that's the point I made before, even with A/C'ed stadiums, visitors would still need to spend time outdoors walking to/from Metro stops, waiting for buses, etc. A lot of WC attendees are older and not in the best of physical condition. It would have been a dangerous situation even if the 3 hours in the stadium was comfortable. The decision to move to a winter tournament was made quickly, I think it was known beforehand this would be necessary, but if they bid a winter tournament it would have had fierce opposition and lost. So they waited until after the vote.
From UAE, I have successfully used BOTIM and Comera - without VPN. Sorry, no experience of using these in Qatar.
Anyone have plans to hire a car during their stay in Doha, especially if staying further out of central Doha? I can imagine Ubers being really difficult to get hold of.
I've thought about it as well but it's probably going to be a mad rush during the world cup. Definitely not a mode of transportation to the stadiums I guess. Most roads would probably be blocked
I have a lot of questions and concerns from this article. Here are some quotes and my comments: Hotels in Qatar are expected to add around 5,000 rooms before the start of the FIFA 2022 World Cup, according to a report released by real estate consultancy firm Cushman & Wakefield. 5,000 hotel rooms is that not that much of an inventory increase and there’s already an obvious shortage. By now they know when these rooms will be completed, so why are they not being offered? Maybe they have already been assigned and us regular people will never have access to them. The number of hotel and serviced apartment rooms is anticipated to expand to 45,000 before the World Cup with this additional development. That is barely enough to accommodate attendance at one match, even assuming some double occupancy. “Qatar’s hotel room supply reached 29,386 by year-end 2021, which reflects a 6% compound average growth rate per annum since 2015. By 2026, the overall supply of hotel keys is expected to reach 50,000,” noted the report. Even 50,000 rooms seems woefully inadequate. Note that their official bid promised 84,000 rooms based on what is now clearly an optimistic estimate of construction between the time of the bid and the tournament. Organisers confirmed that when visitors book a hotel using the designated site, they can be assured that their demand will be satisfied and that no false price rises will occur. No hotels have been made available, but as I’ve noted before, the rates for hotel rooms via official Hospitality sources are astronomical. Rooms that go for about US$150/night during non-World Cup dates are going for over US$1000/night. In my book, that is clearly a “false price rise”. If and when the general public has hotels offered, will we see prices like on Expedia or Travelocity for non-WC dates? I doubt it. Fans will be able to choose from two to five star hotel rooms… 6 months to go and we’re still waiting. There have been conflicting reports as to whether the general public will be offered any hotel rooms at all. That well-reported "Fan Booking Journey Workshop" said hotels would be released in “about 1 week” and that was on April 27, now 3 weeks ago. And we see other reports saying no hotel rooms will be offered at all to us. MSC Cruises has agreed to lease two cruise liners to Qatar during the World Cup. I read somewhere that as many as 10 or 12 cruise ships will be made available. For me this is a fallback choice but I’ve not seen anything official about more cruise ships being made available. Cruise ships aren’t just sitting around empty, they have planned cruises well in advance. If more are coming I’d expect something announced very soon. The FIFA organisers have also set a limit on room costs that hotels can charge fans. The price of a three-star hotel is capped at around $120. We’re all hopeful for this. If suddenly an inventory of $120/night 3-star hotel rooms hit the official site there would be a booking frenzy and a lot of happy people! But will it actually happen?
Yeah, we have also rented a car. The thinking behind this was we could get accommodation reasonably far out of Doha central areas and save on those costs and drive into. But getting Accommodation is becoming a pain.
This image suggests Duo won't work either. I'm going to need a crash course on VPN to call my family. Also going to need a reminder on why I'm making this trip...!
honest question, but what is wrong with the places that are available now? the apartments and fan sites seem fine enough and available.
For the dates the majority of the people will be flying in, some apartments don't even start below $500 now. They got booked out and the lack of any updates on accommodation is becoming slightly concerning for folks who haven't booked anything out yet. I kinda thought this would be the case, and booked on 3/24 right after I scooped up my FCFS tickets.
ah, we are a group of 6 so the apartment at 500 a night for 3 bedrooms seemed adequate enough for us. but I'm getting that our large group plays into our favor.
