Intercontinental Resort Hotel

My Wife and I stayed for 7 nights and after a bad start had a very relaxing time. We arrived in the early hours of the morning and were allocated a room without a sea view even though we had requested and paid for a sea view. The receptionist would not move us and we had to stay for one night and move the following day, which is not relaxing and means that you have to part unpack, re-pack and then unpack. However the beach, pool and breakfast (we were B&B) in Selections were excellent as are the staff and views. The room is well apointed with a comfortable Queen bed, large flat screen, mini bar, bath and shower and a hot beverage tray to make your own tea and room service will provide chilled fresh milk at no charge. The Italian restaurant produces very good food, although the service let it down. We were kept waiting for 30 minutes and the waiter (unusually) was very arrogant. Theye are still building a Brazilian restaurant and finishing off other areas, but this hotel is located at the quiet end of the city and benefits from a pleasant cool breeze. Taxi's are cheap and easy to get if you want to visit the main centre and shops.

We stayed here in October 2007 on the recommendation of my parents and I really can't fault the hotel. It was newly renovated and a few things still weren't open, the Mexican restaurant being one, but the hotel looked fantastic, the rooms were lovely and the staff were really helpful - special mention must go to Katie on the Club floor as she really put herself out to make our stay fnatastic! The only issue we had was some noise from the Club floor as we were directly below it, and when we mentioned this to Katie, she organised a room change and got the engineers in to look at the problem. We ate in all the restaurants and found them all great. The Breakfast buffet was fantastic and seeing as the hotel was at full occupancy as it was the official accomodation of the Middle East Film Festival that was going on, we were always seated immediately and there was never a wait for anything. The Fish Market was fantastic and definitely worth a visit. The pool area was kept spotless and the changing rooms and toilets were immaculate at all times. The beach was also lovely, and all the staff at these locations were really good at serving you quickly. I really can't fault this hotel and didn't want to come home and would certainly go back!!

I stayed on the Club Floor during the hotel's soft opening. It is an extraordinary property with extraordinary service. I hope to return again. Bravo to the management!

I loved the intercontinental. Especially the beach and swimming pool. Breakfast was very good as well!

Having worked in travel for over 26 years & having visited Dubai on many occassions we decided to try Abu Dhabi. Somewhat the opposite of Dubai. Few cranes and little traffic on the roads. The Intercontinental is not 5 star, there is no star rating to give it as I know many excellant 2 star hotels. On arrival we were greeted by 2 receptionists who would obviously have rather been elsewhere than having to work at the Intercontintal. We checked in, proceeded to our room and hastily checked out. The room was needing badly refurbished. Torn wallpaper, damaged furniture and overall dirty. The swimming pool area was shabby and not a nice place to sit. On checking out at reception we were never challenged or asked why, they knew the reasons. Avoid the property at all costs. We quickly made tracks for the Emirates Palace.

For a 5* hotel it is average. It has everything you would expect but it doesn't go the extra mile. We were there over New Year 2006. We needed to Queue for breakfast on a couple of occasions, before another restaurant was opened to cope with the overflow. The other couple in our party stayed on a different floor and the level of service from housekeeping was different for each of us. It seems strange that in a hotel of this calibre the service was not the same from day to day or floor to floor. The bottles of complimentary water given and the fruit varied as did the turn back service in the evening, which we rarely recieved on our floor. The other room recieved arrangements of fresh flowers, we did not! Very odd! Overall I would recommend this hotel. If you want to save cash. Don't eat in, some great restaurants in the mall down the road. Also if you like a drink its a good idea to stock up at duty free. We found a bottle of wine in the hotel cost as much as a meal for 4 in restaurants in the mall.

Being regular visitors to Dubai we weren't sure what we'd make of Abu Dhabi which doesn't have the more obvious vacation attractions of Dubai but we were pretty happy to have chosen the Intercontinental for a week's break over New Year. This was mainly for its beach which, though not enormous, was more than big enough to cater for a completely full hotel. Has clean, soft sand - even if the water was cold - but can't blame hotel for that! Plenty of comfortable loungers and umbrella shades, pretty good service from beach bar. It is a short walk from the hotel around the marina but no real issue. Pool was a bit disappointing - functional rather than attractive but did it's job - we only only went there once though, preferring the beach. Also well-equipped gym. On arrival our paid-for room was upgraded to a sea-view club room without request and we were able to reasonably accommodate two adults and two kids in one king-size and two additional single beds. Though we couldn't use (without extra charge) the 10th Floor Club facilities we did get fruit baskets at regular intervals. Service throughout the hotel is very friendly and helpful. Breakfast was pretty good buffet fare with the standard cooked-in-front-of-you eggs. It did get crowded over the New Year and waits of 15-20 minutes were not unusual around 10am although they did take some overflow in another (slightly unprepared) restaurant. Ate in El Torito a couple of times - good Mexican food with a nice terrace outside to watch the sun setting. None of the food or drinks are cheap but I think this is a feature of the UAE generally. One note of caution - if you normally take up four seats in a car, have three or more suitcases and wish to take one of the hotel cars to the airport you would be well-advised to advance reserve a people-carrier - the standard black Audis outside are just not big enough. We had to wait over twenty minutes for a suitable vehicle to arrive and nearly missed our flight in Dubai as a consequence. Would we come here again? - we might well do if we return to Abu Dhabi but I suspect Dubai will always be higher up our vacation list. But if you are in AD then you could do a lot worse than the Intercontinental.

