The Best –

1) The Grand Mosque.  Wow.  This is a beautiful structure.  So clean and crisp yet so full of color.  Also the only time we were required to wear headscarves which was an interesting experience in itself.  Awesome tour guide.

2) The Falcon Hospital.  Very interesting to learn about falconry and of course seeing, touching and being so close to those beautiful birds felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

3) Dune Bashing.  It may have made my sister throw up but I thought it was pretty fun!  Who doesn’t like some life-threatening danger?!

4) The Food.  Yummy lamb, hummus, dates and hotel buffets!  One warning though:  If you take the Dhow Boat Tour (which is lovely) don’t eat before and don’t fill up on bread… you have a lot of food to get through!  Don’t say you haven’t been warned!

5) The Service:  Although it seemed many times no one could really effectively communicate, they did do it with smiley faces!

The Not-So-Good

1) The Construction.  EVERYTHING was being constructed upon! Apparently in 2030, Abu Dhabi is going to be an incredible tourist destination… planning our comeback now.

2) The Service. Like I said before, I think because many aren’t native of UAE this causes some breakdown in communication.  We encountered a problem because of this at our lovely Falcon Hospital tour which also included lunch.  Nice meal of hummus and lamb in a traditional tent, sounded nice, right? Well, unfortunately our driver was also supposed to drive back another group whose tour DID NOT include lunch.  This resulted in us eating as fast as we could while they sat in the van.  Awkward!

3) The Desert Safari.  The potential in this is huge and it does have the ability of being really cool but unfortunately there was just something lacking.  This could be mainly due to the fact that the henna lady was not present (we were looking forward to that the most!) and that it was cold.  The desert night sky was pretty though.

4) The Shopping.  It was hard to find good authentic goods stores.  Most were American goods or stuff with crap (for lack of a better word).  The hotel at least had some good little stores.

5) The Cultural Centers.  Both the Heritage Center and the Cultural Center turned out to be rather disappointing.  The Cultural Center was completely closed due to… yup, construction, but at least the Heritage Center had a couple little market shops.

So there you have it.  Abu Dhabi has a lot to offer but seems to be still putting all of it together.  I look forward to returning in 2030.