Going to Qatar 2022: tickets, accommodations, etc. (non-politics)

My general advice would be, unless you spot an accommodation that is walking distance to the stadium, ignore the location of the stadium. Concentrate on areas that you would want to stay. Of the four you listed old airport is the best, I have marked out the two metros and Main street, Al Matar al Qadeem, where you will have many restaurants, tea/coffee shops, saloons, Laundry's at cheap or reasonable rate. Look how close you are to the street or the metros. If not Najma, or Fereej Bin Derham Al Mansoura are all fine and next to each other. May be i am biased but i am not a fan of Madina Khalifa. Also you should look at al Saad and bin mahmoud. Look at where Mirqab Mall is in google and the street in front of it( that too around 1 KM long) , is better than the old airport street in terms of variety of dining options.

 

as always great info. I'm still happy the first part of my stay is in Al Mansoura. Your post prompted me to look for nearby laundries.

 

does anyone know if the hotels listed on the acommodation page even have air condition?

i checked only few and it is never mentioned for those 3 star facilities for 380 usd and more per night.

is it not mentioned as it is basic standard, or do I expect too much?

also we arrive on 17th of Nov and all the hotels are only bookable from 18th of Nov on. phew.

what a mess. as if they hadn't had 11 years of planning. [emoji36]

 

all the accommodations have air conditioning except for the fan villages

 

I'm a Marriott guy since the mid 2000s, was Hilton before that. I don't at all claim to know more about the system than you as a former Marriott employee, but I'm lifetime Titanium Elite with over a million points currently in the bank and burned thru a few million before, so I look at this stuff all the time but from the outside looking in. I don't think it's the teams/federations, I think it's the hordes of wealthy fans, VIPs, elite media, Hospitality, maybe the well funded European federations that take the luxury rooms. In my prior World Cups I was totally ready to splurge and burn points on a great hotel, but it was more the mid tier places available. I remember specifically trying to get into the JW in Copacabana and there was nothing all tournament, even though I was supposedly guaranteed a room there.

the difference in Doha may be the large number of hotels, especially at the high end. I think more than Moscow or Rio. There are a bunch of true 5-star properties. I don't claim to know where any specific group is booking, although for sure the wealthy fans are surely buying the hospitality packages at the 5-stars. We'll see how this this plays out.

 

This is interesting. I was actually thinking about driving to the games, as the WC website mentions that parking is available at all the stadiums (don't know what the cost will be). Would avoid the mass crush on the subways, etc., and our hotel supposedly has free parking. Anyone heard any intel if this would be a dumb idea in terms of saving time?

 

Yes, Sorry! For most games, it would be better to take the metros than the car.As the parking you see in front of the stadiums will not be given to the usual ticket holders. Also the traffic block will be bad. Arab Cup, it was easy to each till Al Bayt stadium, but 300 M from the stadium to the designated parking took an hour or more. As of now, i will only take car to Thummama.

But having a car to visit places in Qatar is not a bad idea, especially if you have booked in the far off places (like barwa al janoub cluster). You can explore more or go for your preferred dining options etc.If booked inside the city an uber will do to fine, and you wont have the added trouble of finding parking.

 

read somewhere that as many as 10 or 12 cruise ships will be made available: That what I was saying before, usually there are some cruises visiting Doha on weekly basis from Dubai and staying in Qatar for few days.. and those cruises will probably keep going there during the world cup, however they will not be able to park, hence they can stay few hundreds meters from the coast and tourists transported to the port by smaller boats, like happens in South of France during Summer

 

@vibrantcolours thanks sharing these information to us. It was so very helpful and I've made a decision on my accomodation based on your feedback and advise. Really appreciate your local input here. Just a question on the metro if you don't mind, do you think we would have enough time to move from one game to another on the same day (6pm and 10pm game)? From one stadium to another would roughly be an hour metro ride.

 

Group stages, with just over 2 hours you will probably make it, even with metro. Consider 20 min walk from stadium to metro and the rush at the metro plus another 20 min walk back to the stadium and 30 min ride if you have to change stations. It will be touch and go, and you will be rushing. I have a couple of games like that myself.Pre Quarter on wards if the game goes to extra time, with a metro or your own car you will not make it.But if the second stadium is Lusial , Thumama or Wakrah, it will take more time, as you need to get out of the metro and take feeder bus to the stadium. Lusial being furthest from the metro.
The best would be to arrange a driver who would pick you up from a specific location from the first stadium and drop you to the next to the stadium. You will by pass the que at the metro, and you wont have to find parking at the next as he will drop you off. The strategy will depend on which stadiums.

PS : all this is a rough estimate, i woulnt know the traffic conditions at that time or how they will arrange the ques to the stadiums or which side your gate is.

 

Thanks again @vibrantcolours for this. Great to know the options I have now.

 

Maybe of interest to someone: on the latest episode of the popular England Supporters Podcast "3 Lions" he chats to an expat who is an engineer for the Qatar Rail (ie. Doha Metro). A few interesting tidbits of how things are developing there.

Available on Spotify, Youtube etc.

