I just finished my fourth stay here, for a total of about a dozen nights. Here are some observations:

-- Guest rooms. As I commented before, they are very attractive, although small compared to other five-star hotels in Doha. The carpet, furniture, and fixtures are of a higher quality than anything else in the city. The beds are quite comfortable, typical for W. The best part of the rooms are the floor-to-ceiling windows that cover most sides of the room, although the windows don't open. The desk and bathroom accessories are all made of leather, and all of the chairs and sofas are typically modern and comfortable.

Here are a few pictures of the W Suite (to which I was upgraded on two stays) and the Fabulous Room (to which I was upgraded on the other two stays):


http://www.flickr.com/photos/42248653@N04/3896182367
(Bedroom in suite)


http://www.flickr.com/photos/42248653@N04/3896173613
(Living room in suite)


http://www.flickr.com/photos/42248653@N04/3896944934
(Guest room, non-suite)

You can see that the rooms feature circular spaces, with pseudo-curtains (strands of string) that fully "enclose" the spaces.

The Fabulous Rooms are at the corner of the building, so are sort of triangular- (or perhaps trapezoidal-) shaped. Behind the wall with the TV monitor is a little nook with a daybed and coffee table in front of the windows. Sort of a waste of a space, perhaps, or a nice little addition, depending on how you look at it.

The room has all sorts of gadgets, like a fancy alarm clock, VoIP phone on the desk and cordless phone on the nightstand, iPod docking station, and Bose surround sound (in the suites). The suite has a few other whimsical items, like an old manual typewriter and a chess set. I wasn't interested in most of these, except for the Nespresso machine with several different pods of coffee to choose from. ^ The room has a minibar, with alcohol, and food items, all at fairly decent prices considering the source. (By the way, the minibar does not include the racier items that some Ws in more liberal locales are known for.)

I had one major problem with the room, which was the entertainment system. It's actually a PC and monitor -- the software was branded Neos -- but worked very poorly. The DVD player (which is part of the PC) was sluggish and unresponsive to the remote buttons. Every time I tried to watch a DVD, the system froze, skipped, or otherwise misbehaved. Often the sound would play without the picture or vice-versa. I often tried to re-boot (which took about five minutes) with success for only a few minutes each time. The television channels were not much better. There is no way to surf all of the channels at once; only to navigate through menus and sub-menus on the screen, although the channel selection is pretty narrow. The system also offers pay-per-view movies, which is not common in the Middle East (I can think of only one other hotel in Doha that offers them), but none of the fewer than 20 titles on offer were of any interest to me.

I had this issue with all three of the units that I attempted to use over my several stays. A couple of times they sent the engineer up, but he was unable to do anything. I told them that it was obvious that the software was just junky, but they didn't seem to understand. They offered to swap the system out; I told them, please don't bother until I leave tomorrow morning, and I am not sure if they ever did. They certainly didn't fix the problem.

-- Bathrooms. The bathrooms are very attractive, with huge rain showers, large bathtubs, and the usual Bliss toiletries (large bottles in the suites), replenished each day. Here are a couple of pictures:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/42248653@N04/3896956900
(Suite bathroom)


http://www.flickr.com/photos/42248653@N04/3896966168
(Suite bathroom)

However, where the bathrooms excel in form, they sometimes fall short in function. The elegant parabolic sink in the bathroom in my suite was too flat -- and the end of the faucet too high and close to the edge of the sink -- to prevent a tidal wave of water from ending up all over the counter whenever I used it. The shower also has many nozzles -- six horizontal jets, in addition to the vertical rain shower and hose apparatus, in the one in the suite -- but the pressure was uneven and temperature not very responsive to the controls. There is also no soap dish or tray of any kind in the shower, so that I had to place all of my toiletries on the floor while using it. Not a huge deal, of course, but a strange design oversight.

-- Food and beverage. The hotel has three restaurants, Market by Jean Georges, Spice Market [also by Jean Georges], and La Maison du Caviar.

