In late May this year, we went to Sir Baniyas Island for at Full-board Island Escape at Desert Islands Resort & Spa by Anantara. It was a remarkable and unforgettable experience.
There are many accommodation options on the island, from luxurious hotel rooms to villas, all by Anantara Hotels Resorts & Spas. The island is one of the eight islands of the Desert Islands in Al Gharbia. The island has the region’s largest wildlife reserves, home to free-roaming animals including the Arabian Oryx, gazelles, beautiful giraffes, hyenas, and cheetahs.
We stayed at the Desert Islands Resort & Spa and as part of our Full-board Island Escape package with Anantara, we get to take a 4×4 Nature & Wildlife Drive of the park with a fantastic guide! The Desert Islands Resort & Spa is Sheikh Zayed’s former guest house with only about 60 rooms. The rooms are enormous and well-maintained. Choose an upper floor with a sea view, if you can. The balcony overlooking the Arab Gulf is lovely. I would go back again and stay in either the beachfront villas at Anantara Al Yamm Villa Resort on the eastern shores or with the animals at Anantara Al Sahel Villa Resort.
On the island, you can also visit the UAE’s only discovered Christian monastery. There are flights from Abu Dhabi and Dubai to Sir Baniyas but we drove from Dubai, and the travel was not difficult nor exhausting.
Anantara’s service is known to be luxurious and top-notch. The service on the island is superb! I’ve yet to witness and experience the same quality of service they offered me during my stay there, somewhere else. I never wanted to leave the island. They were very helpful, pleasant, and welcoming, the minute you walk out of your car to wait for the boat to the island!
I think the Full-board Island Escape package is worth it. It includes two nights’ accommodation, daily breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It also includes one activity per person per stay! The food was incredible. For lunch, you can dine at any of their restaurants available. My favorite for lunch is Amwaj, which is an Arabic contemporary beachside restaurant. The lamb chops and the enormous serving of Umm Ali for dessert were delicious! The Palm is where the breakfast and dinner buffet usually is. I love their breakfast and dinner buffet. The food is well prepared, and the quality is excellent. They don’t have the same menu every day, and that is fantastic. For our last dinner, which was on a Friday night, they had a sujuk station!
It was a privilege to be there!