20251007 Viking Gems of China and Japan Day 3 - Doha, Qatar to Beijing, China

Viking Gems of China and Japan Day 3 - We arrive in China

After getting a snack in the Qatar lounge in Doha, we moved to the lounge's outer area with more comfy seats and charging plugs to top off phones and laptops. With a couple of hours still to go until our flight, we had time to kill. 

The Qatar Airlines Business Class lounge here in Doha is enormous. There is an upper restaurant area with a buffet and an open bar. The lower area has a light bites area on one end and a ton of casual seating spread out through the middle area. It wasn't overwhelmed with travelers, so we thought it was very nice.

We've been in several business class lounges all over the world, and recently, every one we've been in has been a zoo. Montréal's lounges were almost standing room only. Istanbul's lounge is also huge and offers a ton of food. But wow, it was hard to navigate through there because of all the people. The Al Mourjan Business Class Lounge has been a pleasant surprise.

The next surprise was boarding. We boarded our very modern Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner via stairs. Yup, no jetway. The plane was parked out on the tarmack and a bunch of busses were used to transport everyone to the jet. We schlepped our carry-ons up the stairs and got settled in to Boeing's inferior (but still way better than coach) business class pods. They just aren't as comfortable or roomy as ones we've experienced on Airbus aircraft.

The flight was operated by XiamenAir, again, a bit of a step down. We've been spoiled with hundreds of in-flight movies choices, including new releases. Here we're XiamenAir's offering, not counting Chinese movies. Not much new.

Oh well, we made due for the 7.25-hour flight.

A little after 2 pm Beijing time, we started our approach into the airport.

The haze looked worse from the air than it was on the ground

Luggage retrieval and immigration went smoothly. We walked out of the secure area and found our  Viking rep waiting for us. We met another couple who are on this journey. As it turns out, they live in the Orlando area and were on all three flights with us. Funny how that works.

Our ride to the hotel was a Buick

The four of us, and our luggage all needed to fit in this vehicle. It didn't go well. Arlona was in the third row seat with two large bags. A small bag sat between the seats in the middle row and my backpack was between my knees.

The drive took almost 90 minutes in the crazy Beijing traffic.

We arrived at the Ritz-Carlton and got checked in.

We have full international phone coverage with our Verizon cell phone plan. As soon as we landed, I turned on the phone and immediately had coverage. I engaged my Nord VPN so I knew I could access services at home like Facebook and Google. All was right with the digital world.

Then, we got to the hotel. Like we always do, we turned on Wi-Fi and joined the MarriottBonvoy network without issue. Well, there was one issue. We couldn't do anything online. OK, we expected that since China locks down the internet. I turned NordVPN on and...nothing. it couldn't connect to a VPN server. After doing a little investigating, it appears that the hotel's network blocks VPN traffic. This means the Wi-Fi is useless.

So what, right? Well, not if you write a blog. Without my laptop to process photos, doing the blog while we're in China is going to be a challenge.

Trying to use the desktop interface from a tiny phone screen, and without a mouse and all it's clicky goodness is already proving to be difficult.

Having to process photos on my laptop and then transfer them to my phone so I can include them in the blog is another hurdle. Perhaps it will be different in the next hotel. But, if I lose cellular data, I'm dead in the water.

So, we will see how it goes. Don't get too mad if there gaps in travel coverage until I get clean internet access.

We settled in into the room. It is a pleasure staying in a hotel civilized enough to have a bidet.

Ahh, the simple pleasures

Of course, you can't drink the tap water, so I guess it's all about tradeoffs.

A little later,  wandered across the street to a shopping mall. There was a huge food court, but we couldn't make sense of what everything was. Couple that with the fact that the exhaustion from this marathon trip started landing in earnest and we weren't feeling adventurous. We came back to the hotel and got club sandwiches for dinner.

The weather today was lovely in Beijing. Partly cloudy and temps in the 70s. Tomorrow looks like 60s and rain and it goes downhill from there. Tomorrow at 10:30, we will go on a tour that will take us to Forbidden City & Tiananmen Square. Our real adventure begins then.

China is our 109th country.

20251006 Viking Gems of China and Japan Day 1-2 - Orlando to Beijing Marathon Steps 1 & 2

Viking Gems of China and Japan Day 1-2 - We're off for another Adventure

We're off today for our next travel adventure. As you can see from the AI-generated tags above, this will be a marathon travel day. I'll cover the first leg today and catch up with the rest tomorrow.

So, where are we traveling to this time? We are taking Viking's Gems of China and Japan trip that involves a combination of flights and a cruise. In addition, we added a pre-stay and a post-stay.

