What do you do if no hotels available pre-cruise? Doha in December

[westcoasttech]

I'll stress that this was just me investigating an idea I had, no actual cruise booking involved (at this point)!  I REALLY like new ships (ooh, so shiny!) so was playing with the idea of the World Europa sailing (over Christmas - 9 day Doha round trip, sailing date December 20) and was surprised that the pricing for the actual cruise seemed quite reasonable.  So started playing around with flight and hotel options, just out of curiosity.  There are NO hotels available from the "usual" websites, even for 1 night, pre-cruise, unless I have a budget of well of $1k for the 1 night.  I'm guessing this is due to a certain big sports event happening in Nov/Dec, with the final game December 18, in that area ... think football (soccer, that is)!  I guess it's just as well I didn't go ahead with any actual booking for the cruise.  Flight pricing is pretty horrendous anyway, so in reality that might have priced it out of reality.  But I do wonder what people are doing that are already booked on that sailing??  Staying in another part of UAE perhaps??... there's no roll call set up for that sailing so I can't ask there.  Anyone come across this issue before that gives no option other than to fly in day of?

[Georgia_Peaches]

Were I in that situation the first thing I would do is get my name on several wait lists for cancellations. Next, I’d look for hostels and local rooms for rent in private homes. Worse case I’d find a train station or airport in which to wait it out. All of this for a cruise I really wanted to do…so far, I haven’t found one to drive me to such extremes. 

[perakcruiser]

Unfortunately you can only book affordable accomodation in Doha with a ticket. In this case it would be a ticket for the final, which is a) not available and b) not cheap with prices up to 1500 USD. 

 

Apart from that the MSC World Europa and MSC Poesia are available as hotels until Dec 20. This cruise is the first cruise where cruise companies are allowed to embark passengers in Qatar again. During the World Cup all lines had to reschedule the Doha embarkation to Dubai or Abu Dhabi. 

 

As the ship is the Europa people cannot change to another port as the ship is all the time in Doha. The only solution probably is indeed to stay in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Muscat or Bahrain and fly over on the 20th. The European guests will just fly to Doha on the 20th and not need accomodation. 

[westcoasttech]

On 8/23/2022 at 7:47 PM, perakcruiser said:

Apart from that the MSC World Europa and MSC Poesia are available as hotels until Dec 20. This cruise is the first cruise where cruise companies are allowed to embark passengers in Qatar again. During the World Cup all lines had to reschedule the Doha embarkation to Dubai or Abu Dhabi. 

Thanks so much for that information (while I'm an ex-Brit I never have followed the "Beautiful Game" so have not been following World Cup background).  Is it just me or does it seem "almost sacrilegious" to hand over a brand new ship to football fans 😦 ...but I guess these aren't your average Saturday afternoon fans?!?  I did look at staying in Dubai and flying over, it is a short flight, but definitely not a cheap one.   Oh well, back to the drawing board with my plans - I was just looking for something a little different...

[perakcruiser]

13 hours ago, westcoasttech said:

Thanks so much for that information (while I'm an ex-Brit I never have followed the "Beautiful Game" so have not been following World Cup background).  Is it just me or does it seem "almost sacrilegious" to hand over a brand new ship to football fans 😦 ...but I guess these aren't your average Saturday afternoon fans?!?  I did look at staying in Dubai and flying over, it is a short flight, but definitely not a cheap one.   Oh well, back to the drawing board with my plans - I was just looking for something a little different...

Yeah, it sounds a little bit strange, but the cruise lines have done that before (in South Africa), I guess MSC knows what they are doing. Certainly partly a different clientele, but in case of your ex-Compatriots not. They are fully prepared to spend half of their annual salary or more for the World Cup 😄

 

For the cheap flights you need to search directly at the webpages of the Middle East LCC. 

 

Ah, maybe in 2026 MSC will send a ship to Vancouver, who knows. 

 

[wcook]

I’d just fly in the day of the cruise.