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As I mentioned in my previous post on my stay in Marrakesh, my main reason going there was for a ski holiday. Not many people consider Marrakesh as a ski destination and even I didn’t even know they had slopes until a friend pitched the idea. Preparing for the trip was a bit of a pain since there was very very little information online on skiing in Marrakesh. I couldn’t even find a website that told me if it had snowed in the mountains or if the slopes were even open. All I knew is that the ski slopes were around an hour and a half drive from the main city and located in an area called Oukaimeden. Originally I wanted to take my own snowboard and boots with me since I wasn’t sure I could rent gear over there but, since I didn’t even know if the slopes were open, I decided not to go through the hassle and instead just took my snowboarding clothes with me.

Once my friends and me were in Marrakesh we asked around if there was snow in Oukaimeden and to our relief turns out there was. We rented a car with a driver and headed out to the slopes the following day. We ended up leaving the medina at around 9:30AM and arrived to the slopes before noon. The road to the top of the mountain was small and not very eventful except for this one incident involving a camel. Some people have camels on the side of the road for tourists to sit on and take photos and one went wild and ran into the middle of the road just as my driver was speeding to overtake another car on the road. Luckily we missed the camel which continued running down the run barely missing other cars.

Once we arrived to the slopes things got a bit intense. Two of my friends had never snowboarded before and needed an instructor. We spotted some guys hanging around on the side of the road and when they noticed we were tourists they all attacked our car. Turns out they were all instructors / guides and started arguing amongst each other on who saw us first and who should get us. Too dramatic but understandable since it’s a very poor country and everyone is trying to make a living. After having our driver translate for us we found out that they charge 100dhms an hour to take care of us either by instructing or just helping us get around. 100dhms is just KD3 so we each took a guide and headed towards the best equipment rental store to get our gear.

Their best equipment rental store was ghetto, like if your local bakala decided to rent out 90s ski gear (including neon colored one piece ski suits). But, compared to the alternative (people renting boots and equipment on the side of the road) this place seemed like a great find. Renting boots and a snowboard cost us 250dhms (KD7.7) each for the day, which I think was expensive compared to everything else. I think we could have gotten them even cheaper if we had asked for the gear for half a day or at least haggled. Once we got our stuff we headed to the first slope. A day ski pass to access the slopes is just 50dhms (KD1.5) which is the cheapest I’ve paid anywhere… ever. The bottom of the slopes was pretty packed but once you get the lift and head to the top its empty. That’s because many people just play with the snow at the bottom of the slopes or ride sleds. There aren’t many people who ski and there weren’t any other tourists from what I could tell.

One thing I found interesting is there were people walking around the slopes selling coffee and traditional Moroccan sweets. There was even a stand where you could pick up a bowl of steaming hot snails (a delicacy over there) if you wanted to. It’s actually pretty smart especially if you’re looking for a bit of an energy boost.

After spending sometime at the first slope we then decided to tackle their largest and steepest slope but that was a bit of a distance away. Our guides gave us three options of getting there:

1) Drive there by car
2) Walk
3) Take a donkey ride

Obviously we opted for the donkey ride which was a ton of fun and something again I hadn’t experienced in any other ski slope in the world.

Their highest slope was insanely cool and according to my guide 3000m high. The ride to the top was fairly long, maybe around 20 minutes and the closer we got to the summit the worst the visibility got. It was extremely foggy with a visibility of around 10m or so. Once we got off the lift at the top I couldn’t tell where the slope started and just figured I’d accidently end up flying off a cliff on my way down. But my guide knew the route by heart, which was great since we were going to snowboard down the slope blindly. It had snowed all night and there was a blizzard while we were at the top so the snow was fantastically deep and powdery.

Getting a guide was the smartest thing I did since I really couldn’t see shit the first half of the route down. I kept yelling at him that I couldn’t see and he just kept yelling back that if I see rocks to start turning the other way. Simple obvious advice but it worked.

