Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort by Anantara

The last hour of the drive from Abu Dhabi runs through nothing: a straight road, a few camel farms, then dunes that rise in rust-coloured waves on either side. The road ends at a gatehouse, and beyond it, in a hollow between the dunes, stands what looks like a walled town. This is Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort by Anantara, whose name means Palace of the Mirage, and it was built where it is because nobody else had built anything.

History

The Rub' al Khali, the Empty Quarter, is the largest sand desert in the world, and its northern edge laps against the Liwa crescent of villages, the ancestral home of the Bani Yas tribe from which Abu Dhabi's ruling family descends. The resort opened in November 2009 as the second Anantara property in the emirate, a year after Desert Islands Resort on Sir Bani Yas Island, and the first hotel of any kind this deep in the Abu Dhabi dunes. Anantara is the flagship brand of Minor Hotels of Bangkok, and the two Abu Dhabi resorts were its first in the Middle East.

In 2014 the crew of Star Wars: The Force Awakens spent several weeks in the dunes near the resort, which stood in for the desert planet Jakku. The production used the hotel as its base.

Architecture and design

The resort was designed to look like a desert fort that had always been there. Walls of ochre render rise in battlemented blocks, with wind towers, narrow lanes and courtyards between them, and water runs in channels through the gardens in the manner of a falaj, the irrigation system of the Arabian settlements. Palm trees were planted by the hundred. The whole complex is sunk into a bowl so that the dunes rise above its walls on every side and the view from any terrace is sand.

Interiors use dark timber, carved screens, brass lanterns and fabrics in the colours of the desert. The library holds a collection on Bedouin life and the exploration of the Empty Quarter, including the travels of Wilfred Thesiger, who crossed it twice in the 1940s and passed through Liwa.

Rooms and suites

Rooms in the main building open onto terraces or balconies that face the dunes or the pool gardens. The villas, grouped on the edge of the complex, each have a private pool and a walled courtyard, and the Royal Pavilion Villas form a separate adults-only enclave with a pool of its own. Suites in the main building add living rooms and larger terraces.

Dining

Suhail, named after the star that Bedouin navigators used to mark the end of summer, is the resort's grill restaurant on an upper floor, with a terrace that looks over the dunes at sunset. Al Waha serves the main buffet breakfast and dinners that move between Arabic and international kitchens. Private dinners are set on the sand beyond the walls, lit by lanterns, and the resort also offers breakfast in the dunes after a sunrise walk.

Wellness

The Anantara Spa has a hammam built in the Turkish manner, treatment rooms and a programme drawn from the brand's Thai origins. The main pool runs the length of the gardens. Activities fill the rest of the day: camel treks at sunrise or sunset, dune driving in four-wheel-drive vehicles, falconry displays, archery, fat-tyre bikes on the sand and guided walks up the dunes behind the resort. Tal Moreeb, one of the tallest dunes in the region at around 300 metres, is a short drive away.

Weddings and events

Qasr Al Sarab hosts weddings and conferences, which is unusual for a desert resort of this kind. The ballroom and meeting rooms take corporate groups from Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and the lawns and terraces are used for ceremonies with the dunes behind. Dinner for a wedding party can be served inside the fort or out on the sand.

Location

The resort stands in the Al Dhafra region of the emirate of Abu Dhabi, near the settlement of Hameem, about 200 kilometres south-west of Abu Dhabi city. The drive takes around two hours from the city and a little longer from Dubai. Abu Dhabi International Airport is the nearest airport. There is no public transport and nothing within walking distance; guests arrive by car or by the resort's transfer. It is a resort in the Liwa desert rather than a luxury hotel in Abu Dhabi in any urban sense, and that is the point.