Air France-KLM study trip to St Maarten

The last week in January, I was one of the fortunate participants on a 2-day study trip, hosted by Air France and KLM. Our destination was sunny St Maarten - a bit far to travel when you actually have less than 48 hours on the ground, some would say, but it was perfectly pleasant.

Click the links below to read about the flights.

Merci & dank u well to Air France and KLM for a very exciting and informative trip!

Our outbound flight Paris CDG-St Maarten on Air France

Our return flight St Maarten-Amsterdam on KLM

Changing flights at Paris CDG Terminal 2

... and pictures of planes at Airport Beach St Maarten :-)

Muscat Souq

Just for info, pics from the souq can be seen over at my private blog

http://tbs2810.blogspot.com/2010/02/lille-update-med-bedler.html

Desert Nights Camp Wahiba Sands

This is not the place to book for a business traveller - it's in the middle of nowhere, also known as the desert. But great for holiday travellers looking for 1-2 nights away from city life, or for incentive travel. Activities include camel riding, crazy jeep driving (yay!), those funny little 4-wheel motorbikes, and just relaxing and enjoying the warm night in the desert.

This is a 5-star beduin dream come true - though in actual fact, probably only 4 stars as there is no pool. They were building a bar but were not licensed to serve alcohol yet. In my opinion it was true luxury, unbelievably quiet when you went to sleep, and lovely to wake up and see the morning mist. Good food, too! Only 2 hours drive from Muscat

Accommodation - will sleep 2, but I had it all to myself:

What the rest of the place looks like:

 Reception house

My house!

Nighttime view from my house towards dining/reception buildings

This is where I had my breakfast the next morning

Outdoors dining area, there are dining rooms to the left and right, the buffet

is behind the sitting area

Food made to look pretty

Early morning in the desert

Camel driver (??) + apprentice

Pictures can't really tell how funny it is to drive up and down the dunes

Sunset

Wheeeee!!! :-)

Spotted on the way home from Wahiba Sands: In Oman, they don't have dogwalkers. But they do have camel walkers...

All you need is a jeep and a bit of rope, and you're in business!

http://www.omanhotels.com/desertnightscamp/

Hotel Muscat Holiday

We didn't stay at this hotel so I can't tell you if the beds were soft or how the breakfast is. But we did get a tour of the place plus lunch. The hotel is located midway between the airport and the central business district where a lot of government offices are. Muscat is such a big place, that I have no real idea how long it would take to get to e.g. the souq, but I would guess about 15 minutes by car. The area itself is not all that interesting (but not unpleasant), but in my opinion the interesting part of town is down by the harbour and the souq, and I didn't see any hotels there.  I don't know how many stars this hotel has, but my impression is 4-4½ and it is more upmarket than the Al Falaj where we stayed. I would recommend this hotel for business travellers, it's very close to the main road between the airport and the town so I would guess handy for going wherever you need to go in Muscat. They also have great conference facilities

The rooms:

Standard room

Pool and fitness room:

Dining room/restaurant:

OK, indulge me for a bit. No pictures of the actual room, just the buffet (and only a selection of the pictures I took). Quite simply the best lunch I had had in a long time, huge dilemmas about how much of each dish to eat to ensure I had room for everything, including dessert. And, according to other members of the party, the best hommous ev-ah. They even got the chef out of the kitchen to share his secrets! Unfortunately, I was preoccupied with the sweets so did not have time to make notes. But really, great restaurant!

Le buffet

                                     

                                      

                                     

'Twas goooooood.....

http://www.muscat-holiday.com/

Al Falaj Hotel Muscat

This 3-star hotel boasts a prime location in the heart of the city. I don't know about that - but then again, Muscat strikes me as a very large, widespread city, so exactly where its heart is, I couldn't tell.  The neighbourhood is, to be honest, not very interesting, but it is true that by car you have very easy access to the main roads/highways and it only takes about 15 minutes (again, by car) to get to the harbour/souq area, and 5-10 minutes in the other direction takes you to a huge hypermarket.

In my opinion the hotel deserves its 3 stars. It is an average standard hotel, tourist class or for the business traveller who just needs a place to sleep. The staff is very friendly and all the people I spoke to spoke very good English.

The rooms:

Standard room

Mekka - this way!

Nighttime view of Muscat

The hotel is next to what I first thought was a local mosque - but it turned out to be a

banqueting hall (no noise though)

View from my room, looking away from the city

Pool area and fitness facilities:

View from the pool to the breakfast room (decent breakfast, catering for Western as well as Middle Eastern travellers. Eggs/omelettes cooked to order. Nice to eat breakfast outside by the pool!)

