2024 – Abu Dhabi

For the last two years we’d visited ‘the gulf’ at some time later in the year, in 2022 it was to the Crowne Plaza on Yas Island, and in June ’23 to midtown Dubai. I started looking for deals for late summer ’24 and found some competitive deals in Abu Dhabi.

I’d managed to find an ‘All Inclusive’ stay at the Sheraton so, on the morning of Sunday September 1st we drove round to Heathrow for an early afternoon flight. I had planned for us to take the train, but Ali had broken her toe a few weeks earlier and didn’t relish the idea of navigating London stations.

We left home at ten, had a pretty painless journey around the M25 and dropped the car at the short-stay car park. I’d paid extra to Etihad for a ‘priority’ package (bag drop, boarding, baggage handling) and the security checks weren’t busy, so we found ourselves in the Wetherspoon’s ‘Starlight Bar’ ordering Bloody Marys just two hours after leaving home.

I’d also reserved us seats near the front of the economy cabin, and nobody occupied the seat next to Ali, so she shifted and we had an empty seat between us. I was delighted to find that the aircraft was showing the Italian Grand Prix. Departure was delayed by about forty minutes and the pilot didn’t seem concerned about making the time up, so we landed in Abu Dhabi at about ten to one on Monday morning.

The in-flight service was, frankly, lacklustre, Etihad seemed to be so enthused about their new recyclable dishes that they’d overlooked the quality of the food… I honestly can’t recall my last full meal on a ‘proper’ airline that didn’t include cheese & biscuits or an after-dinner sweetie.

The new ‘Sheik Zayed’ terminal building – which I recall being under construction nearly thirteen years earlier – is vast, but we navigated arrivals swiftly, collected our ‘priority’ labelled baggage and caught a taxi to our hotel.

We arrived at the hotel on the stroke of two AM, checked in, and were shown to our room.

I had stayed at the Abu Dhabi Sheraton for Christmas in 2017, when I visited for Gaz’s fiftieth birthday. It was only the second ‘major’ hotel when it opened in 1979. Since my 2017 stay it had closed for six months in 2021-22 for a £10million refurbishment. Back in 2017 it had been very ‘old school’ with dark, mahogany furniture; the refit was clearly evident; what was once heavy mahogany and carpet was now light wood, marble and pale stone.

Next morning (Monday) we wandered down to breakfast at the ‘Flavors’ (sic) restaurant, an excellent selection of international breakfast items. From there we adjourned to the area around the pool for some sunbathing, although it was too hot (around forty three degrees) and even the pool or sea didn’t offer much respite, being twenty nine and thirty degrees respectively.

Gaz came over to visit after lunch, and he and I caught up over a few drinks at the pool bar. I then delivered the exotic rums he had ordered for delivery to me in the UK, along with a selection of bacon I had shipped out for him. He also delivered some beers for me, and wine for Ali, but as we were staying on an ‘All Inclusive’ basis, we never got round to drinking them, and returned them to him when he took us to the airport later in the week.

Tuesday was spent relaxing around the pool, with the occasional dip to cool off, but I arranged to meet up with Gaz in ‘The Tavern’ pub next door to the Sheraton (part of the hotel but outside the ‘All Inclusive’ deal) for some more conversation about his long and short term plans to return to the UK. He was planning to visit the UK in November, but we will be in Sri Lanka for Ali’s birthday. We agreed that he would stay at 12 Lorien and cat-sit while we were away. His longer term plans are more uncertain, depending – in part- on when his employers decide to force him to retire.

Wednesday was equally relaxing, but we had arranged to meet Gaz for a couple of drinks at ‘The Captains Arms’ in the grounds of Le Mirage. It’s a close approximation of an English Pub, but the smoky atmosphere inside forced us to sit outside; even at 9PM it was still swelteringly hot.

Gaz had booked Thursday as a day’s leave – he has plenty of leave to ‘use up’ before the end of the year – and had booked us a car for a day trip to Dubai. The car picked us up from the Sheraton at eleven thirty, we then picked Gaz up from his apartment in ‘Al Reem’ and we hit the road to Dubai. The journey was straightforward and we arrived ninety minutes later, parking at the ‘Al Bahar’ souk/mall – just across from the Manzil hotel we had stayed at in 2023.

Al Behar is host to the ‘Time Out’ food market where we enjoyed a very pleasant lunch of ‘Scallop Parmesan Tiradito’ – Scallop  Ceviche – from a newly opened Peruvian Ceviche Bar (who knew?).

This was followed by Butter Chicken -with Burrata, and Prawn Biryani from ‘Masti’ – Indian fusion restaurant. All washed down with relatively inexpensive beers, overlooking the famous (but not functioning) Dubai Fountain.

From there we whizzed over to the Hard Rock Café – where I bought a T Shirt & scarf – and we enjoyed another drink. Before heading back to Abu Dhabi, arriving back around seven thirty. We skipped dinner.

After a busy Thursday, we had decided on a lazy Friday, lounging near the pool.

We had decided on something different for lunch, so tried ‘Le Bistrot’ the Sheraton’s French/Italian café where I had lunched back on Christmas Day in 2017. We both had deep fried Calamari to start, followed by pizza, and neither of us were able to finish the main courses, let alone consider dessert.

We had taken to wandering down to the beach bar for a couple of after-dinner drinks, and on a couple of occasions, we were joined by a couple we’d met who hailed from Thundersley, about ten minutes from home.

Officially, our ‘All Inclusive’ package allowed us to order ‘Virgin Colada’, but not ‘Pina Colada’, but fortunately the staff were sufficiently flexible to allow a ‘Virgin Colada’ with a Rum on the side, or even in the same glass. Similarly, while the package precluded Ali from ordering Sauvignon Blanc, the staff often obliged.

Saturday is brunch day in the Emirates, and Gaz had arranged for a couple of his colleagues – with their partners – to join us a ‘Coopers’ at the Park Rotana hotel. I’d enjoyed brunch there before I’d met Ali and while it’s less ‘posh’ than, say, the nearby Ritz Carlton, it’s a good honest brunch with free flowing drinks and excellent food between noon and four pm. We had a great time, ate and drank more than we should have, to the point where we skipped our post dinner drinks.

Ali managed to get a final swim in the hotel pool early on Sunday morning, before we enjoyed our final breakfast and finished packing.

Gaz picked us up from the hotel at ten-thirty and we got to the airport just after eleven. The new terminal building is impressive, we’d checked in online, and I’d again paid for priority boarding so the bag drop, passport and security checks were swift and painless. The systems in the new terminal allowed Ali to pass through the passport e-gate without even using her passport.

We were soon airside and a brief scan of the duty-free shops showed their prices to be uncompetitive (compared to UK supermarket prices). We didn’t bother with the lounge, or even a pre-flight Bloody Mary, but were the first people on board the Airbus 380 in economy class.

The flight was full and the in-flight service as uninspiring as on the outward journey. The flight landed at Heathrow on time at six forty-five, and we were swiftly through passport control’s E-gates and collected our ‘priority’ baggage. We wandered over to the short-stay car park and collected the car.

We were quickly on the road and while the M25 was busier than we expected, we were home by nine-fifteen, just two and a half hours from the wheels touching down.