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Tags: Desert Retreats / Dubai Hotels / Hotel Openings / Desert Hotels / Desert Resorts / → All Tags

The Anantara Qasr Al Sarab Turns a Desert Mirage Into a Proper Retreat

Not everyone heads to Dubai with mall shopping and indoor skiing on their minds, or if you do, you quickly get tired of it. For this reason, more and more retreats are being built outside of the city, either in lush green environments like the Westin Golf Resort near Abu Dhabi or flat out in the desert, like the soon-to-open Anantara Resort at Qasr Al Sarab.

Due to open on October 25, the Anantara is 90 minutes away from Abu Dhabi and three hours from Dubai in the Liwa Desert, and boasts 206 rooms, although some are flat-out palatial villas with private pools and commanding views over the sand dunes. Face it: if you're coming all the way out here, you're coming to relax and just go between a hammam, a chaise lounge and your hookah all day (and night) long.

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Tags: Killer View / Grand Canyon Hotels / Desert Hotels / → All Tags

Room With a Killer (Grand Canyon) View: We Want to Go to There

Where: West Rim Dr. [map], Grand Canyon Villae, AZ, United States, 86023

We are suckers for a room with a killer view.  We find that we are even more likely to forgive some minor hotel inconveniences if we can stare out the window at something pretty--yeah we are that shallow. Let's help out our fellow hotel mavens by uploading rooms with killer views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. We will feature our favorites in this space from time to time. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number of the hot view.

Oh man. We don't really talk much about the Grand Canyon 'round these parts. Especially during the summer. It's hot over there right now — and our sights are usually turned to cool mountains or clear blue water and white sandy beaches. But this — well, this photo, in the words of Liz Lemon, makes us say we "want to go to there." Right?

This is a view from the Kachina Lodge, snapped by pfala. Yes, this is the Grand Canyon. And yes, it is gorge-ous.

The Kachina Lodge is one of those specialty lodges around the Canyon — on TripAdvisor, it falls around #8 of the 26 hotels in the region. Reviews are mixed — and the best reviews seem to rave about the view more than the room, but not all rooms have a view like this one. Make sure you ask for a room with a full view when you book. Rates go for around $170.

[Photo: pfala]