Anyway I got to the bottom of the slope in one piece even though I did face plant on more than one occasion. Would I recommend skiing in Marrakesh? Hell yes I would, it’s a wonderful experience and they have enough strange characteristics to make the experience unique to them. It’s also a very affordable ski experience, one of the cheapest I’m aware of. Since it’s difficult to find information online what I would recommend to do if you’re interested in skiing in Marrakesh is to call a hotel there and ask them if the slopes are open. I would also do a search for #oukaimeden on instagram since I found a few photos of people on the slopes that way. If anyone has any questions let me know.

Last week I ended up going to Marrakesh for the weekend on a ski trip. Originally me and my friends were supposed to go snowboarding in France but on the days we wanted to go there was school break so we figured the slopes would be packed. So we decided to fly out from Paris to Marrakesh and go snowboarding there instead. That turned out to be the best idea ever and one of the reasons the trip turned out so great was because of where we stayed in Marrakesh, Riad Mena & Beyond.

The old medina of Marrakesh is packed with houses all stuck together and many have been turned into guest houses which they call riads. The guest houses are usually very similar in structure, a large courtyard in the middle and rooms located around it. I’m not sure how I found out about Riad Mena & Beyond but I do remember that when I first saw the pictures I knew it was where I wanted to stay.

Riad Mena & Beyond is located very close to the main medina square where everything takes place in. It’s around a 10 minute walk from the chaos of the square but the area the actual riad is in is very quiet and calm. Then once you’re inside the riad you can’t hear anything taking place outside and so you’re in a completely different world. The riads architecture is very traditional but the owner has managed to tastefully combine contemporary furniture with it and she even managed to fit a Pod chair into the environment and still make it work.

I was upgraded to The Grand room which is a suite and the largest room in the riad. I had seen pictures of the room but only once I walked in did I realize how big it truly was. I couldn’t even snapchat the room all in one snap since walking from one side to the other needed more than 10 seconds. It was such a beautiful room and super cozy, I loved coming back at the end of the day and just chilling in the room which even has its own fireplace.

The riad itself is a great place to just hang around and chill in as well. There are lots of spaces you can just lay around and lounge in even on the roof if you want to tan or just enjoy the beautiful weather. That means even if there are other people staying at the riad you could still have your private space for you and your friends.

I only had two issues with the Mena & Beyond and both were fairly minor (as in they’re easy to fix). The first was with the riads wifi. At night it would sometimes work or sometimes not work in my room, it was very random but not a deal breaker for me since I was trying to stay away from the web as much as I could anyway. The other issue I had was with the breakfast which mostly consisted of various traditional bread with jams and butter. Exciting the first day but couldn’t stand it anymore by the third day.

Riad Mena & Beyond is a very new guesthouse that just opened up this past September. I really loved the space and I would not only recommend it to friends (which I’ve already done) but it’s where I’m staying the next time I’m back in Marrakesh again. Prices start at 140euro a night all the way up to 350euro for The Grand room which I stayed in. Here is a link to their website with a ton of great photos of the place [Link]

When the BeoPlay A2 was first announced back in October, the first thing I did was head over to the local Bang & Olufsen dealer to find out when they were going to get it. I own two other B&O products which I love; the B&O A7 and the BeoLit 12 and since I had been looking to get a travel speaker for sometime now, I knew I also wanted the A2.

Two things sold me on the A2, the first is the way it looks (I fell in love with the green model right away) and the second was the 24 hour battery life.

The A2 ended up arriving to Kuwait just a few days before my trip to Cape Town which was perfect timing since I was hoping to take the speaker with me on that trip. They had received only one green speaker and I made sure I would be the first one to get it. The price was KD150, around KD30 more expensive than Amazon but since I had a good relationship with the local dealer and since I wanted it right away I didn’t mind paying the extra KD30.

