re: Taveling to Abu Dhabi next summer

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Drinking over there is super expensive also so be prepared to pay if you want a night out. Stars & Bars was our go to drinking spot during the week. It's a very American style bar

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All the bars are "in" hotels. They almost always run 2/1 happy hours (the nine dollar beer becomes a $4.50 beer.) My Serb bartender, at the end of happy hour, informed me I just had to *buy* the beers before the end of happy hour, I didn't need to drink them. And them promptly put "x number of beers" in an iced down receptacle for me to drink the rest of the night, and gave me a bucket to bring down unused beers for the LSU football game that was airing at 0500? the next morning. Love the expat workers. If it's a royal holiday, you can't buy booze and the bars are closed (which was a surprise at least the first time), but room service will still bring you whatever you want.

In Abu Dhabi, especially with kids, it'll be super cool for them to see all of the families that come out to BBQ and be outside after dark, especially between the main city and the area where Abu Dhabi's fancy Mosque is. They're out there playing frisbee and stuff at like 9/10 at night, etc.

Oh, lest I forget. Go to the Courtyard World Trade Center hotel bar with the kids and sit on the patio. There is a parade of widebodies that fly nearly directly over the hotel pretty constantly. It seems like activity increases in the early afternoon/evening, but (I'm just estimating) watching A380/777 fly over at 3,000 feet, one after another, from every country imaginable, every 5-10 minutes is pretty cool.

I'd consider it an option to stay at, as well, as it's in the middle of just about everything except Yas Island (but a short cab ride away.) There's a souq (market) nearly attached to the hotel, there's a grocery store 30 yards from the hotel entrance, an attached mall, etc. You can buy Persian saffron in that souq (you want all red, not mostly yellow/orange.) If you have middle eastern business associates, it's a perfect gift to give to their wives if you go over for dinner, etc. It's worth buying it just to see stuff get measured with tweezers