Largest shopping mall in the world with the largest indoor real snow ski slope in the world (until they finish the new ones they are building of course).
The Mall is known as a Shopping Resort, complete with hotels, cinemas, art gallerie, 65 restaurants, plus numerous bars and clubs – interesting to see Fat Face opening up there as they close down in Courchevel.
Ski Dubai has 22,500 square metres of real snow and even a 4 seater chair lift – all this in the desert where it can hit 50C in Summer. Sand boarding was a bit naff where I went, not steep and deep enough and boards to small. There are some better places though apparantly. Desert racing Land Cruisers however is full-on and not for the faint hearted, how the things stay upright was beyond me.
So for Winter sun, beaches, water sports (the F1 power boat championships made jet skis look a bit girlie), all those desert activities plus skiing/sand boarding, excellent shopping and some of the coolest bars, restaurants, clubs (with top bands and DJs) & hotels (but including the highest, biggest, most tasteless, tacky etc too), Dubai is pretty hard to beat and only a 6 hour flight away…