Category: Travel

Last week, Kuwait Airways launched the Electronic Boarding Pass feature, but oddly, not for Kuwait. It’s pretty strange, I thought it might be because the immigration department needed a physical boarding pass to stamp, but even if you’re just transiting, Kuwait Airways is requiring a physical pass.

On the bright side, it does mean I can now fly out of Dubai a lot more conveniently. One of the disadvantages of flying with Kuwait Airways over Emirates was the fact I had to wait in a queue at the Kuwait Airways check-in desk to get my boarding pass. Now I can just get the digital one when I check in online and then zip through the E-gate as soon as I get to the airport. No waiting in line to check in, and no waiting in line for immigration.

To find out which airports accept the Kuwait Airways E-Pass, click here.

Back in February, I got a tour of a 2,000KD-a-night hotel room but a friend told me there was a more luxurious 4,500KD-a-night room at the St.Regis. So I got in touch with them and after a bit of back and forth getting all the approvals, yesterday I finally got a tour of their 4,500KD-a-night Amiri Suite.

The 400sqm suite was designed to be a luxurious home away from home for royalty, diplomats, and celebrities. The suite can’t be booked online only by phone. It has a beautiful view of JACC and a lot of features including:

• Master Bedroom
• Barber Area
• Meeting Room
• Video Conference Room
• Large Dining Area
• Massage Room
• Fitness Area
• Sauna and Steam Room

Unless someone proves me wrong, I believe this has to be the most expensive hotel room in Kuwait. If you want to see some nicer photos of the room, they a few on the @stregiskuwait website. Link

If you’re looking for something fun and different to do this coming holiday weekend, drive down to Riyadh for the Paul vs Fury fight. Jake Paul, the popular YouTuber turned boxer is fighting Tommy Fury, the brother of two-time heavyweight boxing world champion Tyson Fury. The event is on February 26th and ticket prices start at just 15KD.

Riyadh is just 6 hours away by car and there are plenty of things to do there. If you want fight tickets, click here.

Sam Chui, one of the most popular aviation and travel vloggers in the world was invited to Kuwait by Kuwait Airways recently. That was a couple of weeks ago when the airline made a number of announcements including the revealing of the new flight attendant uniforms. His video of the trip just went up and there really isn’t anything revealing or controversial.

But I did find one thing odd, Sam was getting a tour of the Kuwait Airways headquarters and the CEO mentioned that the building was inspired by the stealth bomber. I thought that was an odd design decision for a civilian airline headquarters.

Back in October, the ultra-low-cost airline Wizz Air started flying out of Kuwait with Abu Dhabi being the first destination. Now they’re adding two more destinations, Rome and Vienna.

Starting this summer, round-trip flights to Vienna from Kuwait will start at 44KD, while flights to Rome will start at 47KD. Both destinations are direct flights, and the prices I shared don’t include add-ons like luggage or picking your seats. If you’re a Wizz Air member (easy to do), you can get the flights even cheaper.

For comparison, the cheapest ticket with Kuwait Airways to Rome is 128KD. After all the add-ons you might want with Wizz Air, expect to save around 40-50% compared to a regular airline ticket. wizzair.com

If you ever wondered what a KD2,000-a-night hotel room looks like, here you go. I originally saw this room last summer when the Grand Hyatt gave me a tour of the hotel, but back then the room was still being accessorized so I didn’t share any photos. A few days ago I went back to see the room because I figured it would make an interesting post.

So here are some facts:
– This is the Presidential Suite
– It’s 260 sq m
– It’s basically a luxurious large apartment, with 2 bedrooms, 3 living rooms, 3 bathrooms, a walk-in closet, a large dining room, a kitchen, and its own private elevator access

I tried to cover the whole room on video in under a minute and barely made it. I even had to leave out some parts like the kitchen and some corridors, that’s how huge the room is. Swipe left for the walkthrough video.

I heard there’s a KD4,500 per night hotel room in Kuwait as well which makes me think I should probably check that out next.

