A fantastic option for traveling with a family of four. The hard product is among the best in business class–if not the best–but note there are limited dining options for little ones.

View other posts in this series:

• Qatar Airways A350-900 Q-Suites (this post)
• Al Mourjan Business Class Lounge
• Ritz Carlton, Part 1 – Arrival and Villa
• Ritz Carlton, Part 2 – Resort Facilities
• Ritz Carlton, Part 3 – Restaurants
• Ritz Carlton, Part 4 – Kids Club
• Singapore Airlines 737-8 Business Class
• Bonus: Video Review

Booking

I booked this flight using American Airlines AAdvantage miles for the journey.  Four seats cost 280,000 AA miles + $62.80 taxes.  American Airlines unfortunately is currently not a transfer partner of any major points currency.  If you want to accumulate a stash of AA miles, you will need to need to sign up for AA credit cards or use their shopping portal.  They do frequently offer sales to purchase points directly, but most of the time I wouldn’t recommend it unless you are looking to top off a small amount.

These days, Qatar Airways tends to release award space in chunks at a time.  I was unable to book my preferred routing nonstop out of LAX and had to route through Phoenix and Houston.  If we were successful cutting out the domestic stops, we would have felt more refreshed for the rest of the journey.

The Qatar Airways website does not allow center seat selection when booking through AA.  I went through the Malaysian Airlines website using the Qatar Airways record locator to select seats about a week after booking.  Since my reservation had 4 passengers, I was able to choose the seats in the center.  My understanding from others on the internet is that you cannot select the center seats far in advance if you are booking for 1 or 2 passengers.  A late equipment swap caused the seat selection to change and I no longer had the correct configuration of four connecting center seats booked; thankfully, the flight attendants on board helped ask other friendly passengers to switch with and accommodate us.

Initial Impressions

In general, I am a big fan of the A350 aircraft.  The cabin feels very spacious without the overhead storage in the center and each seat had plenty of space to stretch out. Traveling with two small children, it was a treat to be able to easily attend to their needs and have conversations with the whole family during the flight.  On other airlines, it feels almost like I am forced to be disconnected from 1 or 2 others in the family just based on how seating is typically arranged.

Awaiting at our seats was a gift box from Diptyque and also a protective kit containing a face mask, wipes, and hand sanitizing gel. Flight attendants were friendly and quickly distributed pajamas and offered a choice of departure beverage. Pajamas from the The White Company were soft and comfortable and were nice to receive in business class as most airlines only provide this in first class.  The flight crew offered Alex his own set of pajamas, but the adult small were much too big for him.  For the departure beverage, I chose champagne while Jenn chose their lemon and mint signature drink.

Food

Flight attendants came around to take meal orders both before and after takeoff.  I made my selections after takeoff and requested to be served within an hour.

The Dungeness crab bisque had a lot of flavor albeit a little salty for my taste. There were also some bits of shell in it. This was followed by the herb crusted beef tataki, which I thoroughly enjoyed. For my main, I had the kung pao chicken with fragrant jasmine rice.  Most bites were mildly spicy, but one bite at the end was incredibly spicy. To finish off the meal, I had the roasted hazelnut and dark chocolate mousse and a glass (or two) of the dessert wine, the No.2 ‘Victoria’ Moscatel Dulce 2016.  The dessert hit the spot after a very filling meal.

Jenn ended up choosing the Boston lobster tail roll for her main.  Despite it showing up in the ‘light options’ section of the menu, it certainly seemed very filling.

The kids tend to prefer blander flavors and, unfortunately, Qatar Airways didn’t seem to have any options that appealed to them.  Both enjoyed the fruit and bread, but they seemed to reject most other options offer to them.  This is perhaps the one area that could be improved for passengers traveling with young children.

A few hours before landing, I had the egg white omelette with roast pepper and onion for breakfast. The sweet potato hit the spot after such a long flight.

We had more success with the breakfast meal for the kids. The kids had more fruit and paired it with some cinnamon rolls and the smoked salmon breakfast bagel (smoked salmon untouched on the side).

In-Flight Media

I value this highly mostly as a method to help keep the kids entertained on the flight.  The screen is big and packed with a lot of entertainment for the kids.  Plenty of movies and television series are available, so we had no problems keeping the kids happy for hours.  I try to limit screen time for the kids at home but on the plane, I let them watch as much as they want as I do not want them running around and distracting other passengers.

Internet initially seemed like a good deal.  If you sign up for Qatar’s airline program, you can get 1 hour of free internet on the flight.  If you need more, internet for the entire flight is only $10 USD.  The problem with the internet?  It was mostly unusable for me.  I logged into my account to get 1 hour free, but speeds were painfully slow on my phone.  Perhaps a lot of passengers were also using the service at the same time or I was in a dead zone over Europe, but I wasn’t able to do much for the whole hour and was not tempted to buy WI-FI after that experience.

Service

I thought service was professional and friendly.  The flight crew seemed to enjoy having kids in the cabin, stopping by to see if they could help when Char briefly became upset with her seat or to comment on how cute Alex looks with his oversized pajamas.  There were no service issues or language barriers.  They tended to our needs and promptly came when paged.  That’s about all you could hope for.

At the end of our flight, the crew came around to distribute chocolates as a parting gift.

Recommendation: Yes

This definitely was a comfortable way to fly long distance and while we did not feel fully rested when deplaning, that was attributable more to having a long travel day prior to that flight.  Despite not having child-friendly food options, the seat layout, entertainment, and friendly staff make up for it.  Next time, I might bring aboard a few heartier snacks for the kids as a backup in case they don’t like the meal options on board.