At first glance the A2 ended up exceeding my expectations. Not only did the speaker look better in person than in pictures but the sound that it produced was so much bigger and better than you’d expect from such a small portable speaker. I was mind blown. In my room in Cape Town the speaker was able to fill the room easily at lower volumes and produce enough bass to impress me. When I took it to the beach I was even more impressed, at near full volume the speaker sounded fantastic outdoors even with the sounds of the waves crashing on the beach. I even snapchatted how this was simply the best portable Bluetooth speaker ever and I even whatsapped the dealer the shot below of the speaker on the beach. But then just like that, my experience went downhill nearly instantly.

Up until the moment I took the speaker to the beach I had been using it plugged in to the power. But around two hours into my first outing with the BeoPlay A2 I noticed the volume suddenly dropped considerably. At first I thought the speaker overheated because I was out in the sun but even after shutting it off for 15 minutes and turning it back on the speakers volume was still very low. It was barely audible but I kept playing the music until the speaker went dead. Once I got back to my room I checked the manual and turns out once the battery level reaches 10% the volume level drops to around half way.

It didn’t make sense how I hit 10% battery life after barely 2 hours of use, that’s 22 hours less than the claimed 24 hour battery life. I thought I must not have charged it fully so I charged the A2 again and tried it the next day. Again I got barely 2 hours of use. I was pissed off because I was all the way in Cape Town with a defective device. So I whatsapped the Kuwait dealer to let them know about my issue and once I got back to Kuwait I passed by them and dropped off my speaker. They didn’t have any green speakers in stock so I had to wait around a month until they got their second shipment in stock so I could pick up my replacement. Once I got the replacement speaker I went back home, fully charged the device and then played some music at full blast while timing it with a stop watch. At exactly 58 minutes and 26 seconds, the speaker completely shutdown. I was mortified since I ended swapping my speaker for one that was even worse! I charged it again and the next day played the exact same playlist at full volume. This time the speaker lasted 1 hour and 11 seconds before completely shutting down. I couldn’t understand what was happening, there is a HUGE difference between a claimed 24 hour battery life and my 1 hour experience. Obviously I wasn’t expecting my device to last 24 hours at full volume but I was expecting it to last around 10 or at least maybe 6. But just 1 hour? Convinced I had picked up a second defective unit I headed back to B&O to let them know. I explained to them the problem and how my second unit was performing even worse than my first one. They agreed to take the device and run some tests before getting back to me. A couple of weeks later I get a phone call with an explanation. According to the B&O head quarters, battery life can last only an hour depending on the kind of music and the volume its being played at. My units were not defective, they were perfectly fine but because B&O state an up to 24 hour battery life in their marketing material, my expectations were just too high. In any case the Kuwait B&O dealer gave me three options, the first is I could give them back the A2 and once the shipment of the new BeoLit 15 arrives I could pay the difference and get that. The second option was to swap the A2 for a third new A2 or finally I could just get a cash refund. Since I already had the BeoLit 12 I wasn’t really interested in the newer version. I also wasn’t interested in a cash refund since I actually wanted a travel speaker and when connected to power the BeoPlay A2 sounded incredible. So I opted to swap it with another unit in hopes the newer unit would have a better battery life than mine. Sadly that didn’t turn out to be the case and my current unit lasts as long as my previous ones.

So here is my dilemma. I don’t know if I can recommend this speaker even though I love it so much because I also hate it so much. I never expected Bang & Olufsen to be so misleading with their marketing since I always saw them as very Apple like. But I’ve now realized Apple is far more trustworthier than Bang & Olufsen. When Apple claims a Macbook Air lasts for 9 hours in normal use most of the time it ends up lasting 10 in real world use. Apple doesn’t lower the brightness to the lowest setting, turn off wifi and Bluetooth and let the Macbook sit there idly and then say the battery life is 24 hours. They could if they wanted to but then no one would trust them. On the other hand B&O are being extremely misleading with their battery life claims. When they say 24 hours, as a user I expect that number to be an achievable claim under normal use. From what I’ve been reading online people have no idea how they can get 24 hours out of the A2 unless its at the lowest volume level and that’s not normal use. So this is what I will say about the A2. If you’re looking for a small speaker with incredible sound then I definitely recommend the BeoPlay A2. But if you’re looking for a portable speaker, one you could take to the beach, camping or anywhere requiring the use of the speakers battery, then I would definitely NOT recommend the BeoPlay A2. Not unless you’re fine with an hour or two of battery life that is.

