Low and Long on Saadiyat: Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi Hotel and Villas

The Beach House sits directly on the sand at Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi, close enough to the water that lunch happens with the doors open and the Gulf about twenty metres away. It is the room that explains the hotel. There is no attempt to hold the guest inside an interior, and the kitchen is arranged around the fact that most people would rather be looking at the sea.

Three other kitchens work alongside it. The Cafe covers Middle Eastern specialities and international dishes through the day, Mate handles contemporary Asian cooking in the evening, and Shala adds a further table, with a rooftop terrace and a beach bar extending the offer. Four venues is a modest count for a resort of this size, and the restraint is the point: this is not a hotel competing on the number of places to eat.

Protected sand and a Gary Player course

Saadiyat’s eastern shore is one of the few stretches of coast in the Emirates where development is restricted by law, and Park Hyatt has the length of it. Hawksbill turtles come ashore to nest here between April and July, and the protection exists for them rather than for the hotel, which is why the sand stays as wide and as empty as it does.

Saadiyat Beach Golf Club runs alongside, an eighteen hole course designed by Gary Player, and the rooms and restaurants look across both the fairways and the water. Mamsha Al Saadiyat is a little over a mile away, the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the cultural district a short drive, and the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque about fifteen kilometres. Al Maryah Island and the Corniche are each within half an hour.

Six floors, 306 rooms, fifty square metres

The hotel opened in November 2011 as Hyatt’s first property in the capital and was built low and long, six floors at its tallest, so that the horizon stays unbroken from almost every room. That decision has aged extremely well. The resorts that arrived afterwards reached upward. This one reached sideways, and the result is a building you look through rather than at, straight out to the Gulf.

It holds 306 rooms, suites and villas. Entry level rooms run to fifty square metres, which is generous by any measure, and most carry a balcony. Interiors are restrained, with a palette drawn from sand and stone, Egyptian cotton linen and a minibar that includes complimentary items rather than counting every bottle.

Suites run through park suites, park ocean view terrace suites, a panoramic ocean view suite and a presidential suite. The villas are the strongest product on the rate card: one and two bedroom beach view and garden view villas, a two bedroom executive villa and a three bedroom royal villa, all with large private terraces and, in the upper categories, a plunge pool.

Five pools and Atarmia Spa

Five outdoor pools serve the resort, which is an unusual provision for a property of this size. They are divided by purpose rather than duplicated: an adults only pool, a family pool, a children’s pool and a twenty one metre lap pool alongside the main pool area, which means families, swimmers and readers each get their own water. The pools open daily from six in the morning until seven in the evening.

Atarmia Spa runs to nine treatment rooms, each opening onto its own outdoor terrace, and draws on Ayurvedic principles alongside conventional treatments, with hydrotherapy, sauna and steam. It opens from eleven in the morning until ten at night. A health club and a tennis court complete the offer.

The Beach House at lunch, with the doors open and the Gulf twenty metres away, is one of the better ways to spend an hour in Abu Dhabi.

Camp Hyatt and the family arithmetic

Camp Hyatt operates as the children’s club at no charge, open daily from half past nine in the morning until half past six in the evening, and children stay free. A children’s pool and a playground sit alongside.

The balance is well managed. Families are absorbed without the adult guest ever feeling that a water park has broken out, and the separation of the pools is the mechanism that makes it work rather than any policy.

Twelve venues, and the island around them

Meeting and event space runs to twelve indoor and outdoor venues, from boardrooms and salons to a ballroom and a beach lawn, and the connection to the Abu Dhabi business districts is straightforward. It is a credible base for a working visit that would rather not feel entirely like work.

Set against its neighbours on Saadiyat, the arithmetic is clear enough. The St. Regis runs to 376 rooms across eight floors with a 3,000 square metre ballroom, seven restaurants and bars and a butler on every key. Park Hyatt holds 306 across six low floors, with four kitchens, five pools and a spa of nine rooms opening onto private terraces. The two share a protected shore and divide the guests between them on temperament rather than on standard.

Booking it

This is the island’s restrained address, and the one to choose for a quiet week rather than a spectacle. Book a villa if the budget allows, take a garden or ocean facing room if it does not, and eat at the Beach House at least once. Between April and July, walk the beach early and watch where you tread.

Contact

HOTEL: Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi Hotel and Villas
ADDRESS: Al Saadiyat Island SDN1, Abu Dhabi
TELEPHONE: +971 2 407 1234
EMAIL: abudhabi.park@hyatt.com
WEBSITE: https://www.hyatt.com/park-hyatt/en-US/auhph-park-hyatt-abu-dhabi-hotel-and-villas
AREA: Saadiyat Island