Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi Hotel and Villas — Hotel in Abu Dhabi

OFF SEASON||||We stayed at the PARK HYATT ABU DHABI in August which is quite hot and therefore the off season. Not our first choice, but it was the only way we all had enough time.||If you can stand the heat you get a lot of space and hardly any queues anywhere; sunbeds at the pool to choose from, mostly empty beaches, enough space in the restaurant (except for a few busy days with weekend-guests).||||Like most sea-front properties in both Abu Dhabi and Dubai the Park Hyatt is a luxury resort. So we came expecting a certain standard and we were quite satisfied.||||BUILDING,ROOMS||||Our travel agent offered a sea view room that is guaranteed to be on an upper floor and we were quite happy with that.||Upper floor turned out to be the top floor (6th) and almost in the middle of the large U-shaped building. And a size of 47 sqm (by my measurements) means not need for a [quite expensive] suite.||||We didn't visit the suites but I guess they would have been nice (they are in good locations) if you need the space (100 sqm) and get a better deal than we could.||||The villas, on the other hand, I would only have accepted at a discount.||We've had some lovely beach villas on tropical islands where you step into the water after a couple of dozen steps, but not here. The villas are more than 150m from the water line and there is no path through the shrubbery that protects the beach. To get to the beach from the villas you exit the villa on the back(!) and take the same 2 walkways like everyone else.||||FOOD: excellent quality, lacking choice in the off season||||Food was fresh and high quality. For example, not every 5 star hotel has eggs benedict for breakfast and here, the eggs menu had several variations on that topic.||||But FOOD also gets me to the one area where staying in the off season put a slight damper on our holiday experience (I'm told the discount was huge, though).||There was not quite enough choice for a luxury hotel.||||I reckon there were around 10 "hot pots" for both breakfast and dinner (not counting show cooking and grill). We've had river cruises with the same amount and 4 star hotels that offered more.||For BREAKFAST these pots would stay the same every day whereas other hotels like to change some of them around in a 2 or 3 day rhythm.||And for DINNER these 10 pots already include noodle variations (2) and plain white rice (1).||||I'm always happy with the grill but the girls were getting tired of variations of rice and chicken after a couple of days.||And finally I learned that this is an off-season issue because an employee told me to come back in winter, because there is a much bigger buffet extending outside with seating outside. Oh, Great.||Other than that, food was quite good.||||First of all, the GRILL:||* the evening grill always had one kind of fish and always [different cuts of] steaks||- lamb was never in one piece (steaks/chops), but really good kofte||- sometimes more chicken on the grill||- no lobster, no crabs, only unpeeled shrimps||- and no pork, of course||||Other Food:||* excellent soups (which I find the exception rather than the rule)||* live cooking with a different topic every day, from sushi (okay) to quesadillas (brilliant)||+ when you stay for 2 weeks you will notice a 1-week cycle in the topics and the dishes, but that is normal||||We did not try the 2 a-la-carte restaurants (italian, steak) because - as so often - all you get for forgoing the big buffet is a tiny discount.||||DRINKS: expensive (obviously)||||Alcohol is of course a special issue in a "dry" country where alcohol is not completely banned, but only available to tourists and at a premium.||||The hotel doesn't offer all-inclusive. One of the neighbouring hotels did but for such a steep price that even I couldn't drink that much ;-)||||So instead of writing about drinks quality (which was quite good, or people would not pay the prices) I need to write about drinks prices.||||Basically, for a five star hotel, the prices are not all that shocking. Our minimum dinner configuration: glass of red wine, glass of white and large bottle of water ran to 135 AED which is around 33 Euro. That was the minimum, of course.||||The bigger problem was that we did not see different prices anywhere! When it comes to drink, the entire country seems to be 5 star, or at least all the fancy touristey places.||As a rule of thumb: 30 AED for water and simple coffee, 50 AED for wine and fancy coffee, 70 AED for alcoholic cocktails.||We had those everywhere because we figured the are the best value ;-)||||DRINKING WATER: free [almost] everywhere||||Don't be scared when you read about drinks prices, there is free water almost everywhere in the hotel (except for dinner).||||* brought to your room in reusable glass bottles||* brought to your pool sunbed in plastic bottles in a waterproof baggy with a lot of ice (a very nice touch)||* even on your way to the beach there is always someone holding out bottles of water with the towels||||We used to joke that we had a water-only all-inclusive.||||With the notable exception of dinner, where you are suddenly expected to pay 35 AED for a large bottle.||||POOLS:||||The hotel has 2 kinds of pools - dark blue and light blue tiles as you can see in satellite images. Dark blue are the 2 fancy pools right in the middle of the hotel grounds that are shown on hotel photos.||||There are 2 dark pools, kids and adults with an infinity effect between (but not with the ocean, that is just too far away).||The kids pool with a depth from 30 to 90 cm is for smaller kids but they weren't using it much in summer, as the water temperature in this dark, shallow pool would almost reach 40 degrees in the afternoon. Really. We sometimes used it as a thermal bath.||The adult pool was very nice and relaxed. Plenty of sunbeds in the off season, 4 "peninsulas" with sunbeds right in the pool area, plenty of towels, great service with water on ice as described above and waiters to order drinks from.||||There are 2 light blue pools a little to the side that look like everywhere else and that were the real family pools at the time.||||All the pools are a little too shallow - the maximum depth we found was 1.40m and much too warm in the summer, going from 33 degrees adult to 39 degrees kids (with the ocean at 37). That is not a complaint - merely a fact about the summer season.||||BEACH,OCEAN:||||We had decided for Abu Dhabi over Dubai for the better beaches and this beach right here on Saadiyat island is the best of them all.||Sadly, this is not a country were all the beaches are public by law, so access can be restricted.||||That means that even the so called "public beach" a little to the right charges a fee and has closing times and more importantly it means all the hotels here will deny beach access after sunset.||||Quite by accident we found a curious way to still get our evening walk on the beach.||Since we had to pay for every drink anyway, we would sometimes have drinks at the pool or beach or even inside bars in the neighbouring hotels for a little variety in drinks and locations.||So, if we ended up in another hotel after sunset and needed the beach to get back to our own in bathing clothes and flip-flops they had no choice than letting us walk along the beach :-)||||I already mentioned the long distance from the pool area to the water line (150m at least). There are two long walkways laid across the shrubbery that absolutely need shoes when they bake in the sun. (But then, so does the sand on the beach at noon.)||The water is much too hot for corals and there are no rocks for them to grow on anyway. No fish to be seen either, just sand and hot water.||||OTHER NOTES,GETTING AROUND||||There is one last feature of the hotel I'd like to mention. When we had to wait for the room to be serviced after breakfast (more often than usual, we felt...) there was a beautiful place for that. Because while many hotels have a shelf with books left behind by other travellers, this Hyatt has a entire LIBRARY with 6 huge shelves.||A beautiful place to read the books, also with a few newspapers and coffee service (although we would take our last coffee from breakfast to go like many people do).||||I will try not to turn this into a description of the entire country, but I'll finish with a note on getting around and the excellent help the concierge provides.||||* taxis are perfect for local trips (neighbouring islands, Abu Dhabi City)||This is my new favourite country for taxis: both cheap and modern (always credit cards, always taximeter). So far I've only known countries that ticked one of those boxes.||||More notably, from the concierge:||||* for day trips to Dubai with a lot of detours and stops, the concierge can organise a private car with chauffeur that will stay with you all day||- around the same price as multiple taxis but far less hassle||- and cheaper than the private car from our travel agent||||* and the concierge would buy us Internet tickets for the bigger sights at no extra charge(!),||so we could make our credit card payment to the hotel instead of some website we'd never heard of before. We really appreciated that.||A special thanks to concierge Dilon and driver Sooraj, by the way.||||All in all, a luxury stay that quite fulfilled our expectations.||Many advantages but minor one drawback from staying in the off season.||Not to mention the heat - which took us a few days to...

