Jumeirah at Saadiyat Island Resort

Travelled as a staycation in April 2021 family of three with a 7 year old. This was our second staycation across two weeks with two days the previous week at the nearby Rixos and our first stay at the Jumeirah Saadiyat, having previously stayed multiple times at Dubai sister hotels. First the positives, unfortunately there’s not many... well set out, comfortable room with a fabulous ocean view. Breakfast was pretty good also. A great touch to have metal water bottles as a welcome gift, with water dispensers available throughout the resort, much better than the plastic bottle wastage. There it ends I’m afraid. For the ultimate staycation you had 20% off F&B, early Check-in, a room upgrade and late check out... due to availability we could only have the first two.. I get availability, but the hotel is 60% occupied - so why not just open the higher grade rooms? And late check out wasn’t available, despite there being bookings for that day availability, so we actually left at 10:00 despite a last minute reprieve for a 1 pm rather than 3 pm check out, not a great check in experience, as no upgrade. The pools at least were heated, albeit weirdly split with a walkway through the middle, so they felt crowded, sanitisation of beds was not in force. We went to the pool bar and waited and waited to be served and then waited and waited to receive the food, it took an hour, not the greatest with a starving 7 year old. We then went to the beach, the button pressing service things were not working so we called over a waiter who unbelievably told us a minute (also using the hand gesture) and then we never saw him again, 20 minutes later we found another waiter who rudely told us that we should order online, using the QR code... thanks for no one telling us about this first time round. We then had what could only be described as a comedy sketch with the online WhatsApp butler service... goes like this.. could we book the mare mare for dinner please, yes we suggested 7 pm, they said yes. They came back can’t do 7, how about 6:30, we said yes. They came back saying now can’t do this, how about 6 and we said no as we’d waited so long for lunch it would be too early, apparently it’s popular with folks from the city... nice to feel lower class to non residents. We then suggested lobster lounge and they said yes. Then they came back and said no, as it’s closed for emergency maintenance. Then they said white or offside and we said offside, thinking as even we as guests knew this was closed on Mondays, that they must have opened it up to cover the busyness of mare and mare and lobster being closed.... they came back and guess what, offside is closed on a Monday... Some serious training is needed for the butler service, who seem to just be a go between, if we’d cut them out completely at the start of the saga... we’d have probably secured the booking directly with the restaurant ourselves.. so as we didn’t want tean or white we had no choice but overpriced and then some room service... we did toy with the idea of a deliveroo... Next day we went for a Long Beach walk past the Rixos to remember the good service days... on return we all noticed that our feet were absolutely caked with thick tar, it took some hours of scrubbing to get this off and we noticed that it’s all over the Jumeirah section of the beach, ruined our swimming gear, I know not the hotels fault, but maybe warn people or have something that can get the stuff off, after a google search, sun screen seemed to be the answer. We did manage to get a booking for mare mare the next night and were looking forward to it as it’s getting raved about, starters were amazing, but the main courses.... were very, very disappointing... truffle risotto without truffle (only oil) and the pizza were just not good, I’ve never had a bresaola pizza with great lumps of uncooked mozzarella dolloped on and the pistachio pizza was cold and limpid.. to the chefs credit he offered replacements and our son had a small margarita pizza, but too be honest by then it was late, our overall stay being a comedy of errors we just decided to leave, they didn’t charge for the mains we didn’t eat. We get it’s a pandemic, we get staff have probably been run through the mill, but compared to say the Jumeirah Beach, Dubai staff in previous visits, there was a lackluster attitude, staff were looking very busy, but actually doing not much but looking busy... as an example as we wandered around second day breakfast trying to find some staff to grant us a table, I nudged my wife to say maybe we could ask the troop of 6 staff who were charging to a table, to sing happy birthday... At checkout the L&D manager asked my wife if we’d had a good stay, whoops... my wife generally doesn’t hold back with constructive and accurate feedback, I’d say his ears are still ringing... he did say that he would try to sort something out, as a final fanfare.... to his credit, he has reached out and offered to extend our next stay by a further complimentary night, on reflection though personally I’d not go back, Jumeirah have not got their Dubai touch in Abu Dhabi, with simple changes could be so much better.. Read less

In short..... No turn down service. No tissue on orders of drinks. No gluten free options. Overworked staff. Understaffed. Staff training required urgently. No clinic and wasn’t asked why i needed a doctor. Option on 800aed doctor given. Tar on the beach no info. No information about exchanging Terrible/repetitive food from white to other restaurants on HB. Deposit not reflecting being followed by waiters for payment. Reception overwhelmed. Read less

We booked this hotel for a 2 night stay with 3 other families for spring break. We arrived at the hotel at 12:00 our rooms were not ready, even though we had email confirmation of early checkin. So we decided to go to the beach with the children , have lunch and they would call us to inform us when the room is ready. 5:35 in the afternoon and no one called us. So my husband , the children and I go to the reception in our beach attire as we need the rooms to shower and drop our bags. To our horror, our room was still not ready!!! We were upgraded to a suite. Which is expected and good service. Next day at the beach we wanted to order food, by the pool. They told us they ran out of nuggets, club sandwiches, calamari , all sandwiches were not available apparently. Except for burgers. One of our friends ordered a tart at around 4:00 the staff informed him it was not available. He demanded to speak to the chef , once he did the chef gave him one - apparently he just baked it. The quality of breakfast was not one of a five star hotel, certain fruits finished by 9:30. After checking out of the hotel and paying our full bill. We drive back to Dubai, we get a Phone call from the hotel at 8:00 in the evening - saying there has been a mistake and we need to pay 2000 AED. The other families waited for their bags for 2 hours, looked for one peice of missing luggage for 5 hours only to find it in a storage room. The beach there is gorgeous, the Italian restaurant by the pool was good. We are ALL for sure NEVER going back there. Read less