Hamad Doha Airport

✅ Trip Verified | I see that Doha International Airport is ranked 5 stars, so I thought I would share my genuine experience. First, the drinking fountains all over the airport have been closed the entire day. Some other passengers and I have long layovers which forces us to buy water bottles or exit security to get some. They have lockers in the airport to store items for the day but I was informed that none of them were functioning either. The rest areas are basically a bunch of chairs in a line that are slightly reclined, not very comfortable. The food also is overpriced compared to many airports. Lastly, they have a spa and hotel here but it is also grossly overpriced.

✅ Trip Verified | Excellent airport. Spacious, clean, well-staffed. Plenty of toilets and fresh water taps. Not crowded, with special sleeping rooms for women. Going through security was a breeze though there were few people at 3 in the morning. I'm unable to judge how they manage large crowds. Overall my experience was a good one. The addition of flowers and plants, and greater diversity of consumer goods would enhance the airport's appeal to travelers.

✅ Trip Verified | Terrible queue at 1.00 am and I have 2 small kids with me and there is no family lane. Families with children look desperate. The hall is full of crying babies. I have been in the queue for 1 hr and we are still only halfway through. Terrible for a country that encourages passengers to stop over in town!

✅ Trip Verified | A great experience on landing, even though we were parked on a remote stand and bussed to the terminal. The passport control was absolute chaos with no organisation and over 3 hour wait time, people sitting on the floor watching movies on their laptops while waiting. We ended up paying $55USD to exit in 5 minutes by using a local airport service Al Maha - worth pre purchasing on their website if you’re in a rush. There was no people flow management, communication or support from airport staff, and clearly authorities have no sense of urgency to remove the bottle neck of hundreds of tired travellers. Qatar Airways encourage its passengers to stop off in Doha, but in future I’ll probably choose another airline or just connect to next flight immediately just to avoid that mess. Hamad is definitely not a 5 Star Airport - they need to take a leaf out of the book of efficiency from Changi!

✅ Trip Verified | The airport is lovely inside but management must be so poor. The queue at immigration is always a joke. I have lived here for three years and at busy periods you can wait over 3 hours to get through normal immigration. I have an e-gate pass but even that had a 2 hour wait as the system cant handle the numbers. 6 staff and 4 IT technicians were looking after 10 gates because they kept crashing and having to restart. Other people joined the e-gate queue reached the top of the line after a very long wait to be told they could not use e-gate as they had not registered previously. This is slightly their fault but there are no staff directing before you join the queue. They have never fixed this and it seems to be getting worse every year.

✅ Trip Verified | Transiting on the way to DWC. Much much better than the old airport I experienced back in January 2013. Airport staff much politer and willing to assist in getting to the right gate. Lots of shops catering to all tastes. Pricewise, as expected in a Gulf country, but not more expensive than Dubai. Gives the impression that tries to "imitate" DXB, as signage is really as it should be and not as in other airports - for instance Athens (Greece). Transfer times are ok considering the volume of traffic. Walking belts are really useful as distances are long. An airport I would really recommend to all!!

✅ Trip Verified | To the moment it’s been more than an hour in a huge passport control line to exit and I’ve not even moved to the middle of the line, so at least another 1.5 hours expected. Couple of hundred people around, children crying, awful. I specially planned an overnight stopover and was looking forward to spend an evening in the city before my flight tomorrow, and now I understand that I will only make it to hotel. Extremely disappointing.

✅ Trip Verified | I am very impressed with Hamad International Airport. The best staff, beautiful and spacious terminal! It is very easy to find specific places and the transit zone is very good. I really like that the gate is separated and the boarding is done according to zones. Only one small negative aspect is very slow passport control and few open control positions.

✅ Trip Verified | This was our third time flying through Doha Airport and it has impressed us every time. The architecture is beautiful, the facilities are brand new, there are helpful customer service reps literally every few feet. It puts all US airports to shame. The terminals are all easily accessible and tons of great food choices.

❎ Not Verified | Lovely airport and extremely clean. But people were not very helpful when asking for directions and they didn't open the seating lounge until an hour before the flight which is ridiculous. People were sitting on the floor in the hallway when we could see dozen of empty seats in the gate area. The shops were nice but the sales people stalk you like you are going to steal something without actually asking if they can help you. The tour desk was helpful getting us set up for a tour which was great. Overall - good and bad.