Conrad Abu Dhabi Etihad Towers

For a while now, the notion of Abu Dhabi as Dubai’s tame, eye-rolling neighbor has been an outdated one. For evidence of the Emirati capital’s taste for extravagance, the rhetorician might point to the arrival in 2010 of the world’s first gold-dispensing ATM, though most of us will probably be more interested in other 21st-century arrivals: outposts of the Louvre and Guggenheim, the Formula One World Championship, a litany of stunning places to eat and drink, and several of the world’s most ambitious hotels. Add to the list the Conrad Abu Dhabi Etihad Towers, a lofty project if ever there was one, occupying one of a set of five behemoth glass skyscrapers, of which one alone would have been a marvel, on Corniche Beach.

In the evenings, the Corniche walkway along the water is very much worth a stroll, though there’s just as much action high above sea-level, in places like the Conrad’s twelve restaurants and bars, its soaring high-tech meeting rooms and business facilities, its three pools and thirty shops (Blahnik, Lanvin, Givenchy…) and all. The list, of course, goes on.

Is it necessary to mention that the rooms are enormous, or that all of them have excellent views through floor-to-ceiling windows? Things like butler service and big sunlit bathrooms come standard, while upgrades buy luxuries like white and gold mosaics in the showers or photography installations from the owner-sheikh’s private collection — and that’s before you even get to the suites. The Royal Etihad suite, to skip right to the best of them, occupies the entire 60th floor of the tower, or more than five times the square footage of the building’s three-bedroom apartments, and comes with such amenities as an on-call chauffeured limousine. Though you likely won’t require the 60th floor, the point is that there’s as much luxury on offer as you care to buy, as long as your baseline is, well, quite a lot of luxury.

Fortunately, it’s not all gold bars and bathtubs with views. Alongside the nouveau pleasures are some old-fashioned ones, like a laze on the beach. It’s just downstairs — with private and public sections, both — and with more and more soft white sand piled daily onto its farthest limits, it’s only getting bigger.