Free Doha City Tour

By Nela Navida - October 22, 2016

Dear readers,

I am here writing about my experience trying free Doha city tour, a complimentary tour that is provided by Qatar Airways and Qatar Tourism Authority for the passengers who's got layover more than 6 hours. I would say that the process to register until to get on the tour is quite simple. The hard part is to find the best schedule of the flight. To get this tour, I should choose the schedule which has 13 hours layover. It was quite long, right? But somehow, when you do have time, it's nice to enjoy chilling out to a place where you never touch down before (and for free). Without further due, I'll tell you how to get this chance. So, basically there are three steps to be able to enjoy this free city tour.

1. Register your self to the Doha city tour desk. The place is quite strategic. So, when you have touched down Hamad International Airport (after the security check), just go straight to the main hall, where the giant bear is sitting there. Then, go find the way to gate B, there you will find the desk. You will see that it is lying between WHSmith and Mont Blanc. And about the tour schedules they provide four different schedules (08.00, 11.00, 16.00, and 19.00). When I talked to the staff who works on the desk, they said that most of customers prefer to choose the latest schedule to avoid the heat.

2. Immigration check in. You don't have to be worry about the visa fees, they provide it for you, guys *smile*. The thing you need to worry about is whether you are eligible to enter Qatar or not. And I was quite surprised to see the waiting line of the immigration was incredibly long. I spent around 30 minutes to eventually get my passport stamped. Maybe that's why to be able to enjoy this tour you need to have around 6 hours layover. Because you will spend a lot of time in waiting for the immigration (either check in or check out).

3. You have done all of the two previous steps? Then, you can just get to the bus and enjoy the free city tour. They will bring you to four spots like Old Harbor, Katara Cultural Village, Pearl of Qatar and Sauq Waqif. In Old Harbor you can see skyline of Doha and also Islamic Art Museum. Then in Katara Cultural Village, you will see a building which looks like pineapple. Unfortunately, at that time I didn't get out to see the details. But if you read Eric Weiner's book of 'Geography of Bliss', you will notice this is the place where he found out the proof that the culture of Qatar is actually imported off the shelf *cmiiiw*. The next destination you will reach is Pearl of Qatar, here you will see luxurious things (residence, shopping center, etc). Then the last thing you will enjoy is walking around the traditional market of Doha, Sauq Waqif.

To find out more about the details like the schedule you can see in this following link: http://www.qatarairways.com/global/en/offers/doha-city-tour.page

I will also provide a video and photos, so you can visually imagine how is the tour going to be like. Enjoy!