Dubai Marathon Trip – Doha Premium Terminal / Qatar Airways First Class Lounge (Part 5)

This is Part 5 of my Dubai Marathon Trip series. It will focus on the Doha Premium Terminal and the Qatar Airways First Class Lounge in Doha. It will also have the final leg of the Qatar Airways business class to Dubai. I will be pumping out the rest of the series quickly as I am excited about the parts to come!

dubai marathon trip – introduction

dubai marathon trip – cathay pacific first class (part 1)

dubai marathon trip – cathay pacific business class (part 2)

dubai marathon trip – colombo airport / serenediva hotel (part 3)

Dubai Marathon Trip – Araliya Lounge / Qatar Airways Business Class (Part 4)

Doha Premium Terminal

When you check-in for a Qatar Airways flight, you receive a specially-colored ticket jacket if you are traveling in business class or first class. Your baggage tags are also colored the same way. If you are an economy class passenger continuing on, you will receive a different colored jacket. If you are finishing your travel in Doha, you receive yet another different colored jacket. When you arrive at the airport, you get a bus that will take you to the appropriate location. In my case, I had the jacket for the Premium Terminal. The premium terminal was a very nice building that caters to business and first class passengers on the various airlines that come in Doha. It is very wide-open and very nicely lit. I didn’t take too much time looking around the terminal as I only had a short layover (made even shorter by our mis-executed approach) and I wanted to check out the First Class Lounge. Now, on both of my Qatar flights, I was in business class (there was no first class available). However, on my Doha – Dubai flight, my ticket was coded as a First Class ticket. I wondered why they had asked me at the check-in in Sri Lanka if I was in First Class (especially since I was technically in Business Class, but with a First Class ticket designator). This was why – they had given me a invitation to the first class lounge because of my ticket.

Qatar First Class Lounge

Inside the Doha Premium Terminal, there are various lounges for the different airlines. Because this is the hub airport for Qatar Airways, it would be expected that the Qatar lounges would be the best in the airport. I didn’t check the other lounges (including the business class lounge) but the first class lounge did not disappoint. I really wish I had more time in the lounge. They have a spa, rest rooms, and fantastic buffets throughout the lounge. They did a fantastic job in the layout as it will seat many people without feeling squished as with domestic lounges.

The internet was great, the food I did have was very tasty (just some small pastries, remember, marathon the next day!), and the seating extremely comfortable.

Believe it or not, one can get board if one spends too much time at once in an airport lounge. However, this lounge is one that I could have stayed in for quite a while. They had an eating area with a great buffet and waiter service. So, you could get all of your meals for one day right here!

When I left for my flight, I headed downstairs to the gate area. All of the gates are quite close to each other. The reason is that you do not board the flight from the terminal. You wait for your luxury bus to come and pick you up. That is what we did. It was a really nice vehicle – especially for such a short ride!

Qatar Airways Doha – Dubai

I had been looking forward to this flight as it was supposed to be on the new Boeing Dreamliner 787. Qatar had been very proud of their seats on this new flight and they had been running it on this short route as a promo until they began to use it on some of their long-haul routes.

Qatar Airways was the last of the airlines to stop using the 787 after problems began to arise on various planes with the batteries. Qatar stopped running the 787 just shortly before my flight. I guess it is better to be safe, but I really had been wanting to fly on the Dreamliner! 🙂

Instead, it was back on the Airbus A321 – the same type of plane I took to Doha. At least I had chocolate this time!

It was just a quick flight to Dubai where the fun really began! That one coming very soon!