Winter sun in Dubai

My first holiday of 2023 in Dubai. A week in the sun and all girls together, a recipe for a great time! Only a 6½ to 7-hour flight makes Dubai easily accessible for Winter sunshine. With our itinerary to hand we set off on a holiday of discovery. We’d been told how beautiful the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi is, so that was our first adventure. It only took just over an hour and with plenty of covered parking it was easy to travel independently. The mosque is free to enter, but the dress code is rigorously enforced and anyone not dressed respectfully is denied entry. It’s definitely worth a visit though – it’s magnificent. Dubai has no shortage of shopping malls with many recognisable brands. We visited several during our trip including Souk Madinat. A ‘traditional’ Arabian Bazaar and well worth an hour or so of our time, just browsing and honing our bartering skills for holiday souvenirs. However, bartering isn’t the done thing in Mall of the Emirates or Dubai Mall. No, if you’d like to go skiing or toboggining – you visit Mall of the Emirates, as they have an indoor ski resort within the shopping mall! Or if you’d prefer to go scuba diving, visit Dubai Mall. Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention you can do some serious shopping at both these Malls too! No trip to the desert is complete without Dune Bashing, so we set off for an afternoon and evening of cultural entertainment and playing in the sand! This time we didn’t take a car but were collected from our accommodation. I wasn’t sure about Dune Bashing, but it was great fun, bouncing around on the sand dunes and sliding down the dunes on a sandboard! To complete the desert experience, a short ride on a camel (very strange feeling as it lurches forward), and a bar-b-que in a desert oasis complete with fire eater and belly dancer. Whilst we didn’t visit Dubai specifically for sunbathing and swimming, we did go to the beach for a lovely walk. It was full of both locals and tourists enjoying the beautiful sunshine and getting their daily dose of Vitamin D. The dress code is very casual the whole area had a very relaxed vibe. No visit to Dubai is complete without having Brunch on Saturday. It’s a fixed price for three hours to eat, drink and enjoy each other’s company. We visited The Anantara Hotel on The Palm, what a magnificent place! The choice of food available was vast, beautifully presented and tasty. There’s no pressure to eat and then leave, so it’s a great way to try a little bit of lots of different foods. Bur Dubai is the old part of the city where we enjoyed a trip to the other side of the creek on a Jabra to visit the Gold Souk and Spice Market. This area had a more authentic feel with much smaller buildings and a bustling atmosphere. We took a detour further up the creek on our return trip past the boats loading up to take all manner of good to India and beyond. We then visited one more souk, dodging the enthusiastic traders encouraging us to buy their scarves, handbags and various other goods whilst also trying to impress us with their English, which was little more than “Lovely Jubbly” and “Shakira2 (still that’s better than my Arabic!). I was lucky enough to have bed and board at my sister and brother-in-law’s apartment, however there’s no shortage of hotels and apartments to suit all budgets. Dubai is a wonderful place to visit; it’s got shopping, culture, sight-seeing, good food and very hospitable locals. With guaranteed sunshine to distract us from the dreary, damp UK winter, it’s definitely worth a visit.