A short stint in Saudi (and QR Doha Stopover)

[jase05]

All this Doha talk makes me sad

You will just have to go back!
QR are a great airline and it’s so easy to build a stopover via the QR Stopover packages or by just leaving yourself a day or two spare.
We always like to stay at least 2 nights in Doha to break up any trip but have stayed longer in Qatar to have a look around.
I personally think 2 nights in Doha is enough to see most of the sights

 

[Justinf]

You will just have to go back!
QR are a great airline and it’s so easy to build a stopover via the QR Stopover packages or by just leaving yourself a day or two spare.
We always like to stay at least 2 nights in Doha to break up any trip but have stayed longer in Qatar to have a look around.
I personally think 2 nights in Doha is enough to see most of the sights

I’m mainly being a scallywag, but I would definitely like to check it out next time.

 

[RooFlyer]

The place I looked at early on under the Stopover deal was Sealine Beach Resort.

Luxury Beach Resort in Qatar | Sealine Beach Resort, a Murwab Resort

Discover unparalleled luxury at Sealine Beach Resort, one of the best resorts in Qatar. Indulge in a lavish beachfront experience at this luxury beach resort.

www.sealinebeachqatar.com

From where I could take a tour to the 'inland sea' - the large inlet to its south. But after an initial response, they stopped replying to e-mails. I might try again next time. In the meantime, I arrived at the Mondrian Doha.

I instantly recognised the place - its from the set of Absolutely Fabulous, where Edina and Patsy stayed at a place designed by their assistant, Bubbles (I'm being facetious there, but it easily could have been). Much of the below will be a repeat of my rant in the Accor ... Elite thread.



Lobby area. All of this stuff is just plastic moulding.



The staircase is plastic and doesn't go anywhere





Cafe area



At check-in, they at first didn't recognise the Qatar Stopover package and tried to charge me, with a regular check-out time. That was sorted, and I managed to have my Accor membership # put in. That was a plus.

 

[kookaburra75]

The place I looked at early on under the Stopover deal was Sealine Beach Resort.

Luxury Beach Resort in Qatar | Sealine Beach Resort, a Murwab Resort

Discover unparalleled luxury at Sealine Beach Resort, one of the best resorts in Qatar. Indulge in a lavish beachfront experience at this luxury beach resort.

www.sealinebeachqatar.com

View attachment 497366

From where I could take a tour to the 'inland sea' - the large inlet to its south. But after an initial response, they stopped replying to e-mails. I might try again next time. In the meantime, I arrived at the Mondrian Doha.

I instantly recognised the place - its from the set of Absolutely Fabulous, where Edina and Patsy stayed at a place designed by their assistant, Bubbles. Much of the below will be a repeat of my rant in the Accor ... Elite thread.

View attachment 497369 View attachment 497367

Lobby area. All of this stuff is just plastic moulding.

View attachment 497380 View attachment 497377

The staircase is plastic and doesn't go anywhere

View attachment 497379 View attachment 497381

View attachment 497382


Spa area

View attachment 497376

At check-in, they at first didn't recognise the Qatar Stopover package and tried to charge me, with a regular check-out time. That was sorted, and I managed to have my Accor membership # put in. That was a plus.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry looking at the lobby. But then, you know it was in Ab Fab ... hmmmmm

 

[RooFlyer]

Room. It was on the lowermost floor - sort of expected that I'd get the coughpiest room for this heavily discounted package - but it was the structural failings of the room that made it so bad. Very white, which is a theme of the hotel.

In this pic, note the aircon vent along the wall and the desk underneath. The lowest setting of the aircon still sent out a noisy arctic gale and sitting at the desk underneath wasn't survivable - you'd freeze to death.





Windows were small. This is the view when I arrived, and the next morning (condensation)



Bathroom - with a chandelier, of course. When I used the shower, there was a startlingly loud banging of the pipes behind the wall for most of the time the water was on.



A closer look at the bath - the biggest I've ever seen (my carryon case, for scale). But check out how close it is to the bedroom carpet - the smallest splash will see the carpet wet and a major heave would have it soaked for a couple of metres.



I won't go into the complexity of the light control panels. There was one in the room and one each side of the bed. They didn't seem to talk to each other ..



Ah. And now the coup de gras. The pool. I was looking forward to not doing much in Doha - I have a book to review and thought some time by the pool would be nice. Not here. Its on the roof, but entirely enclosed by mostly opaque glass. And being enclosed, it stunk of chlorine.



Even the outside wall is too high to see over. So no views at all, even from here.



The night I arrived, I had dinner at the restaurant, where of course they had no idea about the Accor welcome drink and the wait-people just stood about gossiping in a corner. I stood up to leave and was almost out before someone noticed.

