The trip home

We left Madrid on time for our 5 hour flight to Doha landing about 11:30pm. The immigration hall was a total zoo - at least 1000 people in a slow moving queue. I inquired about a queue for first class passengers and was directed to another much shorter slow moving queue - we finally cleared immigration around midnight then caught a taxi to the Hilton Doha, Diplomatic District - we were finally settled into our room, upgraded to a huge suite, around 1am. So it was off to bed.

The following morning we had breakfast then went to pool for swim - it was so hot you could not walk on the tiling around the pool in bare feet. Since our flight was not until 8:30pm we organised a taxi to take us on a bit of tour around Doha, stopping for photos here and there - then dropping us at the airport at 4:30pm.

We thought we could enjoy the First class lounge but alas they wouldn't let me with my lowly business class ticket so we made our way to the business lounge which was fine. We had something to eat and finally boarded our flight home, Dieter in the front of the bus and me in business. It was a 380 so no QSuites - seating was much like Air Canada so I was not overly impressed particularly when my pre-departure Champagne was not cold - I returned it to an indifferent flight attendant. The service in First did not knock Dieter's socks off either but at least his Champagne was cold. In all fairness my post departure Champagne was cold.

There were only 3 passengers in F but J was SRO and as it came to pass Dieter tested positive for Covid a few days after arriving home - I did too a few days later - so the 10 or so days after getting home were very quiet.