Temporarily not so empty
When I told my father that camping was my least favorite sporting activity he pointed out that camping is not a sporting activity. Have you ever heard of a German Olympic camping team, he asked. Notwithstanding my protestations we went camping on New Year's eve in the Empty Quarter. The Empty Quarter is a desert that covers 650,000 square kilometers and consists entirely of sand. No rocks, a couple of shrubs and temporary visitors like us. And that is it. By the way, this sand is not the grainy sand you find on the beach. This sand has a consistency which is slightly less fine than flour and it gets in everything. It took me two weeks before I stopped finding sand in my clothes.
Did I hear the dinner bell?
After we set up camp we started cooking. Cooking was a collective effort and all of us pitched in. We had Indian potato salad and Asian coleslaw. My mother brought ripe avocados and insisted on making fresh guacamole. All the men where involved in cooking the steaks over a fire (the wood came from a sustainable wood farm in Norway, if you must know). For dessert we had chocolate brownies (which where perfect), christmas cookies (which I helped make) and dates. Finally, what camping trip is complete without roasted marshmallows. 
A mirage
After a long and painfully cold night, our reward was a night's stay at Qasr Al Sarab. I was so excited to get to the hotel and get 10 tons of flour grained sand out of my hair. Unfortunately, my shower was postponed for another three hours due to the hotel mismanaging our check in. We got our rooms after my mother and her friend staged a sit-in at the reception. Usually this kind of delay doesn't bother me. But having to sit in a restaurant for three hours which was too busy to give us a table was too much for me and I went and joined the sit-in.
Balcony
Our room was very pretty. It seems that all of the rooms were set up to look over the dunes at sunset. They even have a "sunset" lighting feature in the room. Be warned, no amount of pushing the "sunset" button will accelerate the sunset. The bathroom is very large. It has to be given the size of the bathtub. The tub is circular and has a diameter of over 5 feet (based on me lying in it and stretching). We felt guilty about filling up such a large tub in the middle of the desert. In any case, my pre-bath testing concluded that it was not a bathtub built for a long soaks.
Your room is to the left
Qasr Al Sarab is built like a small city. It consists of three different areas: a hotel, a group of luxury villas and a smaller group of super-luxury villas. The common areas were lovely and very well designed.
The Qasr Al Sarab falaq system
Rooms with a view
Sand
The walled city of Qasr Al Sarab
One of the pleasant surprises of Qasr Al Sarab is the quality of the food. We ate at the Gahdeer (their poolside restaurant) that evening. I had lamb chops which were amazing even for a region where cooking lamb is an art form. My father had the seafood grill which included Gulf shrimp and Omani lobster. Again, cooked absolutely perfectly. In fact, everyone was pleased by their selection. When I took a bite of the crema catalana my grandmother ordered I knew the Chef had to be Spanish. He is, in fact a Catalan.
The real surprise was the breakfast. I had more poached egg toasts with avocado and wrapped in smoked salmon then I care to admit. The eggs florentine were also wonderful (and a rare find in this region). The salad bar lent a brunch feel to the breakfast and that is how it turned out for us, as we clocked in about 3 hours at the breakfast table. We actually stayed while they were setting up their lunch buffet. It was a seafood bar on ice and the variety and quality was outstanding (of course my Dad says, the Chef is a catalan). We had to leave before trying the lunch buffet (and we couldn't justify it given the amount of food we had for breakfast) but we will certainly try it next time we come, if we can get to our room in time.
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