I came here for a conference. The coffee was old, acidic and thin. The hotel is nice but this Region has many nice hotels. The website gave poor directions, in fact, they where wrong. When I used the listed local number to call for help it was a 9-5 and only gave a call back later message.

Long winded story, but the hotel and staff are nothing short of fantastic and could not do enough for us, especially the Duty Manager and the guys on the front door - fantastic staff - A bit late writing this review as my wife and I stayed at the hotel in September for our anniversary. A week or so before arriving at the hotel, we e-mailed them requesting a nice quiet room as it was out anniversary and also been a long year of hard work and time for a relaxing holiday!! we arrived late in the evening and the people on reception were very helpful and polite, there was a problem with our reservation and after a while it was sorted as they booked the room in our name but using a different method of payment that did not correspond to our nightly tariff, but after discussing that the tariff we had on our reservation was correct and theirs was wrong, they decided to sort the matter interally so we can get our room and get to bed!! We were promised a nice quiet room, but at 4 am we were nicely woken by the sound of drilling from opposite the road, we had only got to bed at about 1am from a long flight and travelling, the drilling went on and on. At 8am we had enough, went for breakfast with drilling ringing in my head. On our way back from breakfast (which on our first morning was as if we did not excist and was ignored by the staff in the breafast room), we passed the Duty Manager and decided time to have a chat. The Duty Manager was awesome to speak to, was very concered by what had been happening both with the room and at breakfast. Whilst he was chatting to us he got his head of reservations over and immediately instructed that our room was to be changed to a quiet one and that the hotel would move our luggage and take care of everything, he called the Breakfast Duty Manager to come down and discuss the issues with us. The Duty Manager made us feel so very welcome and could not do enough for us. We are not ones to complain and made that clear to the Duty Manager, but he seemed so concerned by what we were saying, he could not get his staff moving quick enough to sort out our issues. Within the hour our cases had been moved to our new room and the Duty Manager escorted us directly to our new room, upon arrival a beautiful selection of fruit and a stunning chocolate cake was waiting for us. He showed us around the room, the interenet etc.. Our holiday had really started. The room was awesome, really typical first class Intercontinental high standard room. We have stayed at various Intercontinentals around the world from Hong Kong, Thailand, USA, Europe etc and the room and hotel here did not disappoint from this moment on. The hotel provides a mini-bus service to the shopping mall, we did not know you had to book, so one day it was full and we had to get off, the next bus was in 1 hour, the Duty Manager heard what happened and came straight over to us just as we got off the bus to let the passangers who had booked on and re-assured us that the bus will come back espeically to pick us up and it did, we didn't have to say anything about it being our fault not realising you had to book, the hotel sorted it straight away - it was small things like this that really does make the hotel even more special and makes you feel good about staying there. The guys on Concierge are an absolute credit to the Intercontinental, could not help us enough with information about Abu Dhabi, places to eat, malls, where locals go to dine, the culture of Abu Dhabi, how the UAE was formed, they are so very knowledgeable and were more than happy for us to ask them numerous questions about Abu Dhadi and the surrounding areas. The restaurants in the hotel are also in the Enteratiner Abu Dhabi book, so you can get 2:1 on main meals, it is not often we like to eat in the hotels as we like to experience food outside, but the quality of the restaurants in the Intercontinental it was worth experiencing the food. The Italian was great, the fish restaurant was awesome and Brazilian buffet was simply fantastic fun. We did venture out to other restaurants in a center near the Shangri-La and found them good, again we would have never know if it was not for the Concierge and Duty Manager recommendation. Without a doubt I would highly recommend the Intercontinental Abu-Dhabi, It was great, even on our 2nd day at breakfast we got assigned a waitor who looked after us every day during our week stay and my wife found a breakfast cereal she really liked, he or his assistant made sure they kept a packet for her for when we came done for breakfast. How things changed from our first night/morning, after this we got to see the fantastic service that the wonderful staff offer, how much they were willing to help and do for us to make our stay very special. We can not fault the hotel, when we go back, without a doubt I would stay here again and if you can't decide, just book this hotel, you can get a very good deal like we did, you will not regret it - oh and if you are worried the pool area might be small - we found it great, the pool bar staff were fantastic, the pool staff always got us chairs to rest on in a nice peaceful area - overall I have to give this 5/5 even after our slight issues at the beginning, the way the hotel handles everything is great, the Intercontinental should be very proud of the staff working here. Thank you for making our stay very relaxing and special and an extra special thanks to the Duty Manager.

As part of a prestigious hotel chain I suggest you should take measures of quality training to the staff. Only by this perception our stay did not result positive and we can not recommend it. Only the kids Club gave a positive service. Very good breakfast, restaurant weak and expensive.

This hotel was one of the first in Abu Dhabi back in the 70s, and was likely pretty swanky back then. Now it's a bit tired but functional. The main establishments are very good - the belgian bar and the Chamas brazilian BBQ shouldn't be missed - but the carpeting in the hotel proper is fairly dingy. I was also irritated that my air conditioning would automatically ramp up to 30 C every day when I wasn't in the room (I assume so the hotel could save on the bills, but when I'm in and out of my room after conference meetings downstairs it was irritating). Overall, just OK. NOTE: The beach area is depressing, as there is construction just a few hundred feet across from it.