Emirates Palace

Today I have invited my family, who came to Abu Dhabi first time, to Emirates Palace we decided to have a cup of coffee in Le Cafe. And honestly was very disappointed and regret of my choice. Cause service why we got there was something special, I never met such unpleasant and complete apathy towards thei Clients. We waited while hostess organize any table for us around 15 minutes although the Le Cafe was almost empty. At the end when we got seats it has taken next 15-20 minutes while after our 3rd call we got attended. We ordered two ice creams for ladies, two coffees for men and 1 sharle tample for one of the guy. As soon as we was 5 persons and did order for all of us same time, in my opinion we supposed to had our order same time, but first we got coffee and only after 4 minutes the waiter brought ice creams and only after 3 minutes we got our other drink. I felt very shy in front of my guests. The bottom line is that I am not recommending Le Cafe and I wanna be repeated that I am very very disappointed ((( Read less

For sure it is an interesting experience and if you have the chance you should go for it. I had the cheapest Room type, the Coral Room, which is usually situated at the ground floor. Room, is big (around 45sqm), has all the needed amenities. What i disliked was that it was in a corner of a west wing and sun never reached our window. The Hotel really is like a palace...is very very big with 1300m from one side to another, with the restaurants placed in the middle. So in most of the cases you will have to walk around 5-600m to get to breakfast or other restaurant, which i liked especially after dinner. If you don't want to walk, you have an outside buggy service. Restaurants are not very good. They are very expensive (aprox 100eur/pers with a bottle of wine), and the food quality not really as expected for this price range. I didn't try Hakkasan because the don't accept children below 10yrs. Wireless internet is free, has very good coverage with almost no dead spots and an acceptable speed. Otherwise, services are very good, with lots of kind staff always smiling and willing to help which was very nice. As i said, is an interesting experience which worth to be tried. Read less

This hotel was our home in Abu Dhabi for two days after we embarked from the cruise ship. We have got a remarkable experience and a very pleasant calm days on the grounds. Hotel is a part of Kempinski group. Hotel is a large, no – huge building, with a central part and two wings, standing in the own large garden, with an infinite sandy beach on a bank of a sea and two large pool areas and marina. Large parking in front of hotel, with nicely designed entrance stairways, fountains and pools, leading to the gigantic reception hall. Innumerous stairs, doors, halls, corridors, bars, shops, restaurants, lounges, domes, chandeliers and so on, and so on, with surfaces of marble or gold-plated. Our Coral room has a furniture balcony with a view over cityline and sea over a pool area. It could not be better. Large room with all possible comforts, large bathroom with both tube and shower, not a sound from neighboring rooms or corridor, own butler. We had a dinner included in room price and dined at restaurant Vendome, a superb experience, both extraordinary varied food choice and a perfect service. We tried hotel´s and restaurant´s piece de resistance, the gold-plated food and gold-decorated coffee. Breakfast was as good as it can be expected in such a fine Hotel, we sat outdoor and enjoyed seaview and birds singing at the open veranda. Pool area is spotless, with a lot of space and furniture of all kinds, from sunbeds to hammocks, and a gold-encrusted design of pool-floors. Beach area has sunbeds, suntents, cabanas, guard and butler on duty, who deliver your complimentary towels and ice-chilled water bottles. Seabottom is sandy, water is warm, and waves are nearly none due to bay sheltered position. We are very pleased by our stay and will return when in Abu Dhabi. Highly recommended! Read less

This is a report on a four night stay in a Royal Khaleej Suite, the top one-bedroom suite grade at the Emirates Palace. First, let me say that I was not really surprised by what I found. Any hotel that ranks high on the public spectacle scale is unlikely to rank high for warmth or hospitality. But why, I thought, stay in another Four Seasons, St. Regis or Ritz, when Abu Dhabi offers something unique, a hotel that could not conceivably exist outside the Arabian Peninsula. To start, let me say that I am working hard not to be influenced by my own aesthetic preferences. The Emiratis, like Trump, prefer gold, everywhere and on everything. My room had two (magnificently pricey) bottles of “gold water” (bottled water with bits of gold floating in it). Enough said. If you want to “go local” in the UAE, expect glitz. The problem is that the Emirates Palace is huge, like one of those nightmare airports where one endless corridor follows another. The spa was a 15 minute walk from my suite in the East Wing. The restaurants are extremely hard to find. The closet in my suite was the size of an ordinary bedroom, but almost unusable due to the absence of a place to put your suitcase. The desk was gilded, but lacked power strips or outlets for electronic devices. The terrace was enormous, but the railing so overscaled that ordinary sized seating left you looking at the parapet, unable to see the view. The dining room chairs were so oversized that I, at 6’, felt like a child sitting at the adults' table. This is pure speculation on my part, but I suspect the bulk of its profits come from the numerous and enormous event spaces and ballrooms; it is almost as if the individual hotel guest is an afterthought. The hotel advertises butlers, VIP treatment and a high level of service for the top suites. It’s not true. Let’s start with the butler. I met a nice gentleman upon check-in who introduced himself as my butler and showed me around the suite. I never saw him again. I should have known something was up when I inquired how to reach him if I needed him, and was told to “dial O,” which turned out to be a generic guest services line. Other than this one contact with a “butler” and a complimentary bottle of mediocre white wine, I don’t believe I received any service not available to all other guests. And that generic level of service is a very ordinary level of service, including the usual mistakes and incompetence at all levels. My reservation, confirmed and reconfirmed by my meticulous travel agent, was recorded in their system for the wrong day. They wrote an email to my travel agent saying they had explained and apologized to me, which they never did. The food and drinks service on the beach was highly irregular – first day, no way to summon a waiter; second day, a device to call for a waiter appeared but it didn’t work; third day, no device and never did succeed in placing an order. Room service (mysteriously named “Palace Celebration”) insisted on my specifying a time for dish pick up, and yet never appeared at the requested time. Never. The housekeeping staff never once responded to the “Make up room now” button. And so on. But there were many good things. The hotel is in an extraordinary location with wonderful views. The beach is broad and uncrowded. I loved riding my bicycle around the hotel’s extensive grounds. Breakfast always arrived right on time. The Sayad Seafood Restaurant was extraordinary – truly some of the best fish I have ever had, including wonderful Gillardeau oysters from France. Many individual staff members were gracious and engaging – a hotel driver, for example, bucked the system and organized a pick up after my visit to the Louvre, and then refused a tip. And as the days went on and I became more familiar with the vast property and how to navigate it, my experience improved and annoyance abated. I don’t regret staying at the Emirates Palace and don’t mean to discourage you from doing so. Just beware, this is a property that, when forced to choose between “show” and service, between the superficial and the meaningful, or between grandiosity and consistent hospitality, chooses the former every time. Read less

Really nice cheap place to lay your head for a night or two. This hotel is definitely on the budget end of things but they did have parking for my Rolls Royce which was nice. The room service Spaghetti Bolognese is amazing, Pretty reasonable cost too probably not even £50 and i got cheese with it too! Great sized rooms, immaculately clean everywhere. Lots of long walks because the place is so huge. Would stay here again for sure! Read less