Here is my first report of our family’s journey to the Bridges tour.
There are nine in our family, two grandparents, four parents and three grandchild ages 7, 10 and 10.
We organized a transport service from our homes just northwest of Philadelphia to JFK the evening of July 11th and stayed at the TWA airport hotel which was the original TWA terminal building ingeniously converted and a cool place to stay. We chose to fly from JFK because we wanted to fly Qatar airways and they stopped flying from Philly airport late last year….AA took over the route there and we have tried it and everything is far inferior to the Qatar experience.
Our flight to Doha was at 11-20 am the next day. My husband and I flew business class and everyone else economy.
On arrival at Doha 11 hours later, we had arranged to be collected by a pre arranged concierge service…..this cost $400 for the family. Most flights do not stop at the terminal so you have to walk down the plane steps and get on a bus to the terminal. Two ladies carrying signs with our names on were waiting at the base of the plane steps. Once business class deplaned, one of the women went into the plane and the rest of our family were called to disembark in front of everyone else! Which caused embarrassment from our family. We got onto one of the buses with just two other people and proceeded to drive around the same building three times, we could not figure out why, but it was busy. To our delight, the bus stopped right outside of the boarding gate for our next flight which was due to start boarding within thirteen minutes. We were escorted to the front of the boarding line! Three of us had platinum plus status. This is the third time we have used this service, we did not have to go through security either.
On our first Bridges tour last year, we decided to wear matching t Shirts which our daughter designed and printed, so we wore them again for the journey. Some people might think that’s a cheesy thing to do, but actually it was perfect for identifying us as a group, especially, as it turns out, we were being lead in front of everyone else!
Our next flight to JRO, Kilimanjaro airport had one stop over in Dar Es Salaam, where most people got off the plane but we stayed on, this part was a six hour flight. Not many people got onto the flight from here, so when we arrived at JRO airport one hour later, we were near the front of the immigration line that was for people who had acquired E visas.
As reported earlier in the month, credit here to SeaLord of the forum, the airport now want to see your boarding pass before you enter the terminal building.
Luggage appeared fairly quickly, you have to put it through an X-ray machine before you exit the building.
There was a large number of people waiting with signs outside. Instead of spotting the Tauck sign, I spotted a medium blue McBridges sign. There were two vehicles, one to carry the luggage and one to carry us. The drive to the Gran Melia hotel was a good hour long through small towns and villages with these being packed with people, many on motorbikes, it was a Saturday evening. The landscape around was typical flat African bush land with some mountains in the background. The land at the side of the roads had many sunflower and cornfields and a few rice fields. There were some large heavy and slow trucks on the road which took a while to safely pass at times. The usual sight of people walking along the roadside. Herds of cattle and goats, the latter being corralled by young boys with a dog and a few donkeys used for transport. The driver kept a running commentary of everything we saw and it was particularly interesting to hear that Tanzania is self sufficient in food.
We eventually came to the hotel which is about six years old, a very large gated five star property. By this time it was just about dark. We were allocated our rooms, had very quick showers and then headed for one of the restaurants on the roof. It was very busy. We ate and then went to bed. Just as we we leaving we met up with the Sue K of the forum.
Our room is on the fourth floor, clean and modern, good lighting. Electric sockets are international. There is bottled water in the room, tea and coffee facilities. I’m writing this in ‘Notes’ and then trying to get back to sleep. Good night!
