Hilton Abu Dhabi {ARE} (no longer Honors)
 

Although i did a search i am posting this to see if anybody can give me some info on this hotel.
I will be partly staying on the "Hiltonforfree" offer but this finishes at the end of September. Do you know of any promos for the Middle East starting in OCT?

Cheers

Alan

I have been to this hotel a couple of times, let me know what you need to know and I'll try to answer. Don't know of any promos..

Daniel

Only a few questions!!

Food. Is it expensive in the hotel and any nearby restuarants or Mall food courts?

Beach Club. Is it direct access to the beach or is it across a road? Good beach?

Benefits for a Diamond-Good or Bad?

Hope you can help

Cheers

Alan & Louise

Hilton Abu Dhabi hotel Trip Reports and Reviews
 

Hilton International Abu Dhabi - Dec 31, 2004 - Jan 10, 2005

Decided to get a nice New Year sunshine trip and booked the Hilton Abu Dhabi. The Hilton Jumeirah beach was sold out and I come back to that later. As the hotel was more or less fully booked, my only choice was to book the exec floor directly at a charge of 1250 AED. (100 AED = 27$). The room as such is not different to all other double rooms/king-size with the exception of getting free water, free fruits and have a coffee/tea-maker available. Additionally all exec rooms are on the higher floors. In my case the 9th. To my opinion every room can be turned to an exec room just by putting the amenity stuff in. The Exec lounge on the 10th was under renovation and they used a converted large suite instead. 2 well equipped internet PCs with a huge HP printer are available. TV set, fax machine, daily papers, international magazines and a friendly and supportive staff cover all your needs. Late afternoon snacks are vegetable sticks & dips as well as spring rolls, samosas and Arabian meet balls (?) are served. Drinks are available incl. GTs, sparkling wine, beer, etc. Breakfast was not served due to the fact that this was an interim solution only. I had breakfast in the restaurant. All you expect from a Hilton breakfast, but also tons of people in the morning. Not exactly a relaxing atmosphere.

The hotel was opened in the early 70s and recently refurbished. The rooms are nice, but very small compared to other Hilton hotels, Nevertheless, as you spend most of the day at the beach or in town, it doesn’t really matter. 47 TV channels, mainly Arabian and the usual international choice guarantee at least for a relaxing evening.

The beach club is situated across the hotel. You need to cross a 4-lane road (under path or traffic light). It’s about a 5 min walk. The beach club has 2 restaurants – one formal – one for beach guests – a little (artificial) beach, several pools, water sport equipment to rent, health club and spa. You need to understand that this part of the beach is completely artificial, as Abu Dhabi authorities build a large lagoon some years ago. You do not look to the open sea, but to an artificial island on the other side of the bay. For me this doesn’t really matter, but it is no comparison to Jumeirah in Dubai. Nevertheless, it is clean, it is sufficient to swim or water ski, never too crowded and – as I said – I want sunshine, an occasional drink and some swimming. That’s what you get. The beach club is open to the public for a daily or weekly fee. Although the hotel was completely sold out for the whole time, the beach club was never over crowded.

The hotel has several restaurants and I’ve tried quite a few. I start with the one I haven’t seen: Mawal … Lebanese-Arabian food and belly dancing. According to travel guides and local papers, it is one of the best Arabian restaurants in town. Instead I have tried for dinner:

BICE – Italian
Vascos – formal - at the beach club
Hemingways – Mexican
Jazz Bar – international
Coconut Bay for lunch
Balcony Bar for drinks

The webpage lists 2 more restarants ("The Pearl" and "KEI"). Both are not anymore and BICE has replaced one of them. The other one is "LA TERRAZZA" which serves breakfast and a large scale buffet in the evening)

In detail. The BICE place seems to be a chain of Italian restaurants that do operate under this name around the globe. I never had the pleasure to try one somewhere else. It is convincing and nice, somewhat expensive for Abu Dhabi. Typical dinner for 2 (3 courses – bottle of wine & coffee) totals around 120$.

Vascos is my favourite as you can sit outside by the beach. Pricing is similar to BICE, but food is better prepared. It is Mediterranean style with pacific ideas. I had dinner twice and both were fantastic. Reservation is recommended as the restaurant is also popular by locals.

Hemingways … if you want a beer, a burger or fajitas and some company or pool billard … that’s your place. There is also a discotheque attached to eat which opens later the night. Dinner for two with some drinks totals about 30-50$. They have specials every evening and once a week the have a raffle where you can win 999 AED. They also do happy hour and “girls get 2 drinks free” evenings. It is quite a lively place with British football on TV and lots of expatriates.

Jazz Bar – difficult to find as you have to cross the Hemingways complex. At the very end to the right you have an entrance to the Jazz Club. They don’t take reservations for dinner. First come – first serve. It is quite nice. Food is a cut down of the Vascos menu and at 8:45 pm a band starts playing. The club fills up around 11pm and is also a lively and nice place. The band was actually quite good, though I am not a jazz specialist.

Coconut Bay – You are at the beach and feel hungry. Go and have a burger or local fried fish. A coke or a beer and you are very satisfied with your 20$ meal for two. It is right by the pools with lots of families and children due to the fact that the place is value for money. In general the beach service is not expensive. A coke is 1$ and they even bring it to your sundbed. It gets expensive if you want an imported Evian water or a European beer.

