DC Road Trip Part 3 – Qatar Airways Media Event!

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My time was running thin in New Jersey as I needed to get to D.C. by Wednesday afternoon. After driving through Hershey, Intercourse, and Philly, I headed back to Lambertville for one last night.

The following morning I woke up, boiled some tea, powered on my laptop and caught up on some work. Before I knew it, it was 11:30AM and I desperately needed to hit the road if I wanted to arrive in D.C. on time for the Qatar Airways Media Event. Considering this event was the main reason for this road trip in the first place, there was no way I could miss it.

I quickly packed my bags, jumped in the car and headed off for my final destination of the road trip… Washington DC!

On the way I passed Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Philadelphia Eagles!

Alexandria, VA

Three and a half hours later I arrive in Alexandria, VA at my new home for the next few days. Luckily I was able to arrange a CouchSurfing host in advance because later I would find out that literally ALL of the hotels in and around Washington DC were fully booked for the next couple of days due to some big conference going on in town.

I pull up in front of the Westin Hotel in Alexandria and according to my hosts address it seems as if he lives in the Westin? I’m sort of confused at this point. Is this guy renting a hotel room and hosting Couchsurfers at the same time?

I drove around for a few before finding a place to park and heading back over to the Westin where my host James met me at the front door. We shook hands quickly and immediately headed for the elevator. Once in the elevator I figured out that James actually lived in a high rise condo above the Westin Hotel. The first 10 floors is for the Westin, and floors 11-15 are condominiums. Interesting!

We walked into his place and he gave me the grand tour of his one bedroom condo. Here’s an idea of where I slept for the next few days…

I was trying my best not to be rude to James but it was now 4:00PM and I had to get dressed, jump on the metro, and make it to the Qatar Airways US Corporate Office in downtown DC by 5:00PM. Not only was I stressed about making it on time, but I had never been to this city before so I would now have to figure out how the metro works as well as navigate myself from the metro stop to the Qatar Airways offices with just a few minutes to spare.

Luckily I was staying within 5 minutes walk to the King Street Metro Station in Alexandria. I purchased my ticket, hopped on the blue line and I arrived at the Qatar Airways offices with absolutely no problems at all.

Welcome to Qatar Airways!

When I first arrived I was met by Boyd Bailey, a marketing officer for Qatar Airways. Boyd was actually the one who invited me to this event so it was nice to finally meet him and put a face to the emails that we exchanged back and forth all week.

Over the course of the next 20 minutes or so I was introduced to Kierstan Pearce and Christine Sarkis of Qatar Airways, Carolyn McLean Robbins, Ben Mutzabaugh of USAToday, Mark Morozink of NCUSAR, John Arundel of Washington Life Magazine, Judith Beermann of The Georgetown Dish, Brian Silengo of 5 Star Alliance  and Giovanna Palatucci, editor of National Geographic’s Intelligent Travel Blog.

Funny enough, it wasn’t until we jumped on the limo that I realized I knew Gio from somewhere. We had been following each other on Twitter for a while now and she had actually mentioned my site on the Nat Geo Intelligent Travel blog a little while back. How cool!?

After some champagne and a few fancy hors d’oeuvres we boarded the Reston Limousine bus.

Forty five minutes later we arrive at Dulles International Airport where we are met by Dennis Hazell our Dulles guide for the night along with our our photo copied boarding area access authorization passes.

Once we passed through security we headed through the Dulles employee checkpoint and straight into a command center of sorts. Inside we were given an introduction to the systems that run the airport. There was everything from weather radar systems on large flat panel screens, to employee security scans on the PC screens behind us.

Next we headed up to the ramp tower where we got a behind the scenes look at how the air traffic controllers at Dulles coordinate with the pilots on the ground. It was cool to be up in the control tower and getting a 360 degree view of the runways below.

Qatar Airways Boeing 777

Although it was raining we still had the opportunity to walk out on to the runway and experience Qatar Airways BOEING 777 up close and personal.

Once we finished taking a few photos underneath the plane we made our way back up to the terminal and boarded the plane. As soon as we boarded the 777 we were taken to the first class seating where we were able to test out the seats that allow you to lay completely flat.

I could only dream of ever being able to fly first class with Qatar Airways considering the price of a seat can range from anywhere between $6,000 – $10,000!

I have to say, it was an incredible experience to be able to take a private tour of the inner workings of Dulles International Airport. It was also really interesting to see what a first class ticket gets you on Qatar Airways.

The Qatar Airways Boeing 777 is out of this world and the service is top notch. There’s a good reason why Qatar Airways has been named 2011 Airline of the Year by Skytrax.

Dinner Reception

After our private tour of Dulles and the Boeing 777, we enjoyed a really nice sit down dinner at Dulles. We were assigned tables and got to chit chat with each other over our fancy meals.

Overall, I thought the Qatar Airways Media Event was excellent. Although I was a little stressed leading up to it, I ended up leaving the event with hopes that I would be able to attend a similar event for Qatar in the near future. Not only was the tour very professional and interesting, but the event itself proved to be a great place to network with other writers in the travel industry.

Thanks again to Boyd Bailey, and Qatar Airways for inviting me to such an amazing event!