Just back from a trip in Qatar QSuites with my wife celebrating a milestone anniversary where we had a long layover in Doha. Here we had the opportunity to check out the new Garden lounge on the north side of the terminal. Nothing earth shattering, but my favorite part of the lounge is it seems to be less visited, so even at peak times wasn’t nearly as crowded as the original Al Mourjan lounge gets. It is similar in concept to the other Al Mourjan lounge, with rest areas, dining areas, showers, smoking and prayer rooms. It is above and has excellent views of the Orchard, a large glass ceiling/roof structure covering the north part of the Doha terminal.
Accessing the Garden lounge
As with most Qatar Airways premium lounges, access is granted to those in business or first class on Qatar or other Oneworld partners. Oneworld emerald travelers in economy class do not have access here.
The Garden lounge is located on the north end of the Hamad International Airport terminal. I wasn’t able to find a good map, but basically it is located where the terminal splits to the D and E concourses. Qatar Airways describes the location as “Central Zone North Node”. If at the Giant teddy bear, walk north towards C gates, and continue walking, or take the escalators up to get on the train. The train is frequent, and took maybe 5 minutes total from the bear to to door of the garden lounge.
There are agents posted near an elevator bank, confirming access to the lounge, and inviting guest to ride up to the lounge which is on the mezzanine level.
Seating areas
Once to the top of the elevator, there are more agents welcoming guests, as well as an information desk. There is also the Louis Vuitton lounge here. This is just an additional restaurant within the garden lounge offering drinks and food for additional cost. I had no interest in visiting here.
The Garden lounge is roughly U shaped, with long areas around the orchard feature in this part of the terminal. One side is all seating, and the other has more seats as well as the dining area. Bathrooms, are available on both sides. There is luggage storage near the entrance, as well as the Louis Vuitton lounge at the base of the U.
Showers are available, and there was zero wait while I was here, although at peak times and as more people visit this lounge, it may not always be this way
Al Mourjan lounge – the Garden shower rooms
Both for the purposes of this review and since I was ready for a shower after a long inbound flight and some time spent in hot Doha. Like the rest of the lounge, the shower rooms seem spotless and new. One item of note, at least in the shower room I was assigned, there is no toilet.
There is a small area for luggage storage, a sink, with vanity mirror, hair dryer, and Diptyque amenities. There is a plug near the sink, presumably for shavers, but also useful for a quick top up of mobile phones, etc. The main feature is a large shower with decent water pressure.
Dining areas in the Garden lounge
While we spent a decent amount of time here, during our layover, sandwiched between long flights. We had a meal in Doha proper, and didn’t fully avail of the dining options here. Drink stations are available in a few areas. Plus there is a buffet of hot and cold items, from snacks, breads, and desserts. There is also a la cart dining. Unlike the original Al Mourjan lounge, there is not a separate dining area. While I usually prefer a proper meal in lounge rather than on board. But here the timing didn’t work out, so we only had some snacks and drinks during our visit.
The world cup is over, but there is a lot of branded beer cans left over. Who knows if it is fresh. Doesn’t matter because I’m a beer snob, and being from Milwaukee, I’m not drinking Bud.
The food in the lounge is solid, even in the relatively quiet time I visited, the buffet is refreshed a lot, and items are fresh. But but since we had 2 long flights with a long layover, we decided to leave the airport and explore Doha.
Visiting Doha during a layover
While this piece has nothing to do with the garden lounge, I figured I’d include it here. After some time relaxing in the lounge (and me changing into different clothes), with more hours to go before our next flight, we decided to leave the airport. We stored our baggage in a locker at the lounge, and confirmed the best way to exit with an agent there.
To leave the secure area, we returned to the transit zone one level above the departure area. From here we had to ask, and then were directed through an opening in the security line that most transit passengers go through after arriving in Doha. From there, we went to the Premium Arrival Lounge.
It was around 9pm or so as I recall, and there was only one other person there, who passed through quickly. Maybe bathrooms were being cleaned, but when we asked, we were directed just outside the lounge. We didn’t spend any time here, other than to grab a bottle of water. Then we exited by giving our passports to the immigration official working here. We then made our way out through baggage claim and outside to wait for an uber. Nothing exciting once in Doha, timing didn’t allow for visiting museums or much else. We simply went to Souk Waqif to walk around, get some fresh air, and ultimately a meal. I had been to Doha a few times some years ago for work, but my wife had never been outside Hamad airport. Even well after sunset, it was still hot. After some walking around and window shopping, we decided to find a restaurant that had air conditioning.
Returning to the airport
After a few hours, we returned to the airport, and retraced our steps to the garden lounge to collect our bags and wait for our next flight. Was it worth it? As much as I like airports and fancy lounges, our layover was much too long to just wait there the while time. As US Citizens, we are granted a free visa waiver. Many other countries have the similar easy access.
Our next flight was at a bus gate. This was annoying to me considering how many gates are available at the airport. I suppose with the heavy banking of schedules here, there still is the need for bus gates. The waiting area was crowded, and even though we didn’t arrive at the specified boarding time, we still had a long wait to get on a bus. As business class passengers, we were given a dedicated bus. Kind of unnecessary, but slightly more ‘premium’ I suppose
Final thoughts on the new Garden lounge
There are many more premium lounge options at Hamad International airport than there was even earlier this year. That is a good thing, because to me no matter how nice a lounge is, if it is crowded or there are long waits for services offered, it is not very premium. This lounge adds a ton of extra space for premium passengers on Qatar Airways and partners. The Orchard is a nice scenic area, and I think I’d probably prefer this lounge to the original Al Mourjan.
Have you visited the Al Mourjan lounge – The Garden? What did you think? Worth a few extra steps from the A/B gates?
