Staying at this hotel gives you access to the Spa & Resort about 5 mins ride on a bus provided by the hotel. We stayed over xmas and New Year 2011. The NY entertainment was OK with plenty of food and a belly dancer.. but it lacked vision. We went to the Spa one which was much more lively and looked nicer.

The hotel itself is pretty basic but has everthing you need for an enjoyable stay. I will break it down.
Food.
The service and food at the Sea Food resturant was second to none and the best out of both hotels. The staff bent over backwards to cater to your needs and were friendly and courteous. The chef prepared the food consisently well so we ended up eating there on most days. The breakfast had a good variety but by lunch and dinner time you start to get a bit bored...thankfully the seafood place was a wonderful alternative.
Staff
Again Seafood staff all in all excellent. Reception staff was also adequate. A male staff doing the excursions were pushy and rude thefore I ended up booking my excursions outside the hotel. Typical example of how bad staff can loose you money.
Access to the resort
This is a lovey added bonus which made staying here worthwhile. Most days we took the bus and stayed on the clean wide beach, with a peaceful lagoon and had basic good snacks and cocktails at the Dhow beach bar, lovely staff there too. The sheisha lounge was a beautiful added bonus too for a place to relax and enjoy a snack. The Italian resturant was OK, nothing to shout about, the Asian resturant had better staff and food.
Bars
The XO bar had the best entertainment by far. OMGness the Bar at the non resort hotel had noisy set of 3 scantily clad japanese girls singing cover songs badly each night... Awful Awful Awful..

I would have given this hotel a 2 but as you can use the beach and facilites at the spa resort it gets a 4. Very popular with Italians and Germans but it did have a few Brits too.

Dubai hotels and vacinity is large and vast, so for that reason I see no point in going back but it was OK generally. New Years celebration you could see they put in a lot of work to make staff happy. Just ensure you get use of both hotels and you will be OK.. best bit..the beach.

Starting with a summary, for those short of time, we would return to this hotel. Despite being a little dated, the hotel was quiet and comfortable and the staff were, without exception, excellent. To go into more detail:

Airport Transfers: these were arranged by the hotel and were efficient. We were met on arrival at Dubai and transferred in a minibus to RAK, around an hour away. The return journey was similarly smooth.

Check In/Out: Despite arriving at 10.00, four hours ahead of the advertised check-in time, the receptionist happily set about finding us a room. It was a little unfortunate that the hotel systems were not up to date and the room that she allocated us turned out not to have been cleaned. Another room was not immediately available and so we were offered a breakfast in the restaurant while we waited. By 11.30 were in a bright, cleaned room overlooking the pool. Check-out was very fast and efficient.

Bedroom: We were in a de luxe, non-smoking room with two, large single beds that were very comfortable. The air conditioning worked well and was not overly noisy. There was plenty of hanging space and a good number of hangars. However, the room would have benefited from more drawer space and/or shelves. The en-suite bathroom was a little dated, like the rest of the hotel, but everything worked and was in good order. The only strange thing was that it very often smelt of cigarette smoke which I can only attribute to the ventilation system being linked into a floor where smoking was permitted. In any event, the ventilation system was not very effective and a heated mirror would have been useful for the morning shave.

Housekeeping and Maintenance: Our room was kept very clean by the hard working but cheerful housekeeping staff. On the odd occasion when something like a towel was missing this was swiftly corrected. Surprisingly for this day and age, the bedroom door locks were mechanical rather than electronic. One evening, my wife was unfortunate enough to break the key in the lock. This was reported to reception and promptly fixed by the maintenance staff.

