like there’s some reconstruction going on. The gates are accessed by tunnels with undulating moving walkways going through them, very 60’s in design.
After arriving I quickly found the Qatar check-in area, nothing too special here, just the usual long queue for economy and a second queue for business class and frequent fliers, (this time I was both). Check-in was quick and painless, and I headed through to security. There’s various escalators that take you up through the middle of the building to the security and passport control levels. You have to board the correct escalator for your ticket and passport type, luckily there were plenty of staff on hand to help. As I was flying business class I could use what they called Access No. 1, basically their fast-track system. Once I found the correct escalator I was heading up to passport control, followed by security. It was reasonably quick and I was through in a few minutes. Next to find the Qatar lounge, this was located on the top floor, but there were lifts right by the exit of security, so I headed straight up.
Qatar lounges are always good and Paris did not disappoint. There was even the signature water feature as you walked in, and access to an outdoor terrace, (the French do like to smoke), which was also great for some fresh air and a bit of plane spotting. The lounge had a lot of private chairs next to windows in small alcoves, more open lounging areas, tables for eating at and a full service restaurant at the end. I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry, so I went to the self-service area to find myself a nice croissant, well this is France!
Boarding
Soon it was time to board, so I headed back down to the main security level and over to the undulating moving walkway to the gates area. Boarding here was slightly chaotic. For some reason they have two checks, the main boarding gate, where you walk up to the desk, they scan your pass and you go through, then at the end of a corridor towards the plane there’s another person with a handheld scanner who checks your pass one more time before sending you down the air bridge to the actual aircraft.
As they were running a little late, they decided to start processing economy passengers from the first main desk and got them to queue down the corridor to the plane. Meanwhile business and priority customers were asked to wait. This caused a lot of confusion as many (slightly more entitled) business customers showed up later, saw boarding was happening and charged straight through, to only then be told to go back.
When they eventually started boarding business it got really messy. The large queue of economy passengers, they had tried to form up on the right of the corridor, had degenerated into a gaggle of annoyed people who thought there were boarding and weren’t. Meanwhile business class people were called forwards, we were told to head down on the left past all the economy passengers to board. Which of course caused upset with the waiting passengers. Then to make it worse there was only one guy at the air bridge with his hand-held scanner, who had started letting economy passengers on. When suddenly a large gaggle of business class people pitched up wanting to board as well, so he had to stop and process them. The whole thing was a bit of a mess, but we got there in the end.
Flight 1 – Paris to Doha
This flight was on a 777 with Q-suites and this time I had selected a seat that was forward facing. The Q-suites setup has even numbered seats facing backwards with the seat positioned closer to the window. The odd numbered seats have a seat slightly further away from the window. I had not tried the forward-facing option before, so today I selected 9B. I honestly don’t think there’s a lot of difference between the two options, as when the door is closed it feels the same. I think the storage locker beside your seat is possibly slightly bigger on the forward-facing version and the rear facing the locker has to be smaller as it fits in the accessway to the aisle. I was offered the usual welcome drink and a towel before take-off. After take-off the usual high standard of service was being deployed. I always enjoy the fact you can not only choose from a huge menu, but you can choose when to eat as well. As I wasn’t massively hungry, I selected the snacks option with a drink and settled in to watch a film. The menu today was a special edition for Formula 1, offering some special dishes. About 2 hours before we landed, I requested my lunch, the stir-fried beef, it was delicious. For dessert I had to have the special Formula 1 Cheesecake, of course, very cool.
Upon landing in Doha, we parked up at a bus gate, but never worry with Qatar, they have business class buses for bus gates, with faux leather full height seats for everyone. We were soon whisked away for quite a long tour around the outside of the new terminal extension they are building on the airport. We arrived into the C-gates area and I went in to find the lounge to wait for my next flight.
Doha airport
I honestly feel like I visited a completely different airport on this occasion. I had never been to the C gates area, and it’s where you will find the new garden area called The Orchard. I had a lovely walk through the garden before I then found my way to the Qatar Garden Lounge. This lounge is located on the upper levels and is a very large open balcony overlooking The Orchard.
I cannot understate how big the lounges are in Doha. They have massively high ceilings, and are spread out over huge areas. I would understand if this was their only lounge, but it’s one of eight!
The lounge has all kinds of seating, a restaurant area, prayer rooms, quiet areas and showers. I selected a seat next to the edge to look at the gardens while I waited.
My next flight was departing from C gates, so I had no need to leave the area, just a short walk down to the gate.