Yesterday Kuwait Airways revealed their new uniforms designed by the Italian fashion house Ettore Bilotta. The fashion house is known for collaborating with many international airlines including Etihad and Turkish Airlines.

Kuwait Airways also announced new flight routes:

Starting from June 2023

Antalya – Athens – Budapest

Starting from October 2023
Abha – Alula – Barcelona – Berlin – Qassim – Taif

I wish the Barcelona route started sooner since I’m meant to be flying there in June and I’d rather not have a stopover anywhere. Having a direct flight to Berlin is also great, it’s been on my to-do list for a few years and a direct flight makes it all the more accessible.

Starting February 2nd, Jazeera Airways will now be flying directly to Moscow. Their introductory fare starts at KD99 and I just tried booking for a date in February and found seats for KD98.960 so this KD99 price is real.

The only thing is the timing of all this seems a bit weird. With the ongoing war against Ukraine, not sure Russia is the best place to take a vacation right now. Simple things like your credit cards won’t even work there. But KD99 is a pretty good deal though.

One of the best things about Istanbul is the food, the Turkish cuisine is really great but I’ve also had one of the best pastas I’ve ever had there (@ilcortileistanbul). They know their food and flavors really well which is why I’ve never had a bad experience.

But, my favorite restaurant in Istanbul is a small place called Yeni. I found it by mistake one night on my first trip to Istanbul and it’s now my go-to place while I’m there.

The menu is based on Turkish cuisine but the chef is always deconstructing classical Turkish dishes into more contemporary and exciting versions. Everything I’ve had there was incredibly flavorful and the presentation is always interesting. You can’t go wrong ordering off the menu blindly, even things I wouldn’t usually eat I make an exception for at Yeni since I know I’ll end up loving whatever I try. They have a tasting menu (9 and 7 courses) but I always go the à la carte direction.

The price is considered to be on the high side for Istanbul and so expect to pay around 20KD per person without drinks or 25KD if you go with the 9-course menu. Reservation is required especially on weekends when they’re super busy. Check them out next time you’re there @yeni.lokanta

I’m currently in Istanbul for the week, my second visit this year. It’s such a beautiful city with so much to do and see which is why I’m back again.

My favorite place to stay while here is at the Soho House Istanbul. It’s the only Soho House location in the world that I’m aware of where you could stay in without being a Soho House member.

It’s a really beautiful hotel located close to many restaurants and bars but also close to a metro station. The rooms like the rest of the hotel are beautifully designed and have large windows that bring in a lot of daylight. At the end of the day, I tend to retreat to the Soho House Club which is a large mansion next door that once served as the United States Consulate in Istanbul. It can be best described as a really large lounge occupying multiple floors and rooms with a couple of bars, a members-only restaurant, a games room, and usually a DJ playing great music.

The hotel also houses Cecconi’s, the popular Italian restaurant which more people seem to know about than the hotel itself. There really isn’t any other place I’d want to stay in while here so check them out if you’re ever heading to Istanbul sohohouse.com

Over the weekend I visited Riyadh to check out the Noor Festival. Noor means light in Arabic and I think they have around 44 different installations located all around Riyadh for this festival. Some of the installations are really epic and I mainly went to check out two, the one above by SpY Studio, and the one below by Arne Quinze.

All the installations are free to check out although for some it seemed like they required to get free tickets so I did, but then nobody was checking for tickets.

I only wanted to spend one night in Riyadh so I was rushing from one place to another to check out the installations. It was Friday which meant there wasn’t much traffic which was great. The Arne Quinze installation was located around an hour outside Riyadh in the middle of nowhere so that took the longest to get to. It was actually located on the same road into Riyadh coming from Kuwait (I only realized the second day on my way back to Kuwait) so if you leave Kuwait around 11AM you could get there just in time for sunset, check it out, and then continue into the city.

I got to Riyad around 1PM had lunch, checked into my hotel, had coffee, and then drove back out of Riyadh for an hour to get to the installation and another hour coming back. I also spent an hour at the location because there was a second installation (photo above) right next to it, So the Arne Quinze installation took the most amount of time to check out but it was definitely worth it.

