Beach Day on Zaya Nurai Private Island
I found out about Zaya Nurai the same way I find out about everything these days – Instagram.
The swings are very popular with insta celebs, insta celeb wannabes, etc..
Zaya Nurai is a boutique private island resort with luxury beach villas and 5 restaurants. It is a 10 minute boat ride from Abu Dhabi (Saadiyat Island).
As you can imagine, the secluded beach side villas complete with private pool and butler come with a hefty price tag. The good news is that if your bank balance isn’t quite there yet you can go for the day!
My friend Cara and I set off around 10am from Abu Dhabi to make the most of our day. After a mishap with google maps (can’t even imagine what we would do if we had to read an actual map), we very nearly missed the boat. We pulled up right as the rest of the group was boarding and managed to jump on just in time.
Once we arrived the first question we were posed with is which beach to go to…
Honestly the toughest decision we had to make all day.
We opted to check out the beach with the swing first. This one has a smaller pool and the restaurant on this side the “Smokin Pineapple” is your basic burger and pizza kind of place. However, the beach here is lovely and we managed to swoop in and claim a massive teepee to ourselves.
Once we had our fill of photos and a snooze in our tent we ventured over to the other side of the island. If you are feeling optimistic you can walk, or there are bicycles you can borrow, or if you are lazy and overheated like us, you can get a mini golf cart.
Awaiting us on the other side of the island was Frangipani – an international brasserie, Hooked – a beautifully romantic levant seafood restaurant, and Dusk – a funky Mexican restaurant.
I can never say no to guac so Dusk it was.
If you go, I have to say the cerviche was fantastic. It was really fresh and flavoursome. We even contemplated how we could get a future deliveroo delivery man to go over and bring it back to us in Downtown AD.
The pool by Frangipani was much bigger and had a great vibe with some tunes playing in the background. If you are into water sports there is plenty to do here as well. It was rather hot when we went so we decided to give it a skip and retreat to the shade.
When the sunset we decided it was time to head back to the city but if you want you can stay on for dinner as the boats run until 11pm
Overall it was a wonderfully relaxing day and well worth the spend!
Cost Info:
Our day pass was 480 AED which included 420 to spend on food and drink. Weirdly the boat was not included in this price – it was an extra 60 AED, which I thought was a little odd as you can’t exactly swim there.
Photos from Zaya Nurai Website:
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