The Al Shaheed Park renovation in Kuwait City has been completed and the park is getting ready to open up any day now. The video above gives a small glimpse of the renovated park that will now contain a museum, a memorial and 800 underground parking spaces. The Al Shaheed Park project was commissioned by the Amiri Diwan who are also behind the new Kuwait Cultural Center, Shaab Museums and Al Jahra Hospital. [YouTube]

via Frankom

Exactly ten years ago today I launched 248AM as a side project for my other blog at the time, miskan.com. I didn’t have a plan and I definitely wasn’t expecting it to turn into what it is today, I just had a lot to say and so I created this space as an outlet.

A lot has happened to me since the blog started, I’m ten years older for one thing and I’m a lot more mature as a result. My style of writing has changed, the things I post about, the topics and definitely my language has all changed. The only thing that hasn’t changed is my aim which is to entertain you.

I don’t know how long I will be doing this for, I just know that I really love doing it and I’ll keep doing it as long as you keep coming back here to read what I have to say.

Thank you everyone for being the best readers a blogger could hope for.

After spending a weekend with the Mercedes S-Class I was telling a friend about my experience and how it made me want to listen to hip hip the whole time. Before realizing it we were discussing other cars that suited hip hop when the Escalade came up. My friend asked me why I don’t review the new Escalade as well so right away I got in touch with Cadillac. The next day picked up the Escalade for the weekend.

The car is HUGE! I was expecting it to be big obviously since I’ve driven the older Escalade before but it had been a long time since I had been any car that was this big. The model I picked up looked very pimp with a black exterior and a brown leather interior. First thing I did after adjusting the seating position was to connect my iPhone and start blasting hip hop. While looking for a USB port to plugin my phone I actually ended up finding five, so you could basically charge the whole families phones while driving. The car I drove could fit six adults very comfortably since it had two pilot seats in the second row instead of the usual bench seat.

Because I had the Cadillac for the weekend I decided to pick up a few friends and head into the desert for a fun outing. It was a Saturday and Qout Market was on so we decided to all meet up there first. Once we were done with the market all five of us got into the Escalade and took off towards the desert. The Escalade performs at its best when the car is packed with friends or kids. Since the car comfortably fits six and we were just five everyone was pretty relaxed on the long drive. One cool feature I enjoyed in the car on the long drive is the heads up display. Instead of having to look down at the speedometer all the time to see how fast I was going I could instead have my speed displayed on the windshield in front of me. But sadly that still wasn’t enough to stop me from getting a speeding ticket. The car is enormous so you expect it to drive like a tank but it doesn’t and I ended up getting caught doing 145 in a 120 zone. Once we got to desert, I shifted the car into four wheel drive and drove off road looking for camels.

For a car this huge though you’d expect a lot of room in the trunk but thats sadly lacking when the third row seats are up. It’s one of the few negatives I have about the car. With both rear seats down you get a ton of luggage space but the car then can only hold four passengers. On the positive side you could lower half the third row seats creating more luggage space while still leaving room for a fifth passenger. The second thing I disliked about the car is the touch interface. Cadillacs don’t use standard push buttons to control things like climate control or the volume but instead use a combination of touch buttons with physical feedback. It’s hard to explain but it’s basically a flat surface which you touch and the surface vibrates a little bit to let you know the button has been pressed. I found this interface very frustrating to use especially the volume control. You can’t increase or decrease the volume easily, if the music is too loud I need to tap the volume button over an over to get it to decrease but you can’t do it too quickly or else it won’t register your touch. I also thought the main interface screen was awkwardly positioned facing upwards towards the ceiling instead of pointing eye level or at least towards me the driver. Finally the media system interface looks like something from 2008. I didn’t think it matched the luxury feel of the Escalade and I’m surprised the background color of the interface was a vibrant blue which not only doesn’t match the fancy interior of the Escalade but doesn’t even blend with the digital speedometer display which has a black background.

