Location:
Qasr Al Sarab is a little over 2 hours driving distance from Abu Dhabi Airport. We took advantage of the hotel's private car service to and from Abu Dhabi, which was seamless. If you would prefer to drive yourself, the roads were very well maintained, and seemed fairly easy to navigate. It was such an exciting feeling on the drive to go from flat desert to gradually larger and larger dunes. After the exit for the hotel, there is still a bit of a drive to the resort, and by now, you will be driving on roads over the large orange dunes of The Empty Quarter. Getting to the Qasr Al Sarab is quite the adventure in itself!
The Hotel:
Seeing The Empty Quarter was my favorite part of our trip to the Arabian Peninsula - well, honestly it was one of my favorite travel experiences of all time - and this over-the-top resort was pure magic. The dunes here are larger than the ones near Dubai, and are a shorter drive than if we were to go to the Empty Quarter from Muscat, Oman, which is why we chose this area. Although it is a large resort, the remote location of this hotel made the stay especially unique. The views are absolutely jaw dropping, and the colors of the sand change with different lighting throughout the day and night. You are able to walk up the dunes surrounding the resort (the hotel staff can show you the best ones to hike for sunrise and sunset), and the walk to the top was harder than I expected! It is well worth it for the experience.
If you want to go further into the desert and REALLY feel like you are in the most surreal landscape ever, I would highly recommend booking some of the hotel's amazing excursions (sunrise/sunset camel rides and dune drives in particular), which I will detail later in this post. The scenery we were able to see on those excursions is something I will remember forever, and I absolutely fell in love with the desert on this trip.
The hotel has many restaurants to choose from, and all of the food was delicious. The breakfast buffet at Al Waha was enormous - probably one of the largest ones I've been lucky enough to experience. It included fresh made noodle dishes, egg dishes, fresh squeezed juices, fruits and every pastry you could think of. Everything was amazing. I would also recommend booking a Bedouin-style dinner at Al Falaj where you can dine in the desert under the stars. We also loved the restaurant near the pool, Ghadeer, although we somehow never actually visited the pool on this trip. It looked like an amazing Oasis, but we couldn't seem to stay away from the dunes during our stay.
Al Falaj Bedouin-style dining
The Room:
All rooms have views of the dunes. We booked a Deluxe Balcony room (through Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts) and were upgraded to a Deluxe Terrace corner room with an extra-large terrace.
Room terrace
View from room terrace
Room terrace
Room terrace
The Excursions:
The hotel offers many activities to choose from during your stay - we opted for the soft dune drive and sunset camel ride.
Soft dune drive: Guests have the option of a soft drive or a hard drive, and after some research, I decided on the soft drive. Verrrrry happy I did. Even on the soft drive, you do some adrenaline-pumping dune bashing, but you make some stops and take short breaks to decompress for a bit. Our driver was very experienced, and it was honestly much more fun than I expected. I would suggest that you do not eat right before and take something for motion-sickness prior to the drive.
Sunset camel ride: The camels were so friendly! We went in a group of 6 people, and were led on a short trek across the dunes before stopping to watch the sunset in the middle of the desert. Probably the most memorable moment of the entire trip.
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