Doha, from the Corniche to Lusail

Four. The five-star hotels we list in Doha are Four Seasons Hotel Doha; Mandarin Oriental, Doha; Raffles Doha; and Rosewood Doha. Alongside them we keep nine four-star addresses, each listed at exactly the tier it holds: Sharq Village & Spa, a Ritz-Carlton Hotel; The Ritz-Carlton, Doha; The St. Regis Doha; Four Seasons Resort and Residences at The Pearl-Qatar; Waldorf Astoria Doha Lusail; Banyan Tree Doha; The Chedi Katara Hotel & Resort; Mondrian Doha; and The Ned Doha. Each has its own page, reached from the list above, with a concierge behind every stay.

Seven of the thirteen are in West Bay, on the Corniche and in Msheireb – Four Seasons Hotel Doha on the Corniche at the heart of West Bay; The St. Regis Doha on the shore beyond the towers; The Ritz-Carlton, Doha and Mondrian Doha on the West Bay Lagoon at the northern end; Mandarin Oriental, Doha and Banyan Tree Doha in Msheireb Downtown, beside Souq Waqif; and The Ned Doha on the Corniche, a short walk from the Museum of Islamic Art. Four are in Lusail and on The Pearl – Raffles Doha, Rosewood Doha and Waldorf Astoria Doha Lusail on the Lusail Marina, and Four Seasons Resort and Residences at The Pearl-Qatar on the island between Katara and Lusail. Two are at Katara and on the old shore – The Chedi Katara Hotel & Resort inside Katara Cultural Village, and Sharq Village & Spa, a Ritz-Carlton Hotel on the shore south of the Corniche, between the National Museum of Qatar and the airport. Choose West Bay for the towers, the malls and the Corniche at the door; Msheireb for the old city on foot – the souq, the museums and the Corniche; Lusail for the newest quarter, its marina and its boulevard; The Pearl for a resort with the island's marinas and canals behind it; Katara for the beach and the cultural village; the old shore for a village of courtyards ten minutes from the airport.

The winter – from October to April – is the season: days in the twenties, evenings cool enough for a terrace on the Corniche, a sea warm enough to swim in until December and again from March, and the city's calendar in full swing – National Day on 18 December, with the parade and the fireworks along the Corniche; the Grand Prix at Lusail in the last quarter of the year; the tennis and the jewelry and watch fair in February; and the seasonal fair on Al Maha Island, off Lusail, through the cooler months. December and January can bring a cool wind and the odd shower, and the desert nights ask for a jacket. From June to September the heat is the fact of the day – afternoons past forty degrees and a damp air off the Gulf – and life moves indoors, to the malls, the museums and chilled pools, while the hotels are at their quietest; May and October are the shoulders, hot but usable, with the sea at its best. Ramadan moves about eleven days earlier each year – see the next question.

A good deal, and it is worth knowing before you book. Ramadan follows the lunar calendar and moves about eleven days earlier each year, so the dates are known well ahead. In Qatar, eating, drinking and smoking in public in daylight are not done – the hotels serve their guests through the day in restaurants set apart, and the bars close by day and open, where they open at all, only after sunset; live music pauses, and shops, offices and museums keep shorter hours in the afternoon. In return the city comes alive at dusk: iftar, the meal at sunset, is laid out in the hotels' tents and majlis with a generosity the rest of the year does not match; Souq Waqif and the malls stay open late into the night; and on the fourteenth night the children of Doha go from house to house in traditional dress for Garangao, with sweets handed out at Katara and in the souq. Eid al-Fitr, the holiday at the end of the month, fills the resorts with families from across the Gulf. Beyond Ramadan the customs are simple: modest dress in public – shoulders and knees covered in the malls, the souq and the museums – swimwear kept to the beach and the pool, and alcohol served only in the licensed restaurants and bars of the hotels.

The two are twenty minutes apart, and the city is small enough to do both in a day. For the sand: Four Seasons Hotel Doha has its own beach and marina on the Corniche in the middle of West Bay; The St. Regis Doha keeps a long private beach on the shore beyond the towers; Four Seasons Resort and Residences at The Pearl-Qatar has a beach and marina on the island; The Chedi Katara Hotel & Resort has its beach inside Katara Cultural Village; Sharq Village & Spa, a Ritz-Carlton Hotel has its own on the old shore south of the Corniche. For the city: Mandarin Oriental, Doha and Banyan Tree Doha put Souq Waqif and the Msheireb Museums at the door; The Ned Doha puts the Museum of Islamic Art a short walk away and a pool on its roof; Mondrian Doha keeps its rooftop and its atrium in the West Bay Lagoon district. For the water without a beach: Raffles Doha, Rosewood Doha and Waldorf Astoria Doha Lusail keep their pools over the Lusail Marina, and The Ritz-Carlton, Doha its own marina on the West Bay Lagoon. On a stopover of a night or two, Msheireb or the Corniche puts the souq, the museums and the promenade on foot; with three nights or more, a beach house in the north and a day in the desert make the trip.

Yes, and easier than much of the Gulf: distances are short, the beaches are calm and the museums were built with families in mind. The National Museum of Qatar, Jean Nouvel's desert rose at the southern end of the Corniche, has playgrounds and a park; the Museum of Islamic Art has its own park on the bay, with lawns, a playground and the towers of West Bay across the water; Katara Cultural Village has a public beach, an amphitheater and the galleries and cafés between them; Doha Quest, the indoor theme park at Doha Oasis in Msheireb, sits beside Souq Waqif, where the falcon souq is an outing in itself. The Inland Sea at Khor Al Adaid, where the dunes run into the Gulf, is an hour and a quarter south, with dune drives, camels and a night under the stars; a dhow along the Corniche at sunset takes half an hour. The beach houses – Four Seasons Hotel Doha, The St. Regis Doha, Four Seasons Resort and Residences at The Pearl-Qatar, The Chedi Katara Hotel & Resort, Sharq Village & Spa, a Ritz-Carlton Hotel – keep pools, calm water and room to run, and in the summer months the malls and the museums are the answer to the heat of the day. A babysitter for an evening out is a call to the hotel.

No. Doha is compact – Msheireb to West Bay is ten minutes by car, West Bay to Katara and The Pearl ten more, Lusail twenty from the Corniche – and the Doha Metro, opened in 2019, links the pieces: the Red Line runs from Hamad International through Msheireb to the towers of West Bay, Katara, Legtaifiya for The Pearl and Lusail, and the Green and Gold lines meet it under Msheireb, a few minutes from Mandarin Oriental, Doha and Banyan Tree Doha; a tram runs around Lusail. Taxis are metered and everywhere, and the ride apps work. Hamad International is about fifteen minutes from Msheireb and the Corniche, twenty from West Bay, twenty-five from Katara and The Pearl and thirty from Lusail; every hotel here runs its own airport cars. For the Inland Sea and the dunes, an hour and a quarter south, and for the fort at Al Zubarah, an hour and a half to the north-west, a driver is the way, and the hotel arranges one.

Search your dates on the hotel's page to see reference rates, then send the concierge a request. The concierge confirms exact rates and availability with you before anything is booked, and any payment and its timing are set out before you confirm.