I had a blast with the Escalade over the weekend. It’s such a ginormous car but it isn’t difficult to drive at all. Cadillac have really tried their best to make this car accessible to everyone especially mums. The gas and brake pedals are adjustable so if you’re short you can move them up closer to you, the seat obviously is very adjustable but other features like lane change warnings and surround vision all try to make this huge car feel unintimidating. Also for people who like to whatsapp and snapchat while driving, the lane change warning is something you’re going to appreciate. While driving if the car starts drifting towards the other lanes, the car warns you by vibrating your chair. That way you can look back up at the road and adjust your driving.

The Escalade starts at KD27,000 for the premium model which is the one I tested in this review. If you’d also like to test drive any of the Alghanim Automotive cars click [Here]

The 2015 edition of the World Press Freedom Index is out and Kuwait is up a spot from last year and still leading in our region.

90 – Kuwait
98 – Lebanon
101 – Israel
115 – Qatar
120 – United Arab Emirates
127 – Oman
156 – Iraq
163 – Bahrain
164 – Saudi Arabia

90th place isn’t Kuwait’s highest ranking, in 2009 Kuwait had come in 60th place. Check out the full index [Here]

The Cube is a new complex that has opened up near Sultan Center on Salem Mubarek Street in Salmiya. The complex is mostly made up of restaurants but there are also a few other non food related shops that have or are opening up soon. I passed by the complex yesterday and a few places like Xcite and Paul are open but the majority are still under construction Here is the list of places that are currently at the complex, the asterisk (*) indicates the place is currently open:

Tallu Hbabna Lebanese Restaurant*
Frost Gelato
Xcite*
Nutrishop
Sports Direct
Viva
Zain
Ooreedoo
Juan Valdez cafe
Haleeb Heil*
Köşebaşı*
Paul*
Leila
Fat Burger
Ciccolat Italiani
BGR
Zaatar w Zeit
Caffe Vergnano 1882
Before chocolate

Here is a map to the location [Map]

Update: The Cube is now officially open and so are all the places listed above (and more).

Around a couple of weeks back I was listening to the Joe Rogan podcast where he had my favorite car journalist Chris Harris on. They were both talking about cars and Chris Harris started talking about how comfortable the new S-Class was and how much he loved it. The past few cars I’ve reviewed have all been pretty much sport cars like the Jaguar F-Type Coupe and the Ferrari 458 Spider. So I figured you know what? I wanted to try something different. So I whatsapped my contact at Mercedes and asked him if the S-Class was available to take over the weekend and it was.

I have a bit of history with the S-Class since over the years my dad has owned the previous four generations and I’m old enough to have driven three of them. My favorite of the three and the one I have the most amount of passion towards was the shaba7 (“ghost” model year 91-98). I remember when the car first came out me and my best friend spotted one in Salmiya while we were walking towards Kids ‘R’ Us (this was probably around 1992). We started discussing how the car came standard with bullet proof windows and how it was so quiet once you sat inside that Mercedes installed a little red light that would notify you if a car around you beeped because you wouldn’t hear it otherwise. Of course all this wasn’t true but the shaba7 was so different from anything else at that time it created all these rumors. Then when I finally became old enough to drive the car I just felt so on top of the world when I was in it. I used to beg my dad to let me take the car out when I had a date because it was so much more impressive than pulling up in the other family car, a 1993 hunter green Dodge Minivan. The S-Class has changed considerably over the years but the one thing that hasn’t changed is the respect you get when you’re in one.

