The Gate Shopping Center

  Malls
Typically most malls in Doha are open from 10AM to 10PM Saturday to Thursday. Most will be closed on Friday mornings but will open up during the evening, when they'll be the most crowded. Also, be aware that some malls schedule “Family Days”, where single men will be turned away at the door. In practice, however, most Westerners will be allowed in, but brown-skinned persons (particularly South Asians in their native dress-ing) will be turned away.

City Center Doha, Conference Centre St (West Bay). Opened in April 2001 and is the largest shop-ping centre in Qatar. Located in West Bay, the modern part of the city on the northern end of the

Corniche, it offers a large and diverse shopping ex-perience, including several jewellery and perfume stores. For entertainment there is a large multiplex cinema, a bowling alley, a children’s arcade, as well as an indoor ice skating rink. There are several eat-ing options including two food courts as well as sev-eral sit-down restaurants. By western standards, this mall is quite dated for its age, but remains popular due to its large size and ideal location. Finally, the mall is home to a large Carrefour hypermarket.

Ezdan Mall, Al Markhiya St (Gharafa, across the expressway from Landmark Shopping Mall). Doha’s newest mall, with 200 tenants and a Carrefour su-permarket. Not all shops are open yet.

The Gate Shopping Center, Omar AlMukhtar St (West Bay, near City Center Doha), ☎ +974 4407 7201. Has 280 shops with mostly luxury goods. The popular bistro 'Jones the Grocer' is also located here.

Hyatt Plaza, Hyatt Plaza Rd (Al Aziziyah, near Sports City and Villaggio Mall). This shopping mall is comparatively smaller than others, but as a plus it is always less crowded. There is a good sized food court and a large children’s playland called “Jungle Zone.”

Lagoona Plaza, West Bay, Zone 66 (distinctive zigzag towers, near the Pearl-Qatar), ☎ +974 4433 5555. closed Sunday. Mostly high-end luxury goods, with a Carrefour grocery store.

Landmark Shopping Mall, Al Markhiya St (Gharafa, across the expressway from Ezdan Mall). Focuses mostly on clothing, jewellery, and cosmet-ics. There is also a Carrefour hypermarket for gro-ceries.

The Mall, Najma St and D Ring Rd. Qatar’s first shopping mall, opened in October 1997. Tourists are better off going to any of the aforementioned lo-cations if they wish to purchase store goods.

Villaggio Shopping Mall, Al Aziziyah. One of Doha’s newest malls, located near the Aspire Cen-tre. The mall is designed to look like Venice in terms of architecture, and is home to many western stores, as well as a large Carrefour. The food court is home to several Western-style fast food restaurants, as well as several sit-down options. For entertain-ment, there is currently a long canal offering gondola rides (15 QR), an ice-skating rink (30 QR), and a cinema with 13 screens and one IMAX screen. On May 28, 2012, a major fire broke out in the mall trapping and killing 19 people; the trial assessing culpability is still ongoing. The mall reopened in September 20, 2012.