Fairmont Bab Al Bahr

The hotel is in a very nice location on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, sitting on a sea water canal that separates the island of Abu Dhabi from the continent. Spectacular view of the Sheikh Zayed Mosque dominate the sea view side, while the back side is more mundane but still impressive. The hotel and facilities are difficult to fault, and the most memorable and positive feature (among many) is the attitude of staff - friendly, welcoming and always going the extra mile to help everywhere (reception, dining and business meeting areas). The hotel has it all: beach, view, dining options, swimming pool with bar and all the trappings of a great resort. The room size is large, beds are plush and layout is impressive. Overall, it is a VERY, VERY nice hotel, and I would not hesitate staying there again!! So why 4 stars and not 5? There are some really strange and unexpected glitches in the design and systems of the hotel that somewhat spoil the experience. For example, the room contains a work desk, even supplied with an internet cable, in case you want to plug in instead of WiFi (which may be a good idea, as WiFi bandwidth varies!), yet the desk is equipped with a SINGLE power outlet. So it is either charge the phone, laptop or tablet, or whatever, but only one at a time! The one way to access another plug is to unplug the table lamp, but then it is pretty dark in the evenings. And there is no plug at bedside, so again, can't charge the phone at night. The reading light above the bed is so blue it seems to be designed with the sole purpose to murder any sleepiness you may have after enjoying the hotel during the day. The bathroom has a humongous bathtub, really begging you to soak. On first night intended to do that, only to discover that I had only lukewarm water from the tap. Hotel promised to fix next day, but the problem resurfaced again, and the engineer (who appeared very promptly and was very apologetic) had to investigate and uncovered a power trip somewhere. A colleague staying at same hotel mentioned similar problem in another room. A limited selection of TV channels, with un-intuitive interface. In this day and age, this is something that is very easy to provide - some more movie and sports channels would not cost much and provide some additional comfort to the guests.

We upgraded to the Fairmont gold Room for our honey moon. This is the best thing we have ever done ! Happy hour with free cocktails between 5pm - 7pm. The staff cannot do enough for you, we would like to say a special thanks to Jules on the gold floor for making any cocktail we wanted and went above and beyond. His knowledge is impeccable! If you are looking to stay here , definitely upgrade to gold. You can enjoy free drink , afternoon tea , canapes and desert. We have enjoyed our honey moon , thank you so much !

We stayed for 4 nights here and had requested an early check in as we came over on an overnight flight form London.What we weren't happy about was that the room was not available for another 2 hrs,which was fine but no complement tea/coffee or snack offered or a welcome drink, a wet towel to clean your face after a long flight.Just before we got our room a manager came over to apologise for the delay to whom i complained that i had to pay buy a coffee while waiting he said that not right i will credit it.When we checked out there was no credit applied and he was no where to be seen. If you are a vegetarian then you have a big problem at the Cutscene restaurant as not of the dishes have a V SYMBOL on it so you would have to ask the staff.Also very limited choice for vegetarians. We were fortunate that i talked to Ankit the manager who called the chef over and made some food for us.The Friday Brunch is diffiently not suitable for vegetarians stay away. The MAISON BEIRUT was our favouriate good choice off food and excellent staff. Excellent pool and life guards very helpful.