The gym is well equipped. It is also open to non-residents so they have quite a lot of members

The hotel has a bar at the top floor which serves alcohol. There is also (quite surprisingly I thought) a Japanese restaurant and apparently it's the best in town and very popular with Asian travellers. On the ground floor there is a Sports Bar (also licensed) which shows football matches etc. (smoking permitted)

Traditional low Japanese dining table - but for people who are not accustomed to sitting on the

floor with their legs crossed, there is a hole in the floor under the table! :-)

The Sports Bar

http://www.alfalajhotel.com/

KLM Muscat-Amsterdam-Billund in Business Class

There's always something exotic about airports in the Middle East. 

The luggage...

The fluffy luggage...

The flight departures to...well..I couldn't say for sure...

The sultan waving goodbye. "Please come again"...

Check-in is in a separate hall, your baggage is scanned before you get to the check-in area and there is quite a queue. -Though, of course, if you're travelling Business Class, you just walk to the head of the queue. And hope the other passengers can see that you so obviously belong in Business Class, because there aren't any signs so you might just be a queue-jumper and you have heard of air-rage (on the ground).  It went off without a hitch, check-in was fairly smooth and if there isn't a group of 10 travel agents ahead of you, you don't have to queue much. If you're in Business Class that is (oh, I said that before? Well, it does suit me fantastically)

The airport in Muscat is fairly tame. Get there 2 hours before your flight, but expect to be a little bit bored once you're through check-in and security.

KLM have a good Business Class service. I liked it much better than Economy, but who doesn't?  Except for one (ze cabin general?) the flight attendants were very friendly, friendlier than Lufthansa but not as friendly as SAS (the Swedish ones) but that is probably just a coincidence :-)

The Airbus 330-200 has lie-flat seats in Business Class, but in the fully reclined position they're actually sort of at an angle even though the seat itself probably is 180 degrees. The seat is extremely comfortable when it is in its "almost-flat" position (for reading or relaxing) but when you recline it fully to go to sleep, it feels a bit awkward, you have the feeling that any minute you will start sliding down and end up in a crumpled heap on the floor. (KLM is not the only airline with that kind of seat).

Welcome on board! The pillow was great by the way.

With a seat like this, you will never be bored...

I love these. I can't help it!

I snuck behind the curtain to take a picture of the Economy Comfort seats. That is a couple of rows in the front of the Economy cabin (free of charge in B+S class, or if you have a Flying Blue Gold card). You get a bit more legroom than in the normal Economy Class seats...

But not as much as in Business Class! :-)

The flight from Muscat to Amsterdam takes about 8½ hours, but a lot of that time is spent on the short hop to Abu Dhabi (passengers getting on and the aircraft taking on fuel again (they also did that on the outbound flight so I'm guessing fuel is cheaper in Abu Dhabi than in Muscat?) so "please do not leave your seats but please leave seat belt unfastened") and then there's dinner and we don't want to miss that, so even though it's a night flight do not expect a full, good night's sleep, lie-flat seat or not.

They were very good and served dinner very soon after take-off from Abu Dhabi.

Noodle-egg thing. Tasty dessert (again! the Dutch do good desserts)

And then it was time for a lie-down. But even though I did sleep, I wouldn't have minded a couple of extra hours.

Much too soon I was woken up by a flight attendant happily chatting away in Dutch. Breakfast was served and all the passengers in Business Class got a little present, a Delft House - I think some frequent travellers are avid collectors; one guy took ages agonising over which house to choose and even had a little booklet so he could check which ones he already had.

 

 

 "You are here" - or, you will be in a few minutes. The monitors also show the gates of the flights passengers are connecting to within 30-60 minutes of landing, so they can Be Prepared. For transit in Amsterdam, see separate post)

The full moon reflected in one of the canals around Schiphol

Arrival at Schiphol was on time, we mostly spent our waiting time for the Billund flihgt hanging round the lounge (which is nice, and huge, but has lousy breakfast, sorry KLM. You should get the dessert guys to run it) and then got on the flight to Billund. Within Europe KLM doesn't call it Business Class, you travel Europe Select (clever naming so you're not fooled into expecting too much?).  You do get more legroom and a nicer meal than the poor sods in the back. I would say it is on the same level as SAS and Lufthansa (who do call it Business Class)

Those are my knees. And aaaall the way over there is the seat in front

Yummy. Like I said, KLM do great desserts!

Thank you KLM. We like the retro paint job!