Open Until Midnight: Namm Spa and the Thirty Seven Floors of Dusit Thani Abu Dhabi
Namm Spa opens at eleven in the morning and closes at midnight, which is the first useful thing to know about Dusit Thani Abu Dhabi. Eight treatment rooms sit behind that door, along with a hammam suite and a couples’ room, and the menu runs from massage and facials through body scrubs to Ayurvedic treatments.
A midnight closing time is not a detail hotels advertise lightly. It means a guest landing at nine in the evening from London or Bangkok can be on a table by ten, and it tells you where this property places its wellness offer in the running of the building. Namm is not an amenity bolted to a tower. It is one of the reasons to choose the tower.
Thirty seven floors on Al Muroor Road
The hotel is a thirty seven floor tower with a glass facade and a sculptural base, holding 402 rooms on Sultan Bin Zayed The First Street in Al Nahyan, the road most people in the capital still call Al Muroor.
This is inland rather than waterfront, in the middle of the island, among the government and commercial districts. Abu Dhabi Mall and the Corniche are each around ten minutes by car and Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is a short drive. For a visitor with appointments spread across the capital rather than concentrated on one island, a central address saves more time in a week than a sea view returns.
The tower itself is worth a look from the road. The glass facade sits on a sculptural base that gives the building a foot rather than simply meeting the pavement, and it is one of the more legible pieces of architecture on a road that carries a great deal of undistinguished commercial stock.
Rooms, suites and apartments
The floor plans are generous by the standards of the city. Deluxe Rooms run to 42 square metres and Dusit Club Rooms to 44. Junior Suites and Club Junior Suites both come in at 65 square metres, the Club Executive Suite at 87, and the Presidential Suite at 375. One bedroom apartments of around 84 square metres carry separate dining and sitting areas.
Rooms carry premium bedding, laptop workspaces, and bathrooms with separate deep soaking tubs and rainfall showers. The height of the tower means the upper floors hold genuine views across the city towards the Gulf, and thirty seven floors is tall enough that the difference between floor eight and floor thirty is a different hotel.
The apartments are what make the property viable for extended stays, and it does substantial business with visitors relocating to the capital or working here for weeks at a time. A Dusit Club Lounge serves the club categories.
Thai kitchens, Indian kitchens and an Irish bar
Seven restaurants, bars and lounges operate across the building. Benjarong is the Thai restaurant, and it is the venue that most obviously justifies the brand’s presence in Abu Dhabi. Namak cooks Indian. Dusit Breeze takes the health conscious line and Dusit Gourmet is the pastry and bakery counter. Urban Kitchen is the buffet room, running breakfast, lunch and dinner across international menus, and reservations are advised at peak. McGettigans operates as the sports bar and has built a following among residents that has nothing to do with the hotel above it.
In room dining runs around the clock. The kitchens accommodate a wide range of dietary requirements, and the hotel operates in a striking number of languages, which says something about the breadth of the guest list.
Benjarong deserves the attention it gets. Thai cooking travels badly and is usually softened for whatever market it lands in, and a Thai group operating its own restaurant in its own hotel is the arrangement most likely to keep it honest. It is the clearest expression in the building of why Dusit is here at all.
> A staff who between them cover sixteen languages are not aiming at a single market. Dusit Thani has built a genuinely international guest base in a city that often segments sharply along national lines.
Pool, DFit and the water
The outdoor swimming pool is temperature controlled and set under a pergola, open from seven in the morning until eight in the evening. Temperature control matters more here than it sounds: an uncooled pool in an Abu Dhabi August is not a swimming pool.
DFit Fitness Centre is open twenty four hours, and the health club runs yoga and fitness classes through the week. The hotel also arranges fishing excursions, which is an unusual and rather charming thing for a tower in the middle of the island to offer, and a reminder that the water is never more than ten minutes from anywhere on this island.
Families and long stays
Children stay free, cots are provided at no charge and connecting rooms are available. The pool and the family register make this an easy city choice for parents who do not need a beach every day and would rather be ten minutes from everything.
On business, a business centre operates around the clock, concierge and limousine services run alongside it, and the meeting facilities are substantial. The combination of a central position and apartment stock suits longer corporate assignments better than a resort address ever will.
The case for an inland address
Set against the towers of Al Maryah Island, twelve minutes east, the trade is legible. Al Maryah gives a guest water on all sides and a covered walk to the financial district. Al Muroor gives a guest 42 square metres in the entry level room, an apartment option at 84, a spa open until midnight and a nightly rate that reflects the absence of a shoreline.
Take a high floor room, book Namm Spa for the night you arrive rather than the morning you leave, and take an apartment if the stay runs beyond a week.
Contact
HOTEL: Dusit Thani Abu Dhabi
ADDRESS: 925 Sultan Bin Zayed The First Street (Al Muroor Road), Al Nahyan E25, Abu Dhabi
TELEPHONE: +971 2 698 8888
EMAIL: dtadspa@dusit.com
WEBSITE: https://www.dusit.com/dusitthani-abudhabi
AREA: Al Nahyan / Al Muroor