When I first sat in the new S-Class I was taken aback by how beautiful the interior was. I’ve been in quite a few cars now that have replaced the analogue dashboard dials with digital screens but none have managed to make it look as good as they do in the S-Class. The center console screen is also the largest screen I’ve ever seen in a car, its around six iPhone 6’s wide just to give you an idea about how huge it is. All these screen with cheap looking graphics would have been a disaster but Mercedes have put together a very tasteful and premium looking user interface with fancy graphics and lots of animations. At night you can also choose if you want interior mood lighting and the color of the light. I chose pink just because it made the interior look like a fancy strip club but the car interior looked great in all the colors and surprisingly not that tacky. The S-Class was very comfortable to sit in and the seats had the softest head rest in any car I’ve ever sat in. It’s literally pillow like and in fact it might have originally started off as a pillow and then shaped into a head rest. No matter who sat in the car the first thing they would notice were the fluffy soft headrests. As a whole the car was extremely comfortable, so comfortable in fact I drove it all the way to the Boubyan Island bridge and back without feeling any sort of fatigue or exhaustion. It’s fast, smooth and super comfy. I also think the new S-Class is the best looking S-Class since the shaba7. I love the exterior lines and especially the rear of the car which I’ve disliked in the last two generations of S-Class.

For some reason this car just made me want to blast hiphop the whole time and I don’t even listen to hiphop. It’s such a pimp ass car I loved it. I drove up to a gate outside these water towers that were being painted and when I parked the car I noticed the caretaker of the place started unlocking the gate to let me in. The car screams I am important especially now with not so many of them around. I honestly really can’t think of anything negative to say about the car. If I wanted to nitpick I could say I found the screen animations a bit slow and I hated how I actually had to go into the menu to turn the AC off instead of using a physical button. I could also complain about the sound system which I didn’t think was that great but really this would be me just nitpicking because there wasn’t anything I really disliked about the car. The new S-Class starts at KD33,000 but the model I drove was a bit spec’d out and sells for around KD35,000.

For more information on the S-Class, check out this [Link]

This weekend might be the busiest yet with so much going on. My personal picks are the 1001 Inventions Exhibition, the KLL Yard Sale because I like yard sales, the Open Mic night, Qout Market and the Madeenah Tour. Photographers might be interested in the motocross KMX Race Day event taking place on Saturday since there will be a ton of photo ops. Check out the full list of events taking place this weekend below:

Thursday
Exhibition: Al-Seef
Exhibition: The Replacement by Mahmoud Obaidi
Exhibition: Van Leo – Master Cairo Portrait Photographer
1001 Inventions Exhibition
Al-Mubarakiya Festival
Kuwait Yacht Show 2015
Works of Art by the Indian Women’s Association
Rooftop Movie: Before Sunrise

Friday
1001 Inventions Exhibition
Al-Mubarakiya Festival
Kuwait Yacht Show 2015
Works of Art by the Indian Women’s Association
KLL Yard Sale
Open Mic at Bayt Lothan

Saturday
1001 Inventions Exhibition
Al-Mubarakiya Festival
Kuwait Yacht Show 2015
Qout Market
The Secret Garden Project
The North Face Challenge Race 2015
KMX Race Day
Workshop: Introduction to Figure Sculpting
Madeenah Tour: Bneid Al Gar
Rooftop Movie: The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]

There is an instgrammer going by the username @myasstethics that travels around the world and takes pictures of his buttocks in different places and recently he was in Kuwait. He actually took two photos in Kuwait but I thought the one above was the more appropriate of the two to share here. I know a lot of people will be upset at the fact he did this but come on, it’s funny. Check out his account [Here] (its SFW)

The Scientific Center have brought the award-winning and international blockbuster exhibition “1001 Inventions” to Kuwait and today was their first opening day. I just got back from it and I loved it or at least loved the fact that for the next month kids have an exciting and interactive educational exhibition they can check out. The experience starts off with a short 10 minute film and once it’s done, everyone is led into the main hall where various stations are manned by different performers who act out the role of an inventor and tell their story. If you follow me on snapchat (mark248am) you most probably saw some of the performers since I snapchatted a few OF THEM. I actually snapchatted more but my snapchat has a habit of crashing with the videos disappearing on restart.

