Oryx Rotana Doha
Things had gone well up until this point. Initially, things were looking good for a 3AM departure from DOH to KTM.
Arriving at Doha
No transit security check for my flight
Al Mourjan Business Class Lounge
A bit of dessert before my midnight snack
Midnight Snack
Decent, but the plane food was actually better
View from the top of the escalator to the lounge
Obligatory giant bronze teddy bear pic
A couple hours before the flight was to depart, I learned that we'd had a 4 hour delay. Not fatal, but not great either. Naturally, the delay was too short for a hotel voucher and all the quiet rooms were taken, so I donned my eye mask and earplugs and found a quite spot in the lounge to sleep. After an hour or so (around 3am by now), I happened to check the flight status again and learned the delay had been lengthened to 10 hours. Great.
I did some quick math and realized that would give me less than 12 (primarily night time) hours on the ground, which wasn't worth it at all. I was also concerned about delays on my KTM-DEL flight (on Jet Airways) and I really didn't want to miss a day in India in order to do a mattress run in Nepal. So, I decided to cut out Nepal entirely. There was not cost to make the change and the QR lounge agents get be rebooked onto the next DOH-DEL service. Unfortunately, that flight was leaving at 7PM, so I had a lot of time to kill in Doha before the flight.
Luckily, Qatar gave me a hotel voucher for the Oryx Rotana and a food voucher for approximately $50 US (175 QAR). So, I made my way through immigration (which was an absolute breeze) and headed to arrivals to catch the shuttle to the hotel. Technically I qualified for a private car to the hotel, but I didn't feel like waiting so I squeezed into a sedan with a few other passengers and we took the quick 10-15min ride to the hotel.
Check-in was quick and I was in the room in no time. I took a few pics of the room and finally went to bed around 4:30AM.
Room at Oryx Rotana
Room at Oryx Rotana
Room at Oryx Rotana
Room at Oryx Rotana
Room at Oryx Rotana
Room at Oryx Rotana
Room at Oryx Rotana
Room at Oryx Rotana
Room at Oryx Rotana
I woke up around noon that day feeling pretty refreshed.
View from the room
View from the room
Inner Courtyard
Inner Courtyard
QR HQ Evil Eye
After a quick shower, I headed down to the restaurant for a quick lunch.
Lunch at hotel buffet
Arabic desserts
Oryx Rotana Exterior
Lunch accomplished, I had plenty of time to kill before my flight. So, I decided to catch an Uber to visit the Museum of Islamic Art. It was a bit dicey since I only had wifi, but luckily the hotel and the museum both had free wifi. So I was able to order an Uber in both directions without any drama. The drivers didn't speak much English, but that was fine.