Jul 2014 Update – Note that Rocco Forte Hotel is now called Hilton Capital Grand Abu Dhabi. 

Home from another weekend rendezvous 😉

When we first booked our night at Rocco Forte, we were (as always) a bit sceptical of how it’ll turn out. As you get into Abu Dhabi City from Dubai, you’ll pass by Rocco Forte and it is, quite a sight at night – 11-storeys of wavy glass-cladded facade, and you can see through from the outside: the restaurant and bar within. We were quite excited.

Checking in was swift and easy. We got to our Deluxe Room on the 10th floor, which had a view of the swimming pool and the city beyond. Nothing spectular, but nice enough.

Now I’m going to go into details of the room itself because, it was really, quite nice.

Having stayed in a few random hotels in this part of the region, we were actually quite impressed with Rocco Forte. Hotels can get quite boring because after you’ve been to a few, it’s always the same “style” and feel. But Rocco Forte is definitely different.

There’s a nice long green couch at the side, with bright orange, yellow and white pillows. A spiral-shaped standing lamp frames the corner of the room. Similarly on the king-size bed lays bright coloured pillows – kind of lifts up your spirits and makes you feel like – ta da, you’re on holiday! Hee hee

Even the closet is different. They’ve adopted smooth,sliding wooden doors, which gives the room a more spacious feel. Nice touch with the Nespresso Coffee machine – although we didn’t use it. Not coffee people, he he.

And here’s the plus, the bathroom.

I think hotels definitely need to put more emphasis on bathrooms – and Rocco Forte definitely did. The bathroom floor is white marble tiled, as with the sides of the bathtub. It gives the whole bathroom a very ‘grand’ feel. I mean c’mon, it’s marble! We like how they used very modern taps for the sink, bathtub, and separate shower. Square-shaped stainless steel. Very cool.

The separate shower room wall is tiled with little square green and white ceramic, which was definitely installed in the highest quality (unlike a lot of apartments in the Marina, but let’s not go there). I like the big square shower heads, haha.

They provide ‘Ren’-brand toiletries. First time seeing Ren toiletries used in a hotel – I like 🙂

Rocco Forte is definitely 5-star at its best. Whoever the facade engineers were, and the interior designers – they definitely did an awesome job because as patrons, we were quite impressed. Our only reservations would be that the air-condition in the hallways need to be turned down a little (it’s so warm!), the entrance hotel staff could be friendlier, and a little stink about the Wi Fi that needs to be paid on top of the room rate. I guess we’ve been quite spoilt by hotel hospitality in Dubai, so standards have been raised, ha ha. But hey, still very happy with our stay.

We definitely recommend anyone to stay in Rocco Forte should you go to Abu Dhabi. We were quite surprised that it’s not even mentioned in the Time Out Abu Dhabi magazine! Surely it should be there if it was that great! 🙂

And all this, is just about the rooms itself, wait till you read how dinner was like at Rouge.

• Rocco Forte Abu Dhabi Hilton Capital Grand Abu Dhabi 
• Tel: +971 (0)2 617-0000
  Fax: +917 (0)2 617 0900
  E-mail: reservations.abudhabi@
  roccofortehotels.com
• http://www.roccofortehotelabudhabi.com/