The various displays around the exhibitions have videos and a certain degree of interactivity making the experience very entertaining but it’s the performers that stood out for me. The exhibition is bilingual and that includes the performers who are able to act out in both Arabic and English. Surprisingly they only had two weeks to rehearse. The “1001 Inventions” exhibition is taking place outside the Scientific Center in a large tent and the entrance fee is just KD2 or KD1.5 if when you buy a Scientific Center ticket. They are running starting from today and up until March 7th. Their opening hours are:

Sunday to Thursday
9AM to 1PM and 4:30PM to 9:30PM

Friday
2PM to 10PM

Saturday
9AM to 9:30PM

It’s definitely worth passing by to check out and expect to spend an hour there to experience the whole exhibit. For more information click [Here]

The Kuwait Concours d’ Elegance will be taking place next week starting from February 11th and last till February 18th. The Concours d’ Elegance first came to Kuwait back in 2010.

What is the Concours d’Elegance?
Concours is a French word meaning competition. The concept of Concours originates in 17th C. France when aristocrats used to choose their best horse carriages to parade around parks of Paris during the summer week ends and holidays. Later these traditions changed to automobiles from the 20th C. Concours today have strict regulations and cars are inspected by qualified judges. Trophy winners are carefully chosen.

A reader sent me the full schedule of events that are taking place that week, if you’re interested in checking it out click [Here]

Last week I ended up going to Bahrain for the GulfRun event but also because I was taking refresher riding lessons with Harley Davidson. Harley have a few of riding events every year that take place in different countries where they invite the press on road trips to check out their bikes. I’ve had to pass on the last two rides since I hadn’t ridden a bike in years (Vespa not included). So they decided to give me refresher lessons and since they have a training center in Bahrain I decided to do it there during GulfRun weekend. I ended up being put up at The Domain Hotel and since I was fairly impressed with the hotel I figured I’d write about.

The hotel is located around 12 minutes from the airport and in a skyscraper, one of the tallest in the area. The hotel reception area is located on the 16th floor and honestly didn’t look so great. The ceiling was low, the furniture a bit tacky and overall it just didn’t look impressive. Once I checked in though I headed up to my floor which was the 30th and thats when things started looking a lot better.

Since the hotel wasn’t very busy I got upgraded to “The Corporate” room which was a corner suite. The room was spacious with a living area, a guest bathroom and an insane view. The main bathroom was also humongous with it’s own large window near the shower which is pretty convenient for exhibitionist.

My favorite part about the room was the fact I could control various aspects of it using a tablet including the lights, the air conditioning and the curtains. I liked waking up in the morning and clicking a button on the tablet to have all the curtains in the room open up automatically.

During my previous trips to Bahrain I stayed at the Ritz Carlton which I loved. Although I prefer the room at The Domain (the Ritz rooms feel outdated), the rest of the hotel can’t really compete in anything else… except the price. While rooms at the Ritz start at around KD120 a night, at The Domain the prices start at around KD40 which is a big difference. So if you’re looking for an affordable place to stay while in Bahrain The Domain might be a good option. [Link]

[YouTube]

Last month Kuwait Airways started receiving their first batch of leased planes and alongside these planes, Kuwait Airways have also gone ahead and given their premium class checking area a facelift as well as the Dasman Lounge.

[YouTube]

In the first video on top we get to the see the business class and economy class of the new planes as well as a tour of the new media system. In the second video we get taken on a tour of the new check in area followed by a tour of the lounge. Both the plane interiors and the lounge look outdated to me but I guess its better than what we had.