Originally Posted by
Mach 0.85
I (EU also) had to pay for a visa. But it isn't a lot of money, and they take a credit card. The main difficulty I had was getting the immigration official to understand my answers to her questions - her English was only slightly less retarded than my Arabic. In particular, we kept getting stuck on the "How long will you spend in Qatar?" question. When I answered "a small number of hours", that generated the <point to transit area> response. Getting her to understand that I had only a few hours between flights, but still wanted to enter the country, was challenging.
As they have free wireless, you could cruise the internet. But my experience was, the free wireless wasn't all that reliable.
The Qatar website has some option to purchase brief tours designed for stopovers. They're probably a rip off, but they would be easy, I guess. Of course, the timing of your stop has to line up with the timing of the tour.
There's a mosque across the street, with a relatively rare patch of green in front of it. Just walk through the parking lot. Unless you're really into mosques, though, that would probably get old before the end of your transit.
The visa is QAR 100, about $27.50. Credit cards only. This is for countries (pretty much Western, Australia and NZ, Japan, GCC, and a few others) eligible for a visa on arrival. If you have a different passport,
zhoux, then, you're right, that adds to the hassle. I would just answer, "one day" then they ask you how long you'll be there. The immigration agents are much less friendly than, for example, UAE, Bahrain, or Oman. But that's Qatar all around.
I agree, seven hours is tough. Still a painful time to sit in the airport, and you're right that there is not much to do outside at night. I would still go to Souq Waqif for a couple of hours -- you can walk around, go to a cafe, and kill some time until pretty late at night. You could see a movie at The Mall, which is fairly close to the airport, or wander over (by taxi) to the Sharq Village shisha lounge or bar if you're really desperate.
I have never gotten the wi-fi to work in the main terminal. There is also a resting area, over on the far end of the terminal by the cafeteria-type place, but it's not that comfortable or quiet.