We will arrive in Beijing, China, on Tuesday afternoon. We will have the rest of the day to recover from the marathon travel to get there. We will then have three days in Beijing to see the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and other highlights. We will fly to Xi'an and see the famed terra cotta warriors. Next up is a flight to Lhasa, Tibet, for a couple of days, and then Chengdu and a visit to the panda base. We will return to Beijing and board the Viking Yi Dun. We'll sail south along China's east coast before heading to Jeju Island, South Korea, and multiple ports in Japan. When the cruise ends in Tokyo, we will fly to Mongolia and transfer to the Gobi Desert for a three-day stay in luxury yurts. Then, we'll have another marathon day flying back home. The whole trip will last about a month.

Here's a look at our entire travel plan to get there.

Packing for me started yesterday.

Arlona got a jump on it the day before. It's funny how different people have different packing styles. We know folks who start packing two weeks ahead of a two-week trip. We packed two (or one) day ahead of a month-long journey. This trip is tricky. We will have days in the 60s or 70s mixed with days potentially in the 20s in Mongolia. Still, we were able to get everything into one checked bag and one carry-on each. The Mongolia extension is every trickier as we're limited to one checked bag of 33 pounds and a personal item. We'll pack for three days in our carry-on bags and check them. The hotel will hold our other bags until we return after the extension.

Our bags, getting ready for more travel

Our driver picked us up at 4 PM and whisked us to Orlando International Airport for our first flight. The trip to Orlando was uneventful.  We sailed through TSA - yay PreCheck - and arrived at our gate. 

After sitting at our gate - gate 231 - for a while, they announced - you know that gate 235 you passed way back on the way here - go back there since we moved the flight over there

We're traveling in business class, but Viking, cheapskates that they are, only guarantee business class on international flights. This means that for the price of a business class ticket, we're flying JetBlue economy to JFK. Wow.

Not for the long-legged

Turning to launch in Orlando

Other than a couple of minor bumps, the flight to JFK was fine. The pilot absolutely greased the landing.

All those lights in the air are inbound flights

I have one thing to say about JFK in New York. Avoid it at all costs. We landed in Terminal 5. We needed to get to Terminal 8. Were there signs? Nope. None.  With the help of some friendly workers, we walked the 765 miles (perhaps an exaggeration, but not by much).  It took an extensive walk from Terminal 5 to catch the Airtrain. We rode it two stops to Terminal 8.  Then, we had to visit the Qatar Airways ticket counter as JetBlue couldn't ticket us for the entire route. The Qatar Airways desk was nuts at 11 PM.

Next up was another pass through TSA. No big deal because we're Pre-Check, right? Nope. TSA Pre-Check closes at 9:30 at JFK. We have to take laptops out for the first time in the US in more than a decade. Then, we had to hoof it to gate 47. We had three hours between flights. We got to our gate, and they began boarding 15 minutes later.

We boarded nearly an hour early for the flight. At least this was a legitimate business class, and we could get something to drink. I tried Qatar Airlines' special lime and mint drink, and it was quite tasty.

Arlona, settling into her Q-Suite pod 4J for the 12-ish hour flight on the Airbus A350-1000 - the pods even had doors

I was two rows ahead in 2J, but that didn't last. The power port wouldn't supply power, so I couldn't charge my phone. Then, the seat power failed when my seat was fully reclined. That took some doing to extricate myself without being able to put my feet down. They couldn't get it working again. Lucky for me, it wasn't a full flight, so I relocated to 4G and all was good.

The food was good, not great, and served on demand - it was much better than JetBlue's Goldfish crackers and Biscoff cookies

A short twelve hours later, with sleep, meals, and movies blurred together, we landed in Doha, Qatar, at about 8:30 pm local time on Monday, October 6. With the time change and long flight, we essentially flew the day away. We have about five hours here, so we wandered a bit and looked the the shops.

Need a McLaren?

Lamp Bear is a 23-foot-tall sculpture and a prominent feature in Hamad International Airport in Doha

We found our way to the Al Mourjan Business Class Lounge for Qatar Airlines customers. We grabbed some Diet Cokes and relaxed in more comfy seats than those at the gate. Our flight to Beijing doesn't leave until 1:45 AM  local time.

While this upcoming final leg is a Qatar code-share flight, it is actually operated by XiamenAir on a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. We will arrive in Beijing at 2:10 PM China Standard Time on Tuesday, October 7. 

So for now, we're going to hang out in the lounge here in Doha waiting for our flight. As I finish this, it is 10 PM, Doha time, or 3 PM Orlando time.  Tomorrow - Beijing and our first steps in Mainland China.