We also visited the world market Global Village, part of the Dubai Shopping Festival. This is a huge shopping/theme park about an hour outside Dubai that can best be compared to the Epcot Center, but with much more of an emphasis on shopping. Each section of the park is divided by country, ... (read more →)

The Bur Dubai Souq, across from Deira and right next to the abra station (this is where the boats drop you off when you cross the creek) had some of the best deals we saw in Dubai. Lots of knockoff watches, handbags, as well as beautiful textiles, rugs at rock bottom prices (after haggling). ... (read more →)

Another mall we checked out was the Ibn Battuta mall. This mall is at the far end of New Dubai, so was a little costly in a cab to get to. It was worth it however, and was for our money the most unique shopping mall we visited in Dubai. Every wing ... (read more →)

Ski Dubai and the Mall of the Emirates is another must-see in Dubai. Despite being Canadian, we’d never actually been downhill skiing, but why not start in Dubai? Attached to the shopping mall, Ski Dubai is a massive indoor structure, 60 stories high, with some impressively good slopes.

The whole Ski Dubai experience is ... (read more →)

Right beside the Burj Al Arab is Souq Madinat Jumeirah. This is a high-end shopping mall/”souk”, which is the cleaned-up, high price version of the souks elsewhere in the city. This is more of a tourist trap than a legitimate place to get a good deal on souvenirs. That said, we did ... (read more →)

We opted instead for viewing the outside from the public beach, about a 20 minute walk away. The hotel is surrounded by beautiful beaches, but all the ones close by are exclusively for use by hotel guests. The public beach was a nice long stretch of sand, and if we had our swimsuits, ... (read more →)

One of the “must-see” for any visit to Dubai is the Burj al Arab, a beautiful tall modern hotel in the “New Downtown” of Dubai. It is a six star hotel and costs a ridiculous amount of money to stay there per day. Unfortunately, to get in costs $65 US per person just to ... (read more →)

Our next destination was Sharjah. Shajarh is actually another emirate, not too far from Dubai, but there are no highways and it is non-stop city. Without traffic, it would probably take only a quarter of an hour to get there, but traffic made it closer to an hour. We took a bus to ... (read more →)

Our driver took us back to the hotel, where we waited for our second tour, the evening/night tour. The second tour (Starlight Express ) started on time and, although we were worried about the idea of combining two of their tours, it worked quite well. The new guide we had was a ... (read more →)

On the way back from the dunes, we stopped at the Rainbow Sheikh’s Car Museum. Though not officially open to the public yet, a security guard offered to let us in. It’s a huge warehouse with the Sheikh’s car collection, complete with what is probably he largest truck in the world. His ... (read more →)