The Suite on the Skybridge: The St. Regis Abu Dhabi at Nation Towers
The Abu Dhabi Suite is not on a top floor. It is slung between two of them, on the skybridge that links the Nation Towers across the forty eighth and forty ninth levels, roughly two hundred metres above the Corniche. Inside are three bedrooms and a maid’s room, three bathrooms, two powder rooms, a double height majlis, a kitchen, a dining room, a lounge bar, a cinema, a gym and a private spa, with its own entrance and a view that runs the full circle of the city.
It is a genuine piece of theatre, and it has slightly overshadowed the fact that the hotel underneath it holds 283 rooms including 55 suites and is among the better run addresses in the capital.
Thirty three floors up
The hotel begins on the thirty third floor and runs to the forty ninth, which means every room has a view before the question is asked, and the floor to ceiling glazing makes the most of it. Zayed International Airport is 8.8 kilometres away.
What separates this tower from the others on the Corniche is what sits at its foot. The Nation Riviera Beach Club occupies two hundred metres of private beach directly below the building, with its own pool, fitness centre and children’s club. A city hotel with a beach club attached is a rare combination anywhere, and in Abu Dhabi it is close to singular.
Linen, butlers and the room list
Rooms carry Egyptian cotton, pillowtop mattresses, deep soaking tubs and espresso machines. St. Regis butler service applies to every category rather than the upper ones only, which is the brand’s signature and here is delivered with real attentiveness rather than as a line in the brochure.
The suites climb through the tower to the suspended Presidential Suite at the top of the list. Sea facing categories on the higher floors are the ones to ask for, since the glazing turns the Corniche into the wall of the room.
Fifty five suites within 283 keys is a high proportion, close to one room in five, and it shapes the feel of the corridors. This is a hotel built for guests who travel with a party rather than alone, and the connecting arrangements between categories reflect that.
Against its neighbours the arithmetic is instructive. The Conrad at Etihad Towers, twelve minutes’ walk away, runs 377 rooms with a balcony on every one. The St. Regis runs 283 with no balconies but with butler service on all of them and glazing from floor to ceiling. Those are two different propositions rather than two grades of the same one.
The Crystal Lounge and the tables below it
Seven restaurants and bars operate across the property. Villa Toscana handles Italian cooking and is the strongest of them. Catch at St. Regis takes seafood. The Terrace on the Corniche works for a long lunch, and Cabana Beach Bar and Grill sits down at the beach club, where the dress code relaxes accordingly. Azura Panoramic Lounge takes the height seriously from the pool terrace.
The Crystal Lounge occupies the mezzanine above the Grand Staircase, where the rotunda chandeliers hang at eye level, and runs an afternoon tea with a tea sommelier attached. The St. Regis Bar keeps the brand’s Bloody Mary tradition with a local variation of the recipe.
Once a month the hotel serves the Helipad Sunset Supper for twenty guests, 255 metres up on the rooftop helipad, which is the clearest illustration of how this property likes to use its own height.
> The Crystal Lounge is the room to understand this hotel by. Unashamedly grand, entirely comfortable, and busy with Abu Dhabi residents on a weekday afternoon.
Three thousand two hundred square metres of spa
The spa covers 3,200 square metres, with a hammam, sauna, steam and hot tub, separate quiet rooms and relaxation lounges for women and men, and treatment rooms that carry the same view as the bedrooms. That last point is a rarer luxury than it sounds.
Three pools serve the hotel, including the Azura Pool on the terrace, with a children’s pool, a whirlpool, a swim up bar and a poolside bar. The beach club pool below adds a fourth body of water at sea level. Fitness centres operate both on the third floor and down at the Riviera, which means a guest never has to choose between the tower and the beach for a morning workout.
Two hundred metres is a substantial run of private sand for a tower hotel. Bab Al Qasr, further west along the Corniche, has a hundred and forty. Emirates Palace, at the end of the road, has 1.3 kilometres but achieves it by spreading a low building across a headland. Reaching a beach club of this length by lift from a room on the fortieth floor is the particular trick of this address.
Families, and the working visit
Treasure Island Children’s Club runs at no charge, with a children’s pool and a playground alongside, though the register of the hotel overall is more ceremonial than playful.
Eight meeting rooms and a business centre sit within a building placed between the government district and the Etihad Towers complex, which makes this a natural choice for a working trip. Limousine service and express check in support that, as does butler service that will unpack a suitcase before a first meeting.
The Corniche promenade begins a minute from the door, and Etihad Towers is a twelve minute walk with Emirates Palace just beyond it. A visitor with three days and no car can cover the whole western end of the island on foot from here, which is not true of the Saadiyat or Yas addresses at any price.
The stay to book
Take a sea facing room on as high a floor as the rate allows, use the beach club in the morning and the Crystal Lounge in the afternoon, and understand that the suspended suite is the headline rather than the reason to come. The reason to come is that one building gives you the Corniche from above and two hundred metres of sand below.
Contact
HOTEL: The St. Regis Abu Dhabi
ADDRESS: Nation Towers, Corniche Street, Al Bateen W44, Abu Dhabi
TELEPHONE: +971 2 694 4444
EMAIL: info.abudhabi@stregis.com
WEBSITE: https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/auhxr-the-st-regis-abu-dhabi/overview/
AREA: Corniche / Nation Towers