The Balcony Bar is on the hotels 1st floor. Drinks, cocktails and cigars are served. Don’t expect too much. The barkeeper is young and inexperienced and does cocktails by the book in case they are not listed on the menu. Nevertheless, the know how to light a Cohiba (which is already a big PLUS) and have quite a choice of single malts. It is a nice hangout for a late drink before you go to bed.

In general it is nice hotel with little to complain about. The staffs are very attentive, but sometimes a bit “sloppy”. My 80$ bottle of wine was opened in a very unprofessional way and when some cork was inside the neck, the waiter got it with his finger! ;-)

I promised a comment with regards to the Hilton Jumeirah. During our stay it seems that guests have transferred from there to our hotel and told us about the amount of construction work which is going on in Dubai. One day we rented a car and drove over to have a look at Jumeirah beach. I can only say that I was extremely happy that the Hilton Jumeirah was sold out. The area behind as well as behind the beautiful Ritz Carlton is ONE BIG CONSTRUCTION MESS. I have read remarks at FlyerTalk forums that the construction is actually not that bad. I can only tell you, it is unacceptable what’s going on there and you must be a complete Hilton Dubai freak not to acknowledge that. You leave the motorway at the Jumeirah beach exit and from there on you constantly drive between trucks and skyscraper construction areas. When you finally get to the beach road you can see it is converted into a truck delivery road to all high rising buildings at the beach front. I can only imagine you have a room with full sea view otherwise the noise and the view must kill your vacation. Once this is ready (maybe 1 year from now) the beach front around the Hilton will look a bit like Waikiki.

This is just a quick note to inform that the executive lounge on the tenth floor at this hotel property is currently under construction.

Bocca Restaurant on the first floor is the temporary executive lounge; and they do offer hot and cold drinks all day long — as well as continental breakfast; a lunch snack which consists of such light items as salads, rolls and potato chips; a classic afternoon tea with miniature cookies and cakes; evening snacks; and evening drinks.

How long is the construction supposed to last?

Hilton Abu Dhabi {ARE}
 

Fyi I stayed here in February and it is one of the worst Hiltons I've stayed at. In a city of gleaming hotels, it is old and the rooms in dire need of refurbishment. (My guess is the "recent" refurbishment referenced in the 2005 post above is the last one.) The rooms are fairly small and the entire property smells like mold. The best feature is the beach club, but there are better beaches in other parts of AD.

I was told three weeks.

Anybody stayed here recently? Is it as sad as described in this short thread? Any reports on Diamond benefits?

Well, I was upgraded to a nice suite and had a Best Rate Guarantee honored at this hotel property last year — both of which were nice surprises.

I would not go so far as to call it “sad.”

recently stayed here as a diamond booked an entry level room and was upgraded to a lovely seaview suiI really like this property. classica lobby and beachclub. Makeshift lounge but great service and the evening drinks reception was excellent with great selection of food and premium beverages. felt very well taken care of as a diamond.

also a quick review from my side.

My stay was not that awesome. Had to change rooms twice to get some hours of sleep.

First room was seaview but on the side of a multi lane street/highway, ac did not work, street noise the whole night. After claiming our room was changed to city view but next to the kitchen of ex lounge --> clattering till 3am.

Only positive thing to mention is the new renovated ex lounge.

Beach Staff extreme unhelpfully.

Overall no recommendation, for my person ive understand the above comment about the sad experience

If you have to stay at this hotel demand a city view room !

Edit:

Hotel also billed ~ 100 USD to much. Bill states 430 AED open balance to my credit.
Hotel doesnt reply to phone calls and emails. Guest assistance just replies with automated messages and offering no solutions.

Anyone stayed here in 2017? Has much changed? I am contemplating a few days at the hotel in December.

Thanks!

Only positive thing to mention is the newly renovated exec lounge

I actually had quite a good stay here a couple of weeks ago with my family. I had booked two of the base level city-view rooms, and was upgraded at check-in to a junior suite connected to a sea-view room. The rooms were very spacious, but definitely show their age -- they appear to have been designed in the "80's beach property" mode, with no updates. I found the staff to be uniformly good-- the desk staff was friendly and thanked me repeatedly for being a diamond member, the bell staff was quick and efficient, and the concierge provided some helpful advice when we were heading out sightseeing. The executive lounge was decent-- it is open all day, with water/coffee/juice/softdrinks and some light food offerings from 12:30pm through 6:30pm. At that point until 9:30pm they had cocktails (wine, beer, and some spirits) and a wider selection of food- enough to make a (very) light meal of, but certainly plenty for appetizers. I wasn't thrilled with the quality of the food, but did appreciate the fact that they had something all day. The lounge staff in the evening was very attentive, continually coming by to refill our drinks and make sure we were satisfied. We went over to the beach club - the pool seemed nice for kids, with a very large water slide. It was quite crowded, and my kids decided to use the beach instead, and an attendant quickly bustled over to set up umbrellas for us. The beach was quite nice for a leisurely dip (I've never swam in such warm water), and not at all crowded (no doubt because of the heat). We also had breakfast at the Hilton in the morning, and I was extremely impressed with both the selection and quality. In addition to the usual pastries and cereals, they had a live station making everything from pancakes and waffles to dosas, an omelet station, falafel bar, and sections with Indian and Chinese offerings. My own favorite were the plum/date muffins, which I could have eaten all day. I'd certainly stay here again if passing through Abu Dhabi with my family, though I might stay somewhere more central were I here for work. If they do renovate the rooms, I suspect that they could charge quite a bit more - my two rooms together cost less than a recent one room booking at a suburban HGI (far) outside of Boston...