We took Qatar airlines during our trip to Kenya (Read about our time in Kenya here, here, and here) over Spring Break 2022. Qatar airlines almost always means a layover in Doha. Initially our layover was supposed to be 55 minutes, but a delayed first leg out of Dallas and a missed connection lead to a 5 hour layover.
I have to be honest, I hate layovers. I don’t care how long the flight is, my preference is always a direct flight. Just get me there in one boarding process, please! So, when I realized we’d be in Doha, stuck in the airport, for such a long time I instantly had a sense of dread. But, then I decided to make the most it and enjoy our time on Asian soil, even if we couldn’t actually walk outside.
As soon as we got off our flight, we were greeted by an airline employee who gave us all the information we needed on eating and sleeping. Qatar provided us with meal vouchers and they had various quiet rooms for us to sleep if we chose to do that.
Ultimately, we grabbed dinner at the food court. There were so great options, from Chinese to Korean to Indian to your standard American pizza and fries. We love Asian cuisine, so we got Chinese and Indian meals that were yummy, especially as airport food goes.
After eating, we played tourists in the airport by walking around and sightseeing. Let me just say this, Doha is probably the nicest airport I’ve ever visited. I mean it was impeccably clean, even the bathrooms. Did you hear me? Even the bathrooms were impeccably clean. I was pleasantly stunned. Also, the shopping opportunities would rival any luxury shopping strip. They had almost every luxury designer you can imagine.
Finally, during our sightseeing we spotted a beautiful playground bustling with kids. For the record, if a playground is present, it’s a given that the #4littleAdams are going to want to play. They made fast friends with some of the other children and spent almost 2 hours running, jumping, and climbing all over the place. My husband and I were able to charge our devices and chat a bit while the kids played, so it worked out for all of us.
In an effort to get us on our anti-jetlag schedule, we finally peeled the kids away from the playground to go in search of The Quiet Room for some sleep. The room was indeed quiet and we were able to get a good solid hour of sleep before getting to our plane.
Doha’s airport was really good to us, and I’ll admit that there was no need for my initial dread at all. Food, Fun, sightseeing, and sleep….it was the perfect layover recipe.
If you know you’ll have a Doha layover just relax and enjoy. I promise it will be great.
Happy Travels!
Leave a Reply