The location, the beach, the room style was excellent, but almost all. what was joint with service were disgusting or below any expectation. I tried to find something close to a luxury hotel and attentive staff but was unsuccessful. My negative impressions began on arrival when nobody assisted me with my luggage, and I had to remove it from the trunk myself. At check-in, I got information about hotel facilities where essential information about restaurants operating hours was printed with the font ten or even less. It was impossible to read at all. They also placed a QR code for the room service order menu, but when I tried to use it, I was redirected to what’s up messenger. No menu was available. I had to visit the reception and ask for assistance. The idea was that the guest had to send any message via what’s up, and after that, the menu would be visible in the profile—strange view. On the third day of my stay, I called the operator and asked to arrange housekeeping for all days at 16-15. Every day the housekeeping employees met me at the hall and asked what time they could come to clean the room. Breakfast officially started at 7:00 at The Café restaurant. They never were ready. The first day we came at 07:03, and the employee even checked her watch before greeting us. Hot dishes were not displayed till 7:30. All other days we came later – after 7:30 but anyway nobody met us at the hostess table. We were standing and waiting when the restaurant was empty. Because of COVID restrictions, guests could not serve the dishes from the buffet and had to ask. They had an extraordinary manner of not displaying labels for dishes, so it was highly uncomfortable to make the order. Without the tags, it looked like: please salmon and meat from the left or the third salad from you. Is it a luxury hotel service? Ordinary, we were sitting on the terrace. Early morning it was occupied 3-4 tables only, but it was very difficult to attract the waitress's attention to make the order for coffee or dishes with eggs. We had to wait at about 10 minutes before somebody came although 3-4 waitresses were wondering and did something. Nobody controlled the tables. The day before our departure, we were sitting with the full table of soiled dishes. The waitress did not understand that it was necessary to remove dirty plates and mugs. At this hotel, I met a strange manner not to bring new cutlery for a new dish. During dinner and breakfast, they could remove the soiled plate but put your used cutleries back. On the second day, I came to the restaurant The Café and asked to reserve a table on the terrasse by 18:30. The employee wrote my request on a piece of paper, and I understood that I would have a problem. When I came, they did not find my reservation. Of course, they provided me with a table, but why did I make a reservation If the information was lost? The price for a dinner buffet at the restaurant The Café was 200 AED. All soft and alcoholic drinks were not included. The hotel did not offer any options with included drinks. The hotel had a lovely beach which was operated from sunrise till sunset. On the third day, I heard a lady’s cry. The safeguard followed her and caught a sea snake. After that, it was a bit nervous about swimming. On the day of my departure, we came to the beach at 8-10. The towels were not available at all. All shelves were empty. I came to my room, called the operator, and informed her about missing towels. I went to the beach in 15 minutes, and nothing changed. When the employee saw that, I took a picture of empty shelves whey ran to the swimming pool and brought a few towels. Lots of guests came and complained about missing towels. In Covid times the hotel did not clean the loungers at all. Neither in the morning nor during the day. They shake off the sand in the morning. Lots of guests smoked, but the hotel did not offer the ashtrays. As a result, the cigarette butts are on the sand around the loungers and in the...

