Incentive travel - Abu Dhabi
Where to start with this incredible trip?! Abu Dhabi is an incredibly cosmopolitan city with endless different activities to offer, architecture to view and culture to take in and with the help from Sandra at Gulf Dunes, who kindly arranged our incentive trip for us, we set off to take in as much as possible over the course of the three days!
Every element of the trip oozed luxury, beginning with our business class flights courtesy of Kathy from All About Flights & Marius from Etihad Airways, which was the perfect start to the trip and made all the difference for getting those essential forty winks on the overnight seven-hour flight!
We landed bright eyed, bushy tailed and absolutely starving! We headed over to Saadiyat Beach Club to start the day beachside with some gorgeous food to set us up for an afternoon of adrenaline! We spent the afternoon on the track at YA Marina, which was a fantastic experience! A thrill seeker’s dream and great for groups looking to do a quick taster of a Formula 1 track.
We then transferred to Jumeriah Etihad Towers for a few hours of sunshine and a tour of the hotel, which was absolutely mesmerising. The view from the bathrooms overlooked the waterfront of the city which made for a soak of dreams!
We had a cheeky few hours on the beach and then headed in for a full show round and dinner in one of the many onsite restaurants; Alta Badia, one of the best Italian restaurants we have ever been to! The meeting space in the hotel really did take our breath away, the pre-function area alone is one of the most beautiful meeting spaces we have ever seen. Don’t even get us started on the view from the Observation Deck!
Friday started off waterside with a Yellow Boat Tour – a great way to see a bit more of the city from a different view point and perfect way to work up an appetite for what Fridays in the Middle East are made for…Brunch!
Friday Brunch is simply a must-do whilst visiting the Middle East, it puts an English fry-up to shame and they certainly know how to serve brunch at Jumeriah Etihad Towers! The brunch options seemed to go on forever but with limited time before our next activity we sufficiently stuffed ourselves silly with a then headed out to the desert for some dune bashing.
With time of the essence we killed two birds with one stone and took the buggies through the desert to our next destination…certainly a different way of transferring your delegates! It is exhilarating and an amazing experience to be in the desert which stretches for what seems like forever, it is a must see!
We arrived at sunset to Jumeriah Al Wathba Dessert, which is due to open in just a few short weeks and is going to be an amazing venue for a unique stay in the centre of the desert!
We had an amazing feast of a dinner at the hotel whilst learning about all the venue will be able to offer upon opening such as a nightly falcon, onsite spa with 13 treatment rooms, saunas, hot tubs, Jacuzzi, steam room, crystal salt room and a Cryo Treatment room. Definitely a fantastic hotel if you are looking for a fabulous wellness option.
After dinner we headed back to our hotel, which was going to be our home for the next two nights; Jumeriah Saadiyat Island. Out of all the amazing hotels we saw on the trip, we have to say this hotel was our favourite. A fairly new property opening only in November 2018, it really is just out of this world! The resort feel makes you instantly relaxed and you can’t put a price on hearing the sound of the waves from your bedroom!
Saturday, we headed off to the Mangroves for kayaking – a must do for any trip to Abu Dhabi. Definitely less adrenaline fuelled than the day prior at the track, this is a perfect trip for relaxing. You suddenly feel a million miles from the city even though you are only fifteen minutes from the hustle and bustle.
After some post kayaking lunch in the marina, we went for a tour of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which is not something to be missed, even for those who are less enthused by art or museums. The building itself is an incredible architectural structure and simply breath-taking and we think you would struggle to find anyone who wouldn’t be impressed with the use of space and variety of exhibitions and works.
Our farewell dinner was at Jumeriah Saadiyat which commenced after an amazing show round of the hotel’s facilities. The hotel offers an abundance of meeting spaces, a vast array of food outlets, catering to a multitude of cultures and palates, in addition to hundreds of bedrooms which we can personally guarantee offer the best night’s sleep!
The whole trip was really special from start to finish and Abu Dhabi is definitely up there as one of the best destinations we have ever visited! It really does offer something for everyone with such a special, traditional culture combined with being such a cosmopolitan, modern city.
Thank you to all our hosts; Sandra from Gulf Dunes, Jo from Pearl, Andre from Jumeriah, Marius from Etihad and Kathy from All About Flights, you really did host the most fantastic trip! A special thank you to all those based in Abu Dhabi that we met along the way who showed us the true Abu Dhabi and made us feel so welcome throughout our stay!
Got plans for an incentive trip soon?
We have many years of experience in our bags planning and delivering hundreds of incentive trips over the last decades. If you feel your team could use some quality time away during an incentive trip and you’re unsure where to start, just get in touch with us. Organising unforgettable experiences is what we love and do best!