Eight Kilometres from the Runway: Hilton Abu Dhabi Yas Island
The drive in is short. Zayed International Airport is eight kilometres from the door, which is roughly ten minutes in ordinary traffic, and the approach runs down the length of Yas Island to its southern tip rather than through any part of the city. Dubai International is a hundred and twenty five kilometres behind you, Al Maktoum eighty five.
What waits at the end of it is a pair of towers holding more than five hundred rooms, set on Yas Bay with the Etihad Arena five hundred and fifty metres away and the Yas Bay Waterfront promenade two hundred and twenty metres from the entrance. Access to one Yas Island theme park per day is included with the stay.
What is within walking distance, and what is not
The numbers are worth setting out because they explain the hotel. Yas Bay Waterfront is two hundred and twenty metres. Etihad Arena is five hundred and fifty. Yas Marina Circuit is 2.4 kilometres, Ferrari World three, Yas Waterworld four, SeaWorld Yas Island 5.5 and Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi 5.6.
The city is further out than guests sometimes expect: thirty two kilometres to the centre and 28.3 to the Louvre Abu Dhabi. This is a hotel for people whose week happens on Yas Island, not a base for the Corniche.
For anyone attending a concert at the Etihad Arena, walking home afterwards rather than joining a taxi queue with several thousand other people is worth a great deal, and it is the reason the hotel fills on event nights.
Two towers, twenty categories
The twin tower arrangement gives the property an unusually wide spread of room types, twenty in all. Guest rooms and deluxe categories divide by view, pool or bay, and the bay facing rooms are the ones to request. Executive rooms and executive bay view rooms come with lounge access.
Above them the suite ladder runs long: one bedroom suites, king two bedroom suites sleeping six, the Ambassador Suite, the Royal Suite and a Presidential Suite. Two configurations stand out for larger parties. A family connecting room sleeps seven in a single booking, and a three bedroom suite takes nine.
Rooms are contemporary and well proportioned, most with balconies, and connecting rooms are widely available. Accessible guest rooms and accessible executive rooms are listed as standing categories rather than handled on request.
Every category carries entry to one Yas Island theme park per day, so a family booking a two bedroom suite is buying park access for six people alongside the beds.
Five kitchens, and a promenade of others
Nuri Grill and Bar is the most ambitious of the in house venues, a Korean kitchen dealing in barbecue and aged meats with banchan alongside, live entertainment and private karaoke rooms served omakase. Graphos Social Kitchen handles the buffet and the breakfast. McCafferty’s Yas Island is the Irish pub, modelled on Donegal Town, with live entertainment and a terrace. Osmo runs the lobby from morning coffee through afternoon tea to cocktails, and Capila does charcoal grilled plates and anticuchos beside the pool.
Beyond the door, Yas Bay Waterfront carries a large and growing run of independent restaurants, bars and cafes along the promenade, all of it within a few minutes on foot.
A hotel that opens onto a promenade of restaurants does not need to win on its own count. It needs a good breakfast and a short walk, and this one has both.
The beach, the pools and eforea
The hotel has private access to Yas Bay East Beach, which is the property’s strongest leisure asset and the thing neither of its Yas Island neighbours can offer at all. Loungers, umbrellas and full service run along it.
Outdoor pools serve both towers with a children’s pool alongside, and the children’s club makes the property straightforward for families who want a beach morning between park days. eforea Spa provides the treatment menu, with facials and massages backed by a whirlpool, a steam room and a sauna. The fitness centre opens around the clock and runs classes led by a professional trainer, which suits the volume of business travellers the hotel carries midweek.
Two thousand four hundred and thirty nine square metres of event space
The conference and event facilities run to 2,439 square metres across multiple ballrooms and meeting rooms, with an outdoor courtyard and a rooftop terrace used for ceremonies. Capacity runs to twelve hundred guests.
Combined with the Etihad Arena five hundred and fifty metres away, that makes the hotel the natural base for anyone working an event on the island, and it is where a large share of the property’s weekday business comes from.
Where it sits among the three
The WB Abu Dhabi is built for families going to the theme parks and W is built for the circuit and the night. This one has the beach, twenty room categories and suites sleeping nine, and it is the only one of the three with sand at the bottom of the garden.
Both of the others sit closer to the attractions: The WB is a two minute walk from Warner Bros. World, which is 5.6 kilometres from here, and W is on the circuit itself, which is 2.4 kilometres away. The trade is straightforward. Guests who want to walk to a ride should book one of those two. Guests who want sand, a promenade of restaurants and a room that sleeps the whole family should book this one.
Yas, and which of the three
The address to book for an Etihad Arena event or a conference on the island, and the only one of the three Yas hotels with a private beach. Take a bay facing room with a balcony, use the beach in the morning and the waterfront in the evening, and use the theme park entry that comes with the room.
Contact
HOTEL: Hilton Abu Dhabi Yas Island
ADDRESS: Yas Bay, Yas Island YS2, Abu Dhabi
TELEPHONE: +971 2 208 6888
EMAIL: reservations_yasisland@hilton.com
WEBSITE: https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/auhyshi-hilton-abu-dhabi-yas-island/
AREA: Yas Bay / Yas Island