Stupidest hotel ever. Thank God I only paid abt A$150/night for it and I was able to spend some time walking around Doha rather than doing my book review!

 

[RooFlyer]

One good thing from the coughpy hotel and lack of pool was that I went out for a couple of long walks. Its been about 8 years or so since I visited Doha, so well worth it. Nice sunny day, about mid 20s I guess.

First was into town using the metro, which was about 15 mins walk way. A day pass cost about A$1

The Mondrian with two adjacent buildings.



From the Souq Waqif station, past the Abdullah Bin Zaid Al Mahmoud Islamic Cultural Center





and towards the Museum of Islamic Art. There is an Afghanistan exhibition on, which made a re-visit worth while. Many items lent by the Smithsonian.





A silver drinking vessel from the 4th century



Left, 'Timur [Tamerlane] celebrating his conquest of Delhi' , 15th century; Right 'The parrot's judgement' 15th century



Left: 'Humayun visits his tomb[in Lahore]', 16th century; R section of the Qur'an, 13th century;



Left: Portion of a stucco panel, Iran, 12th century. Right: Commentary on the 'Canon of Medicine' 15th century



That last item recalled to me my visit to Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where there was a statue of ibn Sina, a Tajik and the compiler of the five volumes of the Canon in the 11th century.

 

[Drakecula]

I eyed off the Mondrian (because Accor) but decided against it in favour of being closer to the souq and other areas. Shame it isn't that great. I'm keen on visiting the museum though! Your photos are fantastic!

 

[RooFlyer]

Lastly, the ceiling of the atrium of the museum



Then past the flag plaza



And on to my next destination the Qatar National Museum. Like the Guggenheim in Bilbao, I wanted to visit not so much for the collections, as the building. Unfortunately it was getting towards late afternoon, and the sun angle didn't show it off best.









Its modelled on a 'desert rose' crystal, but really its modelled on crystals of gypsum!

 

[Justinf]

At least there was no fog

 

[RooFlyer]

At least there was no fog

Just wait ....

 

[RooFlyer]

That evening, I trudged into the restaurant - there is a 'sports bar' but you needed ear muffs for that - and ordered a basic chicken briyani. It wasn't bad, but the amount would have fed a family.



Struggled with sleep - aircon off to turn off the noise and icy blast, or on to cool the room down. Then, at abt 6am, my watch pinged loudly and vibrated. What the ... I looked at my watch and there was a big yellow triangle with a ! in it. What the f.... has someone started bombing? Groggily I put on my glasses and checked what the watch said.



(The time in this shot was when I took the screenshot of the alert on my phone, later).

You scare the cough out of me at 6am because of some ... fog?? @Justinf , stop laughing

As it turns out, when I looked out at about 7:30, there wasn't any fog, so

I had most of the day here, so I went for a walk in the neighbourhood waterfront - the southernmost part of Lusail.



From the hotel



At the far end of my walk, a marina





The Katara Towers, Raffles on the left, Fairmont on the right. Like two fighting peripatus. #







# Peripatus.

 

[RooFlyer]

When I got back to the hotel, I still had hours to kill, so I went for a hammam treatment. Pretty good, but not as good as Istanbul!

My ride arrived early, which was OK with me - hanging about that place was getting tedious. Premium check-in at DOH was pretty slow and amateurish. He asked to see my Indonesian Arrival card (said I had to show it) I had it, but pointed out that it didn't need to be done in advance.

Straight to Al Mourjan at the Orchard; pretty hungry as I didn't have lunch, so decided on a steak.





I asked for it medium-rare, but the waiter said they do medium, medium-well and well done. So I asked for medium, but 'done quickly' and it came out pretty good.



People complain about the lounges being crowded. I'm sure they are at times, but I have never encountered it with the new lounge - this is the non-dining wing. I asked for another wine from the bar at the end there.

 

[RooFlyer]

QR958 DOK-CGK, 3A, A350-900, not Q Suite.

Not ideal for an overnight flight, but as its on the way home, I thought I'd survive. Hauling out of DOH



With the QR dine-on-demand, I was able to delay the main meal for a couple of hours and I started with caesar salad. Sort of OK (dressing not yet applied).



and main of 'lobster sandwich', which I hadn't tried before. Turned out it was an open sandwich on toast and I gotta tell you, was pretty darn good.



Finished with a chocolate brownie thing, but don't tell anyone.



A brekky of Greek yoghurt and smoothie, served almost at top of descent. Great job by the crew.