Yeah, that's definitely solid for a group of 6. I'm coming solo, so I scooped up 2 weeks at the $242 nightly rate in Fereej Kulaib. Pricey, but I didn't wanna stay in the accommodation by the airport and didn't want to also pay any more than I should. This WC has been a complete mess thus far as far as planning, in my opinion. Lots of promises and guarantees seem impossible given the time remaining.
That's the issue for me as well, solo traveling and too old to be staying in hot shipping containers disguised as fan villages on the outskirts of town. Normally there are at least reasonable options in price and quantity for single rooms, but not in Doha. Interestingly the # of locations shown on the FIFA accomodations site is much greater if you type in 2 guests versus 1, even for 1 bedroom apartments. But the pricing is relatively fixed, so much more expensive for 1 versus a group of 3.
I'm in the same boat. At the risk of sounding elitist I'm not staying in a temporary converted storage container with no A/C regardless of what Doha's climatology says about expected December temperatures. And I'm also traveling solo as I've done for every WC and at the point in my life where sharing a bedroom (nevermind a bed!) or sleeping on a couch is not what I'm looking for. I'm holding out hope that these promised 3- or 4-star hotel rooms at reasonable prices appear soon. Reasonable to me being maybe less than $400 a night which isn't really "reasonable", but that reasonable bar has shifted upwards a lot.
Not elitist in any way shape or form. I'm in the same boat. We are spending a lot just to get to Qatar from the USA, and would like some comforting at best accommodation. At the end of the day I guess we can only get what is offered, I'm not looking to spend hospitality level money. The trip to Qatar for the matches, plus a side trip to Egypt, is well worth the 2 weeks of vacation time I'm carving out 7 months in advance
Are you guaranteed to get a car, though? I've had car reservations not honored a few times close to big events.
I am afraid that less than $400 per night is highly unlikely. Although, that would be a pleasant surprise if it happened. And even if it is $400 per night, with taxes that is probably $500.
No room taxes for hotels? That is good. Thanks. I still doubt that we will see hotel rooms available for less than USD $500 per night. And that is beyond my nightly limit that I am willing to pay unless it is for some really nice luxury destination resort, like in the Maldives.
The problem for me is that there is almost nothing available for my 15 night stay. As of today, the only "choice" I have are the Fan Villages. I am not against staying in one, but I will wait to see what additional accommodations are released, as I think the Fan Villages are overpriced for a single occupant. Earlier (after FCFS round 1) there was a slightly larger selection of choices, but the only place at a reasonable price was the Barwa Barahat Al Janoub cluster dormitories. But I was really put off by their location. At least two of the Fan Villages are close to metro lines, and one is next to a mall and a stadium where I will see at least one game. If I search their site and list 2 occupants I get a wider selection, but the prices start at nearly $400 a night, and in actuality I am traveling alone.
so here is a concrete example of the ridiculous price markups we are seeing. These are real numbers. Anyone can look these up right now. I was offered the Movenpick Doha by Hospitality as the least expensive option for a 7 night stay in December. It seems to me that the Movenpick is a standard 3-star business hotel, nothing fancy. The exact cost I was quoted by Hospitality was $5499 (all costs here are in USD) and that was confirmed as the final price. That works out to $785.57 per night for the 7 night stay. I just googled this same hotel and this is what Google shows for per night prices, obviously not during the World Cup: prices are well below $100 per night. So I clicked on booking.com since I often use them on international travel, and put in a 7-day period for this month, and this is what I was offered: so the same room without meals (there are no meals offered on the Hospitality offer) is $672.75 TOTAL for 7 nights, I confirmed this is the total cost after any taxes and fees. This 7 day cost is less than the ONE NIGHT cost of the Hospitality offer during the WC. So the total cost of $5499 is over 8-times more than the non-World Cup cost of $672.75. And yet we are fed statements such as "Organisers confirmed that when visitors book a hotel ... that no false price rises will occur." Maybe "false" means something else. well come to think of it, there is nothing false at all about this price rise, it is very much real!
So, the regular price for that hotel would be USD $86 per night and it is now USD $786 per night because of the World Cup? We typically see price increases for hotels during World Cups, but nothing like this before.