The #Qatar2022 #WorldCup is getting closer, for those going you’ll have questions, there’s no better brains to pick, than someone who lives there, I’m joined by @England fan @BenWilliams1985 who lives there & has been happy to answer some.https://t.co/WYLupdSNJW pic.twitter.com/ozY0JNadpL

— 3lionspodcast (@3LionsPodcast) May 18, 2022

https://threelionspodcast.com/the-view-from-qatar-with-ben-williams

 

The logistics around air travel and accommodation is nothing short of shambolic.
I travelled to Qatar for the 2011 Asian Cup and could arrange accommodation at the Doha Ritz-Carlton for $75 during the last week of the tournament. It was great to catch up with the Al Jazeera media pundits, Iain Dowie and Tony Dorigo, each evening over happy hour, reflecting on the tournament, the organisation their just listening to their rich career tales. Both were great raconteurs.
Of course Doha has grown, and a Metro system has been added, however on my reflections of 2011, the organisation was tepid. Travel and congestion around the Khalifa Stadium was horrific for the Final. I recall that many ticket holders were not allowed access in the last half hour before kick-off as too many ticketless guests, with email invitations condonation from the sheiks, were admitted leading to overcrowding in the stairwells amidst a complete lack of stewarding. Those fans with tickets at the entrance were shunted and dispersed violently by flailing batons of the riot police. This report did not make the media the following day, and was trivialized as a few logistical challenges.
We were fortunate enough to reach the stadium early, and avoid the traffic strangulation at the end of the final; my mate and I hitched a ride with an accredited Australian coach to the adjacent Grand Hyatt. After the semi-final win over Uzbekistan a member of the Australian media had invited us onto the coach for a ride home. We followed a similar initiative at the end of the final, only to be seated amongst all the player's wives and families. Suffice to say that when Dowie and Dorigo walked in to the hotel two hours later, Dowie observed that you did not have to be a rocket scientist to realise the failings in organisation. He confirmed, the fact, that indeed he was a rocket scientist, having studied an engineering degree in aeronautics. I digress
The point has been made of the price gouging, the extent to which I have never experienced at any previous tournament before. I have always managed to travel to World Cups and international tournaments on an accommodation budget of a maximum of $100 per night, and temper any expectation, at least having a clean room in a shared apartment ,as in Brazil, where prices probably may have doubled at most.
In Qatar, it is lunacy what the FIFA Qatar organisers through centralised control, are attempting. Reserving and holding back on swathes of rooms, setting already high artificial limits, has driven accommodation to ridiculously extortionate levels, which I am sure will impact negatively on the masses of fans expecting to travel. Already there are murmurs of discontent from fan associations. Even the Airbnb market have in concert listed disproportionately massive increases on expected demand.
The meticulous planning it takes to visit such an event, usually so enjoyable, leaves one numb. Not that Qatar or FIFA seem to care

 

Wow! What a nightmare that must be! Those massive cruise ships take over an hour to disembark people in the best of ports. Imagine having to disembark to another boat.

 

A correction here , it’s the Al bayt stadium which is furthest, lusial is the stop that you will have to get down to take the feeder buses

 

finally scored the last flight for our group this morning. a DXB to DOH that 1 guy paid 380$ for. Not the best but way better than the 800-1000$ it was going for .

For those still looking for flights. I will continue to help but am most useful to those with points/miles. Specifically if you have Amex, Chase or Capital One points. Those are the luxury points to have. The reason is a combo of Air Canada and Etihad. 7k Air Canada points which can be transferred from any of networks gets you a 1 way flight from Abu Dhabi to Doha. 20k points gets you a 1 way from Europe to Doha.

There are a few other sweet spots to know. AA still has scattered availability for its JFK-DOH flight in saver award. And British Airways has criminally low awards from LGW-DOH for like 12k Avios if you can find them.

So if you have points book NOW! The airlines that are known for opening last minute awards either don't matter (Cathay) or are only for the true gambler (Lufthansa).

 

Hello Everyone,

Does anyone have booked a flight to doha with a connection in Cairo? As long as we know, Egypt is on Red List of Qatar sanitary authorities.

Can we have any issue with this connection?

Thank you!

 

I booked LAX to Cairo … CAI to DOH. They’re could be issues with the connection. I believe a 1 day quarantine is in effect. I hope that to be eliminated before November.

 

Yeah, some of us in here (myself included) are banking on Egypt being removed from the red list before the WC comes around. I believe a 1-day quarantine is in effect if you meet the vaccination/immunity requirements.

 

Same here, JFK-Cairo-Doh hopefully the red list will be gone by then. I’m still wondering how they can enforce the 1 day quarantine. There are no hotels available for that, so how would they monitor your quarantine? They can’t have someone checking you don’t leave your apartment. Also, flight arrives in Doha at 3 am, how does the 1 day work? You can’t leave your accommodation until next day 3 am? Spend the night? It’s a whole mess if they don’t provide the 1 day accommodation for this, and we all know they won’t use the already short supply of hotels for this matter. I don’t see it happening in November

 

I m going to guess; around late summer all restrictions will be gone. Everywhere. The world is really over this (we're learning to live with it). I just can't imagine Qatar going thru all this trouble... hotels, tickets, transportation etc to discourage fans from visiting. Countries that have restrictions; in a sense; that's what they're still doing. Discouraging tourism.

 

Solid post! love this kind of information, people who are there; or have been there. Most of the stuff the media prints are rehashed third hand accounts. Thanks.

 

I just thought it was a waste of an hour

 

Mostly agree though I'm grateful that they put in the effort. This podcast is usually pretty high quality - they do other episodes interviewing people recounting their trips to previous World Cup, Euro, or England aways of years gone by which are really interesting and well done. I enjoy his England preview pods too even as a neutral fan, but for this episode the host either didn't have enough of his own knowledge on the subject, or it felt a bit too "dumbed down" made for an audience that have done no prior research on Qatar 2022. Sort of like that very vanilla blog post that keeps getting linked here every week or so from a guy called Eagle Man. But although most things said were already known, it was nice to hear about the excitement and buzz that is being felt locally, the few lines about that the metro had already begun ramping up their services, and one or two other tidbits of information sprinkled throughout the episode.

 

I read the concerns and decided not to risk it and take another route. In any case, does it apply if you are only transiting thru Cairo airport? I mean, I understand if you get out of the airport, but not if you stay inside for three hours... Anyway, I also think they will drop the requeriment before the WC