The malls in Dubai are what the locals do, especially on a very hot summer day.  Fortunately for us it was not very hot, but we did have the time to spend just walking around these very impressive shopping complexes.  By the end of our tour, we had managed to visit nine malls …

Deira City Centre (day 1)
Burjuman Centre (day 2)
Dubai Festival City Mall (day 3)
Dubai Mall (day 4)
Yas Mall, Abu Dhabi (day 5)
Dubai Marina Mall (day 5)
Ibn Battuta Mall (day 6)
Mall of the Emirates (day 6)
Souk Madinat Jumeirah (day 7)

The malls are generally open from 10:00am – midnight, and some open as late as 1:00am on Thursday and Friday nights!  The malls are chockfull of retailers from around the world and restaurants such as the Cheesecake Factory, TGI Fridays, Chili’s, Baja Fresh, Shake Shack, Habit Burger and much more.  Our favorite mall was the Ibn Battuta Mall, which is the world’s largest themed mall and we also really enjoyed the Dubai Mall because of its fountain show…

Mall of the Emirates. At the Nespresso store so we could figure out how to use the machine that was in our hotel room

Ski Dubai, an indoor ski and snowboard area with real ski lifts and real snow

Ibn Battuta Mall, our favorite mall with different themes in each wing.

Ibn Battuta Mall, India Court

Ibn Battuta Mall, China Court

Ibn Battuta Mall, don't remember the theme

Ibn Battuta Mall, Andalusia

Ibn Battuta Mall, Tunisia court

Ibn Battuta Mall, Egypt Court

Dessert break at London Dairy

Ibn Battuta Mall, China Courty

Dubai Mall, so much fun just watching the kids explore and play

Ibn Battuta Mall, back to India Court

Madinat Jumeirah was recommended to us by our friend Nicky as one of her favorite places in Dubai.  We took the bus, but got off one stop too early.  We ended up at a luxury hotel resort and wandered around the grounds, trying to find our way to the souk.  It was fun just walking around, enjoying the property and the views.  Eventually we found what we were originally looking for, the souk that was designed to look like an ancient Arabian marketplace.  We ate dinner, did some window shopping and admired the ambiance.

The iconic Burj Al Arab stands tall in the background, often voted as the world’s most luxurious hotel. The cheapest rate we could find was $1,900 per night. Their most expensive room averages $24,000 per night. Ouch.

Enjoying the sunset over the Arabian Gulf.

After walking around for almost an hour and a half, we finally locate the old souk marketplace area.

Over 1,200 stores.
One of the world’s largest aquariums.
Olympic-size ice rink.
Sega Republic theme park with indoor roller-coaster.
Next door is the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, which is twice the height of the Empire State Building.
It is the world’s largest mall by land area, the Dubai Mall.  We decided to divide and conquer.

It takes almost a one mile walk from the Metro station to the entrance of the Mall, all via enclosed, air-conditioned walkways with people mover.

The Mall directory

Sega Republic

James Bond exhibit

Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building

Fountain show, running every 30 minutes and created by the same people who do the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas

Model of KidZania, which their website describes this attraction as "a indoor edutainment Centre, a city built to scale for children, complete with buildings, paved streets, vehicles and more."

With a prime location next to the Metro Rail walkway and the main entry, one would think that this Blackberry store would be packed. But at a peak time period with thousands of shoppers, hardly a soul even uses it as a shortcut. Does anyone even use Blackberrys any more? How is this company still in business? Based on what I saw here, not for long...

We spent almost three hours at the Dubai Mall and probably only saw/walked half of the area before we petered out. We can see why this place is so popular with locals and tourists alike, especially when the outside temperature reaches triple digits. Count us as impressed!

Scenes from my run earlier this morning, a loop along the marina and beach areas…