Trip to Sir Bani Yas Island

We took advantage of the lower summer prices to go to this resort which opened earlier this year. The island was Sheikh Zayed's own private island retreat and has continued to be a destination for the royal family to visit. Earlier this year it was opened to the public, or at least those that stay at the hotel and spa resort. The island was first populated by members of the Bani Yas tribe several thousand years ago and there are many ancient sites on the island. Sheikh Zayed had a wish to "greenify" the island, so workers started to plant some 4 million trees and bushes, of which around 2.5 million remain. More about the island can be read here.

We had read some "iffy" reports on TripAdvisor.com but I have to say we really found nothing to complain about. The staff were very helpful and friendly and rooms were great. The buffet, whilst not very adventurous, was fine and the food was good quality. I guess the one and only thing I would say, was that the beach wasn't great. My advice would be if you have a few days to spend, then do a night or two on Sir Bani Yas to do the trips and use the pool, but then go and stay at Danat Hotel Jebel Dhanna if you want to go and sit on the beach for a couple of days.

The game drive is a must. We decided to get up and go on the early trip starting at 6am. We were glad we did as it was starting to get really hot by the time we got back 2 hours later. The best moment for us was seeing one of the free roaming cheetahs still with her gazelle prey having just caught it. This was awesome.

At peek times the price of this place doubles, so take advantage now if you can!

My pictures of the trip below....

(click the pictures to see them larger)

Trip to Jebel Dhanna

We just had a very relaxing, peaceful weekend at the Jebel Dhanna Resort Hotel. It took us about 2.5 hours driving time from our villa to get there - it's about 250KM west of Abu Dhabi. The outside of the hotel is like a lot of Arabic hotels - it looks quite plain, but inside it is quite plush and spotlessly clean. The hotel was pretty empty and the staff were falling over you to be helpful. The rooms were very nice, but really like a typical business hotel in style. The service was faultless really. Apart from 2 or 3 other couples it seemed like the hotel was mainly occupied by various expats from the oil & gas industry (well I am assuming this - I don't really think there is much other industry around). The beach was empty which made it lovely and quite - just what we needed. Caz did get rather burnt though! The umbrellas have call buttons on them for the waiters - perfect! (for lazy gits like me anyway). You used to be able to take day trips form this resort to the island of Sir Bani Yas, but this isn't possible now as you can only visit if you are staying on the island resort (which you can now fly to from Abu Dhabi).

One night in the bar we saw this oldish arab man come in looking a bit agitated, his hands shaking (we thought maybe he had Parkinson's or something), but he went up to the bar ordered a double vodka and downed it in one! He then straight after ordered a beer and then necked that! A younger guy (maybe his son) came in a tried to persuade him to leave. They walked off towards the exit but a few minutes later he came back ordered another drink and downed it. His wife then arrived and the three of them sat down. He ordered another beer. Necked it down. He went to the bar and had another vodka! Then the younger guy managed to get him out to the car! He must have downed 6-7 drinks in about as many minutes! I'm sure he will be struggling to get up to morning prayers at the mosque this! Was bizarre to watch.




We were there for our 5th wedding anniversary. The flowers I had ordered duly arrived in the room which was good. 5 years seems to have flown by! There is no way 5 years ago we would have thought we'd now be in Abu Dhabi! Here's a reminder of the day!





On the way home we couldn't avoid some bad driving - it wouldn't be the UAE without it! First, in the middle of nowhere an oil tanker had overturned - no idea how!










Then on the way back we stopped at an ADNOC petrol station and as we sat eating our bought garage crap we saw a 4x4 leaving with a trailer carrying a quad bike or dune buggy. Nothing unusual in that, but the right hand wheel of the trailer had completely lost it's tire and was just running on the metal of the wheel! We caught up with it several Km down the motorway and I managed to get a video clip....

Click here if you want to see the whole photo album from Jebel Dhanna http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/neilroberts01/JebelDhanna#