With faux wind towers giving it the appearance of a storybook stronghold from One Thousand and One Nights, Anantara’s Desert Islands Resort & Spa stands alone on the shores of Sir Bani Yas — a large island in the Persian Gulf, lying just 5 miles off the coast of the emirate of Abu Dhabi. And in truth, there is a whiff of fantasy about this sand-colored, 64-room property, fringed by cobalt-blue sea on one side and, on the other, a saltwater lagoon fronting desert scrubland and a jumble of rocky central hills. Remote Sir Bani Yas was once the private domain of Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, ruler of Abu Dhabi and co-founder of the United Arab Emirates
