We checked-in to the Hilton Al Ain on New Year’s Eve day and we stayed for 2 nights. As Hilton Diamond members we were upgraded to a chalet on a prepaid rate booked on Hilton.com. It was something like 400AED/night. I think on the hotel’s website they call the chalet a villa. The front desk staff was friendly and helpful. In the lobby there is a cart with dates and tea (Arabian, I think it was) in a fancy gold carafe. The chalet is not in the main building but is in the back of the hotel past all of the pools. We were escorted to our room by one of the bellboys. Our room was on the second floor and appeared to be one of the only chalet rooms that did not have a balcony or patio. Surprisingly, the room was very large with a couch and desk. There was even a kitchenette that we never used. The room was nice with dark wood panels. The standard Hilton alarm clock was in the room and I was able to connect my ipod to it. The worst part of the room was the bathroom. It was really small for how large the room was and the shower stall was terrible. It was like something you would find in a roadside motel in the States. The shower door was difficult to open and it would leak grease into and outside of the shower stall. The water pressure was terrible too. The toiletries were the typical Crabtree ones found in every other Hilton in the world. I think that the rooms were serviced more than once a day.

The hotel seems to be very family-friendly and there were lots of kids in the pool. They have a game room and full gym in the Hiltonia Club.

For New Year’s Eve the hotel had several selections to choose from. There were 3 or 4 different dinners at different restaurants. We chose the dinner in the Palm Court in the hotel’s atrium. It was 99AED pp and included buffet dinner, entertainment, and noisemakers. The food was really good and had many types of international selections. There were two large ice sculptures at the buffet and it was very pleasant.

The breakfast buffet is in Flavours which is part of the back lobby and doesn’t have a restaurant feel at all, which is good. There is patio seating also. The food selection was good, but no pork bacon or sausage which was expected. They have an omelet station on the patio that will also cook waffles. The lead host was very nice and welcoming each day.

We had dinner the second night at Paco’s, the Mexican restaurant and it was quite good. As a southern Californian, I am picky when it comes to Mexican food and this place was pretty good. The guacamole was not fresh and probably came from a mix, but that was my only complaint. There were lots of TV screens showing football matches so it is not the place for a quiet dinner for two. It has the atmosphere of a pub or an American sports bar.

The hotel has a faded glory charm to it. I am sure when it was built it was very posh with all of the marble and gold trim everywhere…think “old Las Vegas.” The room was nice and the staff is really great. Every staff person we encountered was nice and helpful.

We stayed for the Eid weekend and the hotel staff were all excellent, took 2 adjoining rooms on the 6th floor with an adjoining 'suite'. All facilities were excellent and the kids played non-stop in an excellent pool with slide. As the majority of the pool is quite shallow it was perfect for our young children.

A very relaxing few days.....

This is a nice hotel to stay in if you want to escape from the hustle and bustle of Dubai/Abu Dhabi. Me and my husband started our tour of the UAE here. We had booked 5 nights but cut it short to 4 as there wasn't much to do on an evening and thought it would be best to add an extra nights stay in Abu Dhabi.
The hotel is nice, the pool area is lovely but can get very busy with kids on a Friday. We didn't eat a lot of our meals here but what we did have was good. There is Paco's bar which serves Tex Mex and has live music on an evening and you have the option to sit outside if the music is too much. We are not big breakfast eaters so we opted for the cafe area in the lobby which serves great pastries and coffees.
The rooms are very average and could do with updating but they were very clean and quite spacious. The only negative was the room was only turned down twice out of the 4 nights we stayed so it meant we had to use damp towels on the morning.
I would definatley recommend hiring a car as the hotel is slightly out of the way but taxi's are very cheap over there.
I would definately recommed this hotel to anyone who wants a few days relaxation in the sun.

Had read good and under average reviews on here for the Hilton Al Ain, but shouldn't have been concerned as it was a really nice hotel. We arrived (the only downside) at 1.40 am in the morning - the problem with getting tot he hotel is that by the time you have flown out of wherever (Manchester) for us and arrived at Abu Dhabi airport, (around 8.30 pm) - it is a 6 to 7 hour flight, you had to wait for a coach (it is not a flight as listed on the itineary) that leaves at 11 pm, and it is just over 1.5 hours to the hotel. You can pre book a taxi with Travel Collection (that's who we travelled with) for £65, but I personally would have got a taxi outside the airport and bartered a price.
Once we got to the hotel we were really hungry and the reception desk told us we could order room service. We did and got really good value, 2 decent meals (albeit not exactly healthy as we had opted for burger and chips aand steak bageuette and chips and two soft drinks) cost us about £11 - at 2 am in the morning!
For breakfast you are spoilt for choice, ther is continental, fruit, cooked, or the cheif will cook you somethng you request (he stands outside with his own little cooking area. You can get bacon, even though UAE is an arabian country, but the container it sits in is not labelled and the sausages are veal sausages.
We did not always go to lunch if we had not had breakfast till later on but when we did again there was plenty of choice. The evening meals were good and desserts were excellent! Each night is themed and if you want a change there is an italian (which we went to twice which was very nice - they even arranged for one night for us to get our drinks there free as it was Mexican night and we did not like mexican). There is also the snack bar next ot the two pools which does noce snacks and also does pizza in a proper pizza oven outside, but check when you get there which nights they do this as it is not every night.
When we were there the hotel was very low on guests so all the staff knew what we drank and were very attentive. You can have food or drink by the pool and book this to your room, so you don;t need to worry about taking cash out by the pool. The UAE's weekend is Friday and Saturday (rather than Sat and Sun) and the hotel gets very busy then with lots of children using the hotel and pool, but they were all well behaved. Although it was 40 degrees whilst we were there (gets hotter believe me!) it was bearable to sit in the pool with your legs over the side and read a book - a few other did that as well.
The rooms were nice and air conditioned and quite spacious and nice standard bathroom. Bottled water was plentiful as we used to take a cpule out of the breakfast room with us and you get 2 bottles each day in your room on the tea making tray.
Taxi's are fairly cheap. It was 50 p (equivalent to) for us to go to the Al Ain shopping mall about 6 or 7 minutes away by taxi and about £1 to go to the Al Jimi mall. We personally didn't think anything was that much cheaper than at home.
We went to Dubai for the day on a air conditioned bus for £4 (although I was still very hot when I got there)and we came back via taxi, which we managed to bartar down to £30 for a 1.5 hour journey. Dubai is like a building site so, beware if you go there is is not yet finished!! There is a site seeing tour bus which we went on which was quite interesting, but we went on this at the end of the afternoon and the traffic to get back to the point where it stops is terrible and took 1.5 hours and should have took 15 mins.
There is no entertainment on at night and the alcoholic drinks in Paco's (if you want Bacardi Breezers etc) are about the same price as the UK, but it is nice enough to sit outside and enjoy the heat even though it is dark just after 7 pm.
If I wanted to go somewhere hot for a week to relax then this is a must do destination.