Heading in to CGK

 

[ols]

Thanks for the wonderful photos of Doha.
Had four amazing two day stops the last couple of years and really enjoyed the place.
Unfortunately on this years trip wife asked that we didn't stop over so just the airport lounges twice on our next adventure.

 

[I love to travel]

QR958 DOK-CGK, 3A, A350-900, not Q Suite.

Not ideal for an overnight flight, but as its on the way home, I thought I'd survive. Hauling out of DOH

View attachment 497515

With the QR dine-on-demand, I was able to delay the main meal for a couple of hours and I started with caesar salad. Sort of OK (dressing not yet applied).

View attachment 497516

and main of 'lobster sandwich', which I hadn't tried before. Turned out it was an open sandwich on toast and I gotta tell you, was pretty darn good.

View attachment 497517

Finished with a chocolate brownie thing, but don't tell anyone.

View attachment 497518

A brekky of Greek yoghurt and smoothie, served almost at top of descent. Great job by the crew.

View attachment 497519

Heading in to CGK

View attachment 497520

View attachment 497521

Was their a mayo type sauce in the lobster sandwich?

 

[RooFlyer]

Was their a mayo type sauce in the lobster sandwich?

Not sure if you mean in the mixture, or anywhere. It was lobster pieces in some sort of sauce, and there was mayo on the side (top right of pic), which I didn't use.

 

[RooFlyer]

Cleared immigration at CGK, and luggage pretty quick and was off to Grab Premium per instructions from @SYD - thank you. My second time at CGK and took some more time to watch their wonderful 'big screen' at luggage collection.



Arrived at the Swissotel PIK at 8:30am for about 11 hours until my Qantas flight to Sydney in the afternoon. I've recounted what happened next in 'cheeses off' thread, but here it is again.

With no day stay hotels available neat the airport, I chose the Swissotel PIK as an Accor Plat. Two days before arrival, I e-mailed them and said that I'd be getting there between 8 and 9 am the morning after the booking night and asked that this be acknowledged as being seen. Yes, got that reply from 'Senior reservation agent' and it was copied to 4 or 5 others at the hotel. One day before the booking, I got an 'Arrival form' where I again noted my intended arrival time, the morning after.

Arrive at 8:30 and up to the lounge to check-in. Confusion; call - quite a long one. Lady on desk says 'oh, you were a no-show but we won't charge you anything more to check-in now'. Well, that didn't go down well in my sleep deprived state. More senior person comes by and I show them both the e-mail, and the acknowledgment. This was read closely. I had earlier asked for a late check-out of 4:30pm. 4:00 was granted.

Anyway they checked me in, into a suite but kept saying that they wouldn't charge me for this booking after a no-show. And they gave me 4:30pm check-out.












Absolutely everything I didn't need. I was after some sleep, but nigh-on impossible as the room couldn't be darkened, with a translucent wall to the bathroom and translucent blinds there. The welcome nibbles were very nice.



View



I killed the time somehow and headed back to the airport.

 

[RooFlyer]

Directed to the Plaza Premium lounge again - crowded. Walked the terminal a fair bit.

QF42 CGK-SYD 19:50 - 6:45am, A330 (Award flight)

I was long regretting taking a second night flight in a row, but its an award flight, and getting me home so I just had to put up with it.

Welcomed on board by quite a bubbly crew. The cabin service manager was Greg, who seemed to be proficient in Bahasa, which was a nice touch. I guess the regulars would know him. Pencil case amenity kit.



I was looking forward to dinner, as I had skipped lunch.



The bowl of weeds, and chicken satay. Of course, coming off several QR flights, I wasn't expecting a visual or actual feast.



Bolognese. The spaghetti had dried out in the oven, but underneath was OK. With the usual QF faffing about with the meal service, and the wake-up for descent, there was only a couple of hours to fill in watching things on the IFE. Qantas beds are a no-sleep zone for me.



Sydney, arrived 6:30am - a bad time to arrive with the bank of flights arriving after the curfew. Immigration was crowded, as expected, a complete contrast to the 'third world' and other airports I've been through, where there are about 5 e-gates available per pax, or no queue at 'premium immigration'.

Onto Virgin, and flight back to Hobart and that was that. Slept 10 1/2 hours that night!

Thanks for tagging along. I have no hesitation in recommending a visit to Saudi and I don't think even single women would find it bothersome.

 

[jase05]

Fantastic TR
Agree wholeheartedly with most of your statement too. The QR product is good, Doha is pretty cool place for a few days and Saudi Arabia is definitely worth a visit. The transformation over the last 10 years or so has been phenomenal and like all the ME countries I’ve enjoyed my time there.

 

[craven morehead]

Very interesting and informative TR @RooFlyer
Cheers mate