The Swim Up Bar in the Middle of the City: Corniche Hotel Abu Dhabi

The outdoor pool at Corniche Hotel Abu Dhabi carries a swim up bar. At a city hotel of this scale, six minutes on foot from the promenade and set inside the street grid rather than out on the waterfront, that is an unusual fitting. Loungers and full poolside service run alongside it, and the whole arrangement is the anchor of the property’s leisure offer, since there is no private beach attached.

The pool describes how the hotel is put together. This is a five star property in Al Danah whose spending has gone into the facilities guests use daily rather than into the arrival, and the clearest expression of that sits upstairs, where the rooms are individually decorated rather than run off a single specification.

That detail is rare enough in the Gulf to be worth stating plainly. Five star inventory in the capital is normally furnished to a single drawing, room after room in the same fabric and the same layout, because it is cheaper to buy and simpler to maintain. The Corniche Hotel varies its rooms one by one, and a guest returning for a second stay will not be handed a copy of the first.

The address

The hotel stands on Khalifa Bin Zayed The First Street in Al Danah, six minutes’ walk from the Corniche promenade and fifteen from the World Trade Center Mall. Abu Dhabi Mall is two minutes by car.

That is the city centre rather than the waterfront strip, and the difference shows up in the rate. Everything on the main island stays within easy reach while the nightly cost sits below the towers that face the water directly.

The practical shape of a day here follows from those numbers. Breakfast at Citrus overlooking the garden, fifteen minutes on foot to the World Trade Center Mall for the morning, a two minute drive to Abu Dhabi Mall in the afternoon and six minutes back to the promenade for the evening walk. None of it requires planning, and none of it requires a driver on standby.

Rooms that differ from one another

Categories run from rooms through junior suites with Arabian Gulf views to two bedroom suites of more than a hundred and sixty square metres carrying club lounge access.

The specification is consistent even where the decoration is not. Rooms are soundproofed and come with blackout curtains, down duvets, premium bedding, bathrobes and slippers. What varies is character: colour, furniture, the arrangement of the sitting area. It is worth asking at booking rather than at check in, because the room types are consistent in size and specification while the look of them is not, and a guest with a preference is better served stating it in advance.

The junior suites carry separate sitting areas and the Gulf view, and they are the category to take if the trip runs past two nights.

Citrus, Biscotti and the Marakesh schedule

Three restaurants and a bar operate on site.

Citrus handles all day dining across international menus and looks onto the garden. Biscotti covers Italian cooking. Marakesh is the Moroccan restaurant and opens on selected days only, which gives it a certain occasion value and makes the schedule worth checking before arrival rather than after.

Cristal Bar takes light food and runs a happy hour, and it is the room most guests end the evening in rather than the one they plan around.

The arrangement is worth noting for what it leaves out. There is no signature chef, no imported concept and no tasting menu. What there is instead is an Italian kitchen, a Moroccan kitchen, an international buffet facing a garden and a bar with a fixed happy hour, all inside a building small enough that none of them is ever more than a short walk from the lift.

> A Moroccan kitchen that opens on some evenings and not others is either a scheduling quirk or deliberate scarcity. Either way, Marakesh is the room to plan the week around.

Spa, health club and the shuttles

The spa menu covers deep tissue, hot stone and Thai massage. A health club, a sauna and a steam room complete the wellness provision, and the pool with its swim up bar sits at the centre of it.

There is no private beach, which is the honest trade for a central address. The hotel answers it with complimentary shuttles, and these run not only to the beach but out to the theme parks on Yas Island, which is a more useful piece of transport than it first sounds. A family staying here can reach sand in the morning and a rollercoaster in the afternoon without arranging a car for either.

Families and smaller meetings

Connecting rooms and complimentary rollaway beds are available, and the theme park shuttle makes a family stay considerably easier than a city centre postcode would normally suggest.

Meeting facilities suit smaller corporate gatherings rather than conferences, and the central position works well for a visit spread across the island, where the day involves several appointments in different districts.

The two bedroom suites deserve a note here as well. At more than a hundred and sixty square metres, with two bedrooms and club lounge access attached, they hold a family of four or five without anyone sleeping on a fold out bed. That much floor area inside the city grid, rather than out on a resort footprint, is the strongest structural argument the hotel makes.

Where it sits in the central island group

The three central island hotels in this series answer the same question differently. Sofitel Abu Dhabi Corniche gives you 280 rooms up forty four Art Deco floors, a hammam and a ballroom of 780 square metres. Le Royal Meridien gives you 278 rooms, a revolving lounge and a pub with genuine local history. The Corniche Hotel is the smallest of the three and the one that trades scale for individuality: rooms that are not repeated, a swim up bar, a Moroccan kitchen with its own calendar, and free transport to both the beach and Yas.

For a visitor who has done Abu Dhabi before and no longer needs the arrival to make an impression, that is a persuasive set of trades.

Before you book

A city hotel that has chosen character over scale and priced itself accordingly. Take a junior suite with the Gulf view, find out when Marakesh is next open, and use the shuttles rather than the taxi rank.

Contact

HOTEL: Corniche Hotel Abu Dhabi
ADDRESS: Khalifa Bin Zayed The First Street, Al Danah E7, Abu Dhabi
TELEPHONE: +971 2 614 6000
EMAIL: hotel@cornichehotelabudhabi.com
WEBSITE: https://www.cornichehotelabudhabi.com/
AREA: Al Danah