• WORST SERVICE EVER * = to be avoided, the St Regis next door is far better

We live in Dubai and we stay very regularly in Abu Dhabi. We wanted to try the Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi for the first time.

= The service was disgraceful, disrespectful and extremely unprofessional.

We are a family with 3 children under 6 years old including a few months old infant. To make sure that everything was taken care of on arrival and that it was smooth, I made sure to call the hotel a few days before to get confirmation that we would be allocated two connected rooms (otherwise I would have cancelled my stay). I spoke with PRISCILA from the Guest relation and she confirmed that we would have connected rooms, "that she would do her best" to have everything organised when we arrived (baby cot, high chair etc).

On our arrival, NOTHING was organised, no connected rooms were reserved for us. Of course, no communication between the hotel staff. We waited almost an hour to be able to speak to the so-called manager named ELYES who proposed us as a "solution" rooms located on the same floor but not connected after 30 minutes of negotiation with him. Obviously it was completely insane to leave children under 6 years old alone in a room... on the same floor. So we refused this stupid proposal. He told us to wait...again... that in 10 minutes he would have a solution and then every 10 minutes, he added another 10/15 minutes for a total of 45 minutes of additional waiting... and in the end WITHOUT NOTIFYING US, WITHOUT OUR AGREEMENT, ELYES assigned us rooms, certainly connected but for people with reduced mobility, two rooms to the standards thus very specific but especially the noisiest of the hotel because they were located literally 3 meters away from the main lifts by which half of the hotel passed by. The two rooms were anxiety-provoking and should only be reserved for people with reduced mobility, not allocated to other hotel guests. Either they are left available to the mobility impaired or either they shoud stayed But NO, obviously the hotel's policy is to make money and money !!!!

At no time did PRISCILA, but above all ELYES, apologise for the mistake made by the reservation team, at no time did they apologise for the 2.5 hours spent at reception with a crying baby. But even worse, ELYES talked to us in an unacceptable, unprofessional and disrespectful way. A disgrace for a 5 star hotel of this renown.

It was a nightmare, we had no choice (except to leave the hotel), we were at the end of our tether, we were awakened every morning at dawn by the noise of passers-by, screams in the corridors. We could hear very clearly the conversations of the guests discussing at late hours while waiting for the lifts.

WORST: At no time did the management make a commercial gesture or at least apologize or even less call during our stay to know if everything was ok.

The service was disastrous throughout our stay, the food was of mediocre quality, the kids club was indecently dirty. I hardly dared to put my children on the floor of the kids club as the carpets were so dirty, the room was small, no games in normal condition.

The lack of service and the lack of professionalism of the staff is shocking.

TO BE AVOIDED

THE ST REGIS HOTEL is right next door, the beach is also beautiful and the service is great, the quality of the food incredible. Don't hesitate between the two hotels, it's...