This is an excellent hotel, very nice rooms, excellent service, very good food and accommodations, a beautiful swimming pool area and of course also access to beach and sea.
Two small remarks though, it is what they call a "dry" hotel, meaning no alcohol available in the hotel and restaurant and the internet connection from the room did not work very well, but they have an excellent business area with all facilities available.
Absolutely to recommend for a short saty in Abu Dhabi.

Khalidiya Palace is a fair, nice 5 star hotel, but I would consider it a 4 star hotel. We came from Fairmont that was hundred times better, but also much more expensive.

Rooms are fairly nice and we got a great room with view over the sea. To Fairmont: Our room, 517 was not able to lock the terrass door.

Staff was not a 5 star hotel worthy. Whenever we called to ask something, they were not able to give us an answer or did not understand regular english.

When we checked out early in the morning we asked the receptionist if he could check if our flight was on time, but he could not help with that - he said he did not have internet access, and obviously he did not want to pick up the phone and call the airport, even though we were the only guests in the lobby - not good service.

Restaurants are nothing special, you will need to go elsewhere to get good food. We went to Hilton nearby that was ok and also went to eat at Shangri La that has a good Vietnamese restaurant.

We paid less than 200 dollars per night, and at that price, value was good.

The hotel overall is quite nice - attractive, if rather generic, lobby areas and rooms. But the service is rather inconsistent and often quite muddled. Check in took quite a long time and room service was quite poor (service very muddled and food was just ok). The rooms have small kitchenettes (and my friends were staying in a 2 bdrm suite with a bigger kitchen) however, these were not stocked adequately - only had 1 glass, no cutlery / plates etc. It was NYE so perhaps the usual craziness of that night affected things. If service was improved, the food revamped and rooms stocked better it would go a long way in improving the hotel greatly.

We stayed at the hotel for 5 days nov 2011, we had a good break relaxing at the beach till midday before heading out to see family who live in abudhabi. It would have been cheaper to stay in a Hilton or Sheraton downtown but we wanted a hotel with a beach so we decided on khaldiya. When we first arrived, we tried to get a higher room with a view but were told that the hotel was fully booked. To be honest I do not believe the receptionist was saying the truth as this was a Tuesday and the hotel seemed very quiet. Anyways the room was fine despite not having any view at all and that the windows were very dirty hence. Good kingsize bed, good friendly housekeeping and clean bathroom and bedroom which you'd expect from a 5 star hotel. water takes time to heat up in the shower but nothing unbearable. breakfast was nice, a good spread of Arabic , indian and western choices. Internet was not free which I'm very surprised seems to be the case in most of the hotels in abudhabi. It is free at the emirates palace across the street and the malls. Any european or American hotel would have free wifi starting from 3stars onwards so it's shocking that you can't get that in a 5 star hotel in the UAE. The hair salon was of very good standard, not cheap though. On the beach 50% of the guests were Russians which was a bit unexpected but no problem there! All in all thanks to the beach/pools and the cosy room and good breakfast we had a nice stay