Full Day Private Abu Dhabi City Tour From Dubai | Complete City Tour

We were only in Dubai for a few days, so in order to visit Abu Dhabi we decided to pay the higher cost of a private tour, rather than joining a group tour at a lower cost, so that we would have flexibility with the timings. We noted that many tours offered 4 hours in Abu Dhabi, so we booked an 8am pick up time from our hotel. We thought that with 3 hours for the travel time there and back, this would give us 4 hours to explore Abu Dhabi and still be back at our hotel by 3pm. This would give us time to get ready for another activity that we had planned for the evening. We received a WhatsApp message from our tour guide to confirm the 8am pick up the night before the tour. However, the next morning, at 7.53am we received another message saying that the car had broken down and he was delayed by 40-50 minutes. He actually arrived at 9.15am. This was annoying, because obviously the travel time couldn't be reduced so we had already lost 1 hour 15 minutes of our time in Abu Dhabi. First stop was the Grand Mosque, which is stunning and well worth a visit. We walked round quite quickly, knowing that we needed to make up time to see everything we wanted in the City. Our tour guide had said he would meet up with us in Costa Coffee. We arrived first. When he came, he said that the car we had driven over in had also broken down, so they had sent another car which was also faulty! Another car was on its way, but would take another hour to arrive. Our tour guide wandered off and my husband and I agreed that we would ask to be taken back to our hotel and given a full refund. This was not a good experience! However, when our tour guide came back, he offered to pay for a taxi to show us some of the sights while we waited for the car. We had now been in Costa for 40 minutes, so this did seem like a good idea. We went to Corniche Road for a photo stop, then visited Heritage Village. We saw the Palace and Emirates Hotel from a distance. I was disappointed not to be able to visit them On a plus, our tour guide was very knowledgeable and did remain professional, informative and friendly despite the many challenges he faced that day. We agreed to return to our hotel 30 minutes later than originally planned, however this still didn't give enough time to visit Ferrari World and Yas Island. In all, we paid a lot of money for a private tour but spent nearly 2 hours of the day waiting for cars. Whilst the taxi solution meant that we did get to see some of Abu Dhabi, I don't think what we experienced was good value for money. I contacted the company on our return to ask for a partial refund of what we paid but received no response.

Spent 2 days in Abu Dhabi and saw most attractions. The Grand mosque was indeed very Grand. Also visited the Louvre and Presidential palace. Our tour guide Ali was excellent and I highly recommend to use him.

The driver was very helpful. He took extra care to my mother who had difficulty in coming down from the car. He directed us where to go. He was informative of the history of UAE.