I was excited to go to La Maison du Caviar, as there are few, if any, French brasserie-type places in Doha. The food and service are not great, unfortunately, but prices are moderate for Doha, so overall it's a decent option. Last visit, I had the veal cordon bleu (with "beef ham"), served with some roasted potatoes and browrn gravy. It was fairly solid, but the goat-cheese salad I also ordered was really underwhelming. The restaurant also features caviar, of course, with all major varieties (including beluga), but the prices are quite high, even in context. Not surprising, I guess, because it might be the only place in Doha that carries cavier.

The Market, by contrast, is one of the best restaurants in Doha. It has a relatively small menu, but everything that I have had has been tasty. Breakfast in the morning also does not feature as wide of a selection as most of the other five-star hotels in town, but more than makes up for it in quality. It features excellent fruit and berries, a few typical cold and hot mezze, a variety of cold cuts and cheeses, elegantly displayed yogurts and parfaits, foie gras, and choice of basic hot entrees (e.g., eggs, pancakes). Breakfast was complimentary for me (it was included in my corporate rate, although I am not sure if it's complimentary for Platinum members), which includes coffee and fresh juice, but a 1L bottle of water set me back about $10.

I was disappointed by the Spice Market. It is sort of a Vietnamese-based menu, but I found the menu selections limited, and wasn't thrilled with what I ordered. Maybe they're trying a bit too hard here, which sophisticated-sounding dishes that don't really deliver.

I also attended the iftar buffet at Spice Market as well as the suhour "Ramadan tent" set up in the ballroom. Both were disappointing; at suhour, available from 10:00pm-3:00am, they have a slightly smaller version of the same buffet as iftar, as well as small cooking stations for India, France, Italy, China, Japan, and Qatar, if I remember correctly. This was not too memorable -- think of a basic pasta station for "Italy" -- although they had Peking duck with pancakes at the "China" station. ^

-- Service. I wouldn't say that typical W aloofness characterizes the service -- in fact, the staff are pretty friendly and engaging. The front desk service is efficient, while the bell and valet parking seem to take an inordinate amount of time, even when it's apparently not busy. I sent my shoes down for a shine and asked that they be returned at a certain time the next day; they weren't, and I had to call down and retrieve them.

On the plus side, twice when I called down and asked for the bellman to help me with my luggage, when I went downstairs they had already printed my bill to expedite check-out. A relatively minor accommodation, of course, but this is very rare in my experience. I have called the hotel reservations office several times, and always had good experiences (this is not always the case in Doha, given limited English capabilities of many of the front-line staff at hotels), although the front-desk attendant was not able to fully help me when I tried to make a reservation there in person.

I have no experience with "Whatever Whenever."

They once sent me an SMS with an offer for a promotional menu at La Maison du Caviar, but, when I went there, no one at the restaurant nor the front desk knew anything about it. Typical.

-- Amenities. The hotel also features Wahm, an outdoor bar and shisha cafe that is quite nice. It has a handful of Arabic-style cabana-type facilities outside, with cushioned seating and privacy curtains. The Bliss Spa, the first in the region, is also gorgeous, although I did not avail of any of the services. The pool is smallish, outdoors and with a black bottom and music playing under the water. The Crystal Lounge is without a doubt the most attractive night club in Doha. I went once a couple of months ago, but haven't been lately (it's closed during Ramadan, which lasts for about two more weeks).

There is a small ladies' boutique in the lobby, as well as a branch of iSpot, the Apple [computer] dealer in Qatar. There is no place to buy a magazine or batteries, however. The lobby also features a number of semi-private spaces with comfortable sofas, ample reading material strewn about, and wait service for tea, juice, etc. They also have a little table set up each evening with snacks and drinks (dates, iced tea, etc.). I am not sure if this is just for Ramadan or not, but it makes for an inviting atmosphere when one returns at night.

Here is a picture of the lobby:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42248653@N04/3896938820

In summary, the hotel stands out in Doha, and is a very comfortable place to stay. I will be back.