Meal Plan: We had opted for the all inclusive meal plan and this worked reasonably well, although there were some restrictions that were surprising. First, while you could get drinks on the AI plan at the pool bar and elsewhere, you could not get a snack at the same outlet. All food had to be taken in the Al Khor restaurant and was confined to fixed meal times. Not unusually, drinks choice was confined to a specific range and, generally, local brands. However, within those confines, it seemed strange that you could have a tequila sunrise but not a margarita and that the only beer on offer was a can of Tuborg when other beers were on sale at identical prices. The major failing in the AI plan was the wine. The plan limited wine choice to a red or white boxed wine under the Stanley brand and supposedly from Australia. The red was just about OK but the white wine was without doubt the worst white wine we have tasted in many a year. Foul is the only adjective that adequately describes this acetone smelling, amber coloured, acid tasting liquid that should never have been allowed into a glass. Clearly, Stanley wine was chosen by a tee-total accountant. It was a disgrace to Australian vintners and detracted from the brand image of Hilton as a luxury group.

Restaurants: The Al Khor restaurant presented buffet meals to a generally high standard. Certainly, we had no significant complaints about any of the food. Buffet meals are often something of a scrum, with a large number of guests arriving in the dining room at more or less the same time, and the Al Khor was no exception to this rule. The evening meals were themed as “Asian” or “Mediterranean” but the content, although perfectly edible, did not seem to match the description. That aside, quantity, quality and variety were not an issue. We had one meal in the Hoof ‘n’ Fin a la carte restaurant and that was excellent - a perfectly cooked, medium rare chateaubriand for two.

Bar: There is only one indoor bar at the hotel and it stinks of stale smoke. There are no non-smoking drinking facilities at the hotel. We did not use the dank and smelly bar but, instead, took advantage of being able to drink on the AI plan at the nearby Doubletree by Hilton hotel. A short walk through hotel grounds, across a road and up to the 15th floor for the rooftop bar and a fabulous view across RAK while sipping a cold gin and tonic. Vastly superior to the Hilton hotel bar.

Leisure Facilities: The hotel has a reasonably well equipped gym and a good sized swimming pool surrounded by comfortable sun loungers. Guests can also catch an hourly shuttle bus to the Hilton Resort and Spa that has a greater range of facilities and a sandy beach.

Hotel Staff: One of the reasons why we would consider returning to the RAK Hilton is the very high quality of all of the staff. Each and every one of them was polite, friendly and extremely helpful. They seemed to anticipate your needs and were clearly very well trained and happy in their work. As someone who has travelled widely and often, the staff at the RAK Hilton come out top of my tree and my wife endorses that view.

Its clean hotel and offer good rates, the building is a little old but looking at the furniture and the rooms in very good condition and I can say they are clean, comfortable and good breakfast
To be honest I think its good place but what annoyed us the noise the music was very laud from the nearby night clubs it continues until the early morning which was very very trying puls we have a child was waking up at night from the noise!!!

I am writing this in order to warn those who think that Hilton is always a Hilton. No, not in this case. We have known other Hiltons...
First I will mention good things. The territory compared to some other hotels in the vicinity is full of plants and quite big, the food is acceptable and there is a good choice of it. The beach is really nice, though you are restricted to a certain territory on it, leaving the rest of it to those living in Hilton Spa Resort. There are attempts to please the guests made by the staff, but lack of English makes the mission almost impossible.
Now I have to describe a couple of things not indicated in the hotel description - sorry if I omitted it. The spa zone in the beach that allegedly can be used by the residents of this hotel has to be paid for - approx. $10 per person per day. Internet that allegedly is available in the hotel has to be taken for incredible amount of money - compared to many other hotel experiences we found it unacceptable. Small hint: you can use it for free 15 minutes in the business centre. The statement that you can eat in a variety of restaurants and bars is a bit of exaggeration - we paid for half-board and were tied to the same place for breakfasts and dinners for the whole period of stay, though were told that should we want to use other places we could pay for the food there. As it was mentioned on multiple occasions the interior is old, with some parts shabby, esp bathrooms - in London it is a 3 star level, resembles Travelodge or Premier Inn. And a warning to those who love walking - you cannot reach the beach on foot, and not because of the distance, but due to absence of a decent walking path, it is non-existent.
Because our main goal was the sea and the sand, we enjoyed our stay overall. But no, we would not go there again, definitely would look for other places.