Finding the different installations was easy since Noor Riyadh has an app showing all the different installations on a map. All the locations open up on Google Maps so find them was simple. I say you’d need 2 nights in Riyadh to visit most of the ones you’re interested in, especially if you want to do other things in Riyadh. I wanted to also visit Riyadh Boulevard City (tickets from here) and have dinner there at Public (it was great), but that meant by around 10 PM I decided to stop checking out the installations and head there, without Boulevard City I would probably have been able to check out maybe 2 to 4 more installations I was interested in.

Traveling to Riyadh is easy as I’ve posted before and if you live in Kuwait then it’s really easy to get an evisa. There wasn’t any traffic at the borders leaving Friday morning but there was traffic coming in on Saturday afternoon and I ended up spending 30 minutes at the Saudi side of the border.

For more information on Noor Riyadh and to download the app, visit their Instagram @noorriyadhfestival and their website riyadhart.sa/en/noor-riyadh

The last day of the festival is Saturday, November 19th.

I like how the GCC is starting to open up to each other. After Saudi opened its borders to GCC residents a few weeks ago, now Oman announced that any GCC resident could enter Oman without even needing a visa (source).

I have to embarrassingly confess I’ve never been to Oman but it is on my to-do list. I’ve actually been thinking of just driving there since it’s definitely a place I’d want to have a car and go driving around for a couple of weeks. From the pictures, it seems like such a beautiful and chill place, and it’s so close to Kuwait.

It doesn’t look like there are any conditions for entering Oman other than the fact that your Kuwaiti residency should be valid for a minimum of three months. I’m sure this is great news for a lot of people.

Starting October 30th, the ultra-low-cost airline, Wizz Air will begin operating daily flights to Kuwait from Abu Dhabi. Wizz Air Abu Dhabi is partially owned by the Hungarian Wizz Air but is majority owned by ADQ (formerly called Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding Company) and operates out of the Abu Dhabi International Airport.

I just tried booking a weekend flight to Abu Dhabi and ended up with a $49 two-way ticket which equates to around 15.5KD, so this price is real. But, because it’s a budget airline, you pay for every single extra thing you need. So for example, the $49 doesn’t allow you to take a carry-on bag on the plane, just a backpack. If you want a carry-on, that’s an extra 9$ each way but you could fit a weekend’s worth of clothes in a backpack so it shouldn’t be too difficult to keep your ticket price under $50 .

15KD to fly to Abu Dhabi for the weekend is a really great price obviously, thats cheaper than a padel court rental. Once you’re in Abu Dhabi there are quite a lot of things to do including visiting Ferrari World or the beautiful Louvre Abu Dhabi (pictured above). You could also rent a car and split your time between Abu Dhabi and Dubai which is just an hour away. I’m sure as more demand kicks in the prices will go up but for now, if you want to take advantage of the 15KD tickets, you should get your ticket asap. wizzair.com

LPM

Since getting a visa to Saudi is so easy now I figured I’d share a list of some popular fine dining restaurants in Riyadh. Fine dining isn’t something we have a lot of in Kuwait so turning a trip to Riyadh into a dining experience is really easy.

AOK Kitchen

When I’m driving to Riyadh I tend to get there around lunch and Cipriani is usually my first stop. I actually think about lunch during the drive since it’s like a reward at the end of the long journey. Anyway, check out the list below of some of the popular fine dining spots in Riyadh:

Beefbar

Amazonico
AOK Kitchen
Beefbar
Billionaire
Cipriani
Coya
LPM
Myazu
Nobu
Nusret
Zuma

If there is anything else you think should be on the list let me know:

The Skytrax World Airline Awards 2022 was announced and although Kuwait Airways was nowhere near the top of the list, they did make it as one of the top 10 most improved airlines for 2022. Kuwait Airways moved up from 179th place to 76th place which is 103 places in just a year. This year’s best airline on the other hand award went to Qatar Airways while Emirates came in third place.

Here is a link to the top 10 most improved airlines list.
and Here is a link to the “World’s Top 100 Airlines in 2022” list.