King Khalid International Airport, Saudi Arabia (Center on Interactive Map)

Airport

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Trips

Uganda and stops between

12/28/2016: After a huge mess up by Vamaya travel and my Citibank credit card, we were forced to buy a new plane ticket to Dubai in order to catch our connecting flight. After a lot of searching, we found a very cheap ticket flying on Saudia Air with a long layover in Riyadh.

The information that we found about transiting through Saudi Arabia that we found on the internet was scary to say the least. The internet warns of all kinds of police state action and oppression. I will put in my two cents about the state of a layover in Saudi Arabia.

The long and short of it is that the transit was pretty much uneventful in both directions. The airplane flying into Saudi was fine and up to international standards complete with movies and games in the seat back. Barbara says that there was some weird blurring of cleavage and that sort of thing, but I did not see that in any of the shows that I watched. There is no alcohol or pop served on the flight, and the flight attendants could best be described as surly. The entire first class and business class seemed oddly empty.

We arrived at Riyadh, and the transit consisted of showing our American passports and running our bags through an x-ray machine. We were not asked any questions or given any hassle whatsoever unless you include emptying your pockets and taking off your belt as hassle.

In the airport, there is "free" wi-fi, but you must have a phone that receives sms in Saudi Arabia to get it. Alternately, there is a lounge where you can pay ($35) to sit in nicer seats and get a meal, juice, television, and wi-fi. There are two equally boring terminals, and you can walk between them. There are a number of coffee shops, burger king, dominoes, prayer rooms, and some duty free shopping (no booze). It looked like a couple more stores are on the verge of opening up.

If you are a woman, you do not have to wear a burka in the airport. We were not allowed to leave the airport, however. Airport staff was mildly annoyed with us at worst. The airport is clean and boring. We saved at least $500 airfare at the cost of a boring six hour layover overnight.

Next Visit (Dubai Creek Park: 12/29/2016)

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