A Studio Lot as a Floor Plan: The WB Abu Dhabi, Curio Collection by Hilton

The building stands on its own plot on Yas Island, two minutes on foot from the gates of Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi, and it is organised internally as a film studio rather than as a hotel. The venues carry the names of parts of a working lot: The Director’s Club, Craft Services, The Matinee, Sidekicks, The Overlook. The event space is called Stage 16A. Guest rooms carry the studio’s characters.

Hilton describes it as the first Warner Bros. themed hotel in the world, and the commitment is total rather than decorative. The centrepiece is a heated outdoor pool with a giant screen mounted above it, which is the feature guests mention first and the reason a good number of them book.

The naming runs consistently enough to be worth noticing. Craft services is the term for the catering laid on for a film crew between takes, a matinee is an afternoon screening, and a sound stage is numbered rather than named, which is where Stage 16A comes from. The room categories follow the same logic, running from Artist through Director to Producer as the space increases.

Two minutes, four minutes, nine minutes

The position is the whole argument. Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi is a two minute walk. Yas Waterworld is four. Yas Mall is nine. Ferrari World is fourteen on foot, and Yas Marina Circuit is a three minute drive. Zayed International Airport is under twenty minutes by car.

Daily access to the Yas Island theme parks is included with the stay, and it is folded into the room categories rather than sold at the desk. For a family of four staying five nights, that changes the arithmetic of a Yas Island holiday considerably, and it is the single most useful thing the hotel does.

Bunk beds and studio suites

The categories are unusually well thought through. Artist rooms sleep three and come with pool or park views. King Artist rooms with a children’s bunk bed sleep four. Director’s rooms sleep four. Above them the Producer’s Suite sleeps four, and both the WB Family Connecting Room and the Studio Suite sleep six, the latter running to around a hundred and fifty three square metres.

Rooms are soundproofed, with blackout curtains and rainfall showers, separate bedrooms in the larger categories, and cots provided at no charge. Connecting rooms are widely available.

The bunk bed rooms are the detail that gives the hotel away as one designed by people who have actually travelled with children. A bunk bed is not an upgrade a hotel adds to look generous. It is a room type that has to be planned into the floor plate from the beginning.

Five places to eat, and a mall nine minutes away

The Director’s Club is the signature restaurant. The Matinee, Sidekicks and Craft Services cover the more casual end of the day, and The Overlook does cocktails with a view and live music. Two poolside bars operate alongside, one of them with swim up service, plus a coffee shop.

Alfresco dining runs through the cooler months and the buffet breakfast is well regarded. The in house count is compact by Yas Island standards, but Yas Mall is nine minutes away on foot with a very large number of restaurants inside it, so the compact offer is not a constraint on a week’s stay. The Hilton at Yas Bay, five and a half kilometres south, opens onto a promenade of independent kitchens and is the address for guests who want variety within a hundred paces of the lobby.

A heated pool, a giant screen and a film after dark is a simple idea. This is the hotel in Abu Dhabi that built its evenings around it.

The pools and the screen

Two outdoor pools operate from eight in the morning until eleven at night, which is an unusually long day and makes evening swimming genuinely practical through the summer months. The main pool is heated and carries the cinema screen. A children’s pool sits alongside, with lifeguards on duty.

A full service spa provides massage and treatments, and a health club with current equipment completes the wellness offer. The hotel holds environmental certification.

Eleven at night is the number that matters in that list. A theme park day ends in the late afternoon, and a pool that stays open for another six hours is what turns an exhausted family back into a comfortable one before dinner.

The one thing it does not have

There is no beach. The register is unapologetically family focused and the building is busy in the way a hotel beside a theme park is always busy.

That is a plain statement of fact rather than a criticism, because the hotel is not aiming at the couple looking for three quiet days. Guests who want quiet should book Saadiyat, or the Hilton at Yas Bay if they want to stay on the island and still have sand, and visit Warner Bros. World for the day.

Meetings and celebrations

Event space runs under the same studio conceit, Stage 16A among the rooms, with a dedicated team for meetings, weddings and celebrations. It is a secondary line of business here, well suited to family celebrations and smaller corporate groups rather than to conference volume, which the Hilton at Yas Bay handles at a different scale.

Built for one job

The most single minded of the three Yas Island hotels in this series, built for one job and disciplined about it. Take a bunk bed room or the Studio Suite, use the theme park access every day it is offered, and stay in the water for the film after dark.

Contact

HOTEL: The WB Abu Dhabi, Curio Collection by Hilton
ADDRESS: Yas Island YS4, Abu Dhabi
TELEPHONE: +971 2 815 0000
WEBSITE: https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/auhwbqq-the-wb-abu-dhabi/
AREA: Yas Island