Abu Dhabi Central Bus Station and Al Wahda
Part of the full Abu Dhabi's Grand Mosque on an AUH Layover
Abu Dhabi’s Central Bus Station sits in Al Wahda with the mall of the same name on the next block, coaches to Dubai leaving its bays every 20 to 30 minutes, and the oldest building in the city a couple of kilometres west.
The freshwater well inside Qasr Al Hosn’s fort walls
Everything about Abu Dhabi starts with one hole in the ground. A well of fresh water was found on this island in the 1700s, a coral-stone watchtower went up to guard it, and the tower grew into a fort, then a palace, then the seat of government until 1966. The well is still in the courtyard, a low stone ring with a wooden rope frame over it, under the whitewashed walls that eventually surrounded it.
Qasr Al Hosn stands on Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Street, a couple of kilometres west of the coach bays, close enough to walk in winter and a short taxi at any other time of year. Admission is AED 30, free for under-18s, and it also covers the Cultural Foundation and the House of Artisans on the same grounds. Opening runs 9am to 8pm Saturday to Thursday and 2pm to 8pm on Friday.
Al Wahda Mall’s cinema, food court and hypermarket
Al Wahda Mall stands on Hazza Bin Zayed Street on the block beside the coach bays, and it holds a 1,500-seat cinema, more than 50 places to eat from the fast-food rank to sit-down restaurants, and a hypermarket that runs from eight in the morning to midnight, with a hotel joined onto it by a bridge. For a wait of two or three hours it is the most useful building in the district by a distance.
Retail hours are 10am to 10pm Sunday to Wednesday, an hour longer on Thursday, and to midnight on Friday and Saturday. Restaurants stay open past the shops, which matters for a flight that goes in the small hours, since nothing else in this part of the island is still lit by then.
A terminal this size mixes two kinds of traveller: coach passengers coming off the Dubai services with everything they own, and city-bus riders getting on with nothing, sharing the same concourse and the same doors out of it.
Neither airport bus stops at Abu Dhabi Central Bus Station
The A1 and A2 routes out of Terminal A at Zayed International Airport (AUH) both terminate elsewhere: the A1 at Al Zahiyah near the eastern end of the seafront, the A2 at Al Danah on Khalifa bin Zayed Street. Al Danah is the closer of the two and still a taxi or a city-bus hop from the coach terminal, so the AED 4 airport fare is not quite the bargain it looks once you add the leg at this end.
A metered taxi covers the whole thing in 30 to 40 minutes for AED 60 to 70 and needs no card at all. Budget 90 minutes back at the terminal on top. If the gap is longer than four hours, the wider Abu Dhabi itinerary reaches the mosque and the museums that this radius does not; if you would rather stay on the water, the seafront route starts about two kilometres north of here.
Frequently asked questions
What should I do during a layover near Abu Dhabi Central Bus Station in Abu Dhabi?
Keep the radius short. Qasr Al Hosn, the oldest building in the city, stands a couple of kilometres west and costs AED 30, and its courtyard still holds the freshwater well the whole fort was built to guard in the 1700s. Al Wahda Mall is on the next block and has a 1,500-seat cinema, more than 50 places to eat and a hypermarket open until midnight. Three or four hours covers both comfortably. The fort shuts at 8pm and opens only from 2pm on Fridays, which is the constraint worth checking before you plan around it.
How do I get from the bus station to Dubai, and what does it cost?
Two intercity routes run from the same terminal and both charge AED 25 a trip. One ends at Al Ghubaiba in Dubai and runs from about 4.30am to half past midnight; the other ends at Ibn Battuta, on Dubai's metro, and runs from about 4.45am to a quarter past eleven at night. Departures on both are every 20 to 30 minutes for most of the day. Reckon on roughly two hours between cities, longer if you are travelling into a Dubai rush hour.
Does a Dubai Nol card work at Abu Dhabi Central Bus Station?
On the intercity coaches, yes: the Abu Dhabi to Dubai services take a Nol card as well as Abu Dhabi's own Hafilat card, with top-up machines and counters at the station for both. The city bus routes leaving from the same building are stricter, and want a Hafilat, which costs AED 10 for the card plus whatever you load on it. No Abu Dhabi bus takes cash or a bank card, so arriving with only a debit card and no card of either kind leaves you walking.
How late does anything near the station stay open?
Later than the shops suggest. Al Wahda Mall's retail runs 10am to 10pm from Sunday to Wednesday, until 11pm on Thursday and until midnight on Friday and Saturday, but the restaurants and cafes keep going past the shop closings and the hypermarket inside it is open from eight in the morning until midnight every day. That matters for a flight that goes in the small hours, because it is the only thing in this part of the island reliably open when the museums and the fort have long shut.