A Royal Experience

On the way to Istanbul from Athens we had an 11 hour layover in Amman, Jordan. We flew on Royal Jordanian and it was the best airline experience we've ever had. The seats on the entire plane are 2 across instead of 3 so no dreaded middle seat. The seats were all pretty big and each one had a blanket and a pillow waiting for us. Extremely comfortable and spacious. After takeoff the flight attendants came around and handed out hot towels for everyone, first class treatment in the coach section. Then to our surprise actual meals were served with chilled wine, I guess we got used to having to pay extra for anything besides water on American Airlines. The crew could not have been friendlier and it was such a pleasant flight.


Since the layover was overnight we figured that we'd just suck it up and sleep in the airport instead of having to find our way through downtown Amman to a hostel in the middle of the night. After we got off the plane we went to the ticket counter to ask if we would have to get visas since we would not be leaving the airport. The extremely friendly man behind the counter handed us vouchers and told us to take the shuttle to the hotel. Hotel? No sir, I don't think we were clear. We do not have a hotel and will just be staying in the airport until our flight to Istanbul departs in the morning. Wrong. We were totally shocked, but followed his instructions and went towards the shuttle. We boarded and it took us to a nearby hotel where reception took down our flight info, gave us a room key, told us that the shuttle back to the airport would come to get us at 9am, and that dinner was being served in the dining room. We still had no idea what was going on but went with it. Free hotel, dinner, breakfast and shuttle back to the airport in the morning? Sounds too good to be true, but it was not. This is just how Royal Jordanian does it. In short if you ever find yourself flying in the Middle East take Royal Jordanian, it is a truly Royal experience.