I stayed here with my fiance for five nights. This is a GREAT hotel to vacation in. They have the best beach in Abu Dhabi and a real health club and an awsom pool. The on site restaraunts are expensive, but those offsite are very reasonable. Make sure you have tea at the lobby lounge.. it's very reasonable and a great deal!

Being publicans and very busy during the summer holidays, we usually take a fortnight's holiday incorporating the October half-term, but when it became clear that was not going to happen this year, decided to take a short break (five days, avoiding the weekends) to somewhere different, in the sunshine. We booked the holiday through 'Lastminute(-)' and originally intended to go to Dubai. This didn't work out, so we plumped for a trip to Abu Dhabi instead. Had a bit of cold feet to start with as our reply to 'Where are you going for your holiday?' was either met with 'Where's that?' or a rather awkward 'Oh', but we had nothing to fear. The flight was with Etihad Airways and for an economy flight, we feel we were very well looked after. Everything was included, so no fishing in pockets or bags for money for drinks or headphones etc and we were offered a choice of three main courses, all from different countries. As airline food goes, it wasn't bad and it was followed by a light tea later in the flight. The staff were very attentive and the six and a half hour flight passed with relative ease. It was also one of the smoothest touch-downs we have ever experienced. Not quite so good on the way back, but that was more down to annoying fellow passengers! It was a night flight, so we thought we would get some sleep, but that was quite difficult as there was very little room. It should be made illegal to put your seat in a reclining position on a plane as the poor person behind you can barely breathe. Even more annoying when the person in front LIES to three different stewardesses and says his seat is broken and won't go back upright! My poor husband (not the smallest of people) was lucky not to get a thrombosis. (Mental note to book a first class return, regardless of cost, where the seats and leg-room appeared to be double the size). Anyway, we arrived safely and had a quick and easy transfer to the hotel, where the book-in procedure was handled quickly and efficiently. One small problem was that there was no third bed in our room for our daughter. A quick phone call to reception and this was remedied in about ten minutes. The room was a little old-fashioned maybe, but clean, comfortable and with everything we could possibly need, including a lovely view. As we had arrived so late, most of the restaurants had finished food for the evening, but we were shown outside to a very busy area where we ordered a kind of variation on pizza from an apparently Egyptian menu, with some fresh watermelon juice. There were loads of people, a lot of them locals, celebrating their evening (we went during Ramadan) and also Europeans. We were sat by a marina, with a warm breeze blowing, and there were fairy lights in the trees and live sitar type music playing, all of which was perfect after a day's travelling. Later on in the holiday we ate twice at the 90Degrees restaurant (French, Italian and Morroccan) and twice at the Mexican (el Torito I think). Both were good, if a little dear, but with only five days to cater for, we didn't mind that. If we went for longer, we would probably venture outside the hotel to eat. The Fishmarket restaurant was closed for refurbishment and we did not go the nightclub, called am/pm I believe. Breakfasts were the usual buffet style, with everything you could possibly imagine, so we had enough then and didn't bother with lunch. We spent our days relaxing at the beach. Again, this was perfect for us as we really needed to recharge the batteries. It could be quite hard to find a parasol (fixed palm-topped shade) and the sunbeds to go with it as it was particularly busy, but again the staff were very helpful and would rush off to find matresses at least for you to lay on. They also handed out as many towels as you wanted. There appeared to be lights or something on the umbrella stands, which we assumed you could use to order drinks etc normally, but think this service was probably not in action during Ramadan, may be wrong though. The outside temperature was 40 degrees and the sea water 29! Perfect! My daughter managed to get stung by a jelly fish (if anyone did, it would be her!) but again, this was quickly dealt with at the beach office and did not cause her any undue trauma. There were warnings that this might happen. The pool also, was nice and warm and easy to get into. We had a couple of swims up there (it was on the third floor) but mainly stayed at the beach. I think there was a gym as well, but we didn't bother with that. My daughter and I did go and have a manicure though, and again, were treated very well. We also took a short taxi ride to the Marina Mall which was open from 10am to 1 and again from 7pm to midnight. With more time we would probably have gone to the Abu Dhabi Mall and the souks, but as it was, didn't really find anything out of the ordinary to buy, although it was interesting of course, particularly the top floor which sold local style clothes and goods. We had never been to the UAE before and all in all, we would thoroughly recommend both what we saw of Abu Dhabi and the Intercontinental Hotel in particular. Unless you are really fussy and, may I say it, a bit difficult to please, we do not see how you could NOT like the hotel or the country. It was clean, efficient, pleasant service and surroundings, fabulous weather and a great place to relax. There were no undesirables, indeed they would surely not be tolerated. Can't wait to go back and/or to try some of the other Emirate countries. We should have gone years ago!

Having just spent a 9-day stay at the Intercontinental, I thought that someone should write a report about it!! Having stayed in Abu Dhabi before and visited other hotels in the area, there is no doubt that the Intercontinental has been our best experience to date. Rooms are spacious, well kept and many have a great view of the marina & sea. The swimming pool is a good size and there is a large beach which again is one of the best in Abu Dhabi. Staff were extremely efficient and very friendly and remained attentive at all times. The restaurants provide great value for money and once again are some of the best in Abu Dhabi. The 'Fishmarket' restaurant is one where you select your fish from the iced counter and they cook it to your requirements. We were eating Red Snapper and Omani Lobster and with drinks the meal was less than £45. We used the Gym several times and it is extremely well equipped. For a short break in an excellent 'value fior money' hotel (with guaranteed sunshine!) , the Intercontinental takes some beating.