Day 2 started with a journey to another mall (this would become too familiar during the trip). We grabbed an Uber and headed to the Mall of the Emirates, where we would have the opportunity to ski/snowboard. We knew we had to do it when we learned about Ski Dubai from the internet and the traveling couple we follow on YouTube (Kara and Nate). Where else can you say you skied in a mall in the desert??

We were surprised by how decent the size of the slope and the ski lift were. Thankfully, many guests were riding the ski lift for enjoyment rather than getting off to use the slopes. I’m still not an expert in snowboarding, so the more space between people, the more comfortable I felt getting off the lift. And I managed to only fall once off the lift, on the first run! I’m still learning how to connect the heel and toe side, but by the end of the 2 hours, I felt the most comfortable on the board I’ve ever felt after a day of snowboarding. Grant was excited as he could ski rather than snowboard this time. He’s been snowboarding to help teach me, so between Covid and teaching, it had been over three years since he’d been on ski’s. We got about eight runs in by the time our 2 hours were up, and we were ready for food. It was amazing to have the slopes almost completely to ourselves.

Again, we ended up with another food court meal and decided to get a little taste of home with some Buffalo Wild Wings. We’d done almost no American restaurants yet through South America and Africa so we didn’t feel too guilty. The queso wasn’t the same as back home, but the wings were still great and had the same sauces we love. Our guilty pleasure is the Asian Zing sauce! Then it was again off to the Dubai Mall to get in line for our Burj Khalifa tickets.

We had read online that the best time to go up the Burj Khalifa is an hour before sunset, so we booked it for 5 pm. We paid a little extra to get lounge access and go up to the 154th floor. Thankfully with these tickets, we could bypass the massive line at the entrance and head straight in. They have quite the process to get in and go to the top. The opening starts in the Dubai mall, and you walk through a tunnel area lined with information about the building before heading to the elevators. Again with these lounge tickets and VIP stickers, we bypassed another long line for the elevators to take you to the 125th floor. The elevator goes so fast and high that your ears end up popping. We then got separated into two groups: VIP lounge and Sky VIP.

The lounge access allowed us to grab some champagne and snacks while exploring three floors. Each floor had different openings to get a view of the city from above, and the 152 floor had an observation deck you could go out to get better photos without window glare. It was a crazy feeling to lean over and look at the ground from that height! We hit golden hour on the observation deck and watched the sunset. There is so much haze in the sky that the sun seems to set twice: once before the horizon and another at the horizon. We appeared to outlast everyone as we continued to observe the city lights come on and a couple of fountain shows while new people cycled in and out.

Grant was excited to show me (and they had it playing in the waiting line to get to the top) a video that gives you a real sense of the height via BASE jumper point of view. The building is so high they actually have significant freefall time before pulling their parachutes:

After getting plenty of photos and videos, we decided to head back down, which was a process. We had to take an elevator back down to the 125th floor and then take the stairs down to the 124th floor. There was another observation deck to go out on, so we decided to look at it. This one had plexiglass from the bottom to the top of the railing, unlike the one up higher that had an opening. It was more crowded on this level than in the lounge area, and we were thankful we paid the extra fee to get a better view with less of a crowd. And the VIP sticker came in handy again, as the line for the elevator going down was massive. We shaved a good 30-45 minutes from standing in that line.

Walking out of the mall, we were able to catch another fountain show. They start the shows around 6 pm and have a show every 30ish minutes until 11 pm. Though it seems like during the 7 o’clock hour, they do a couple of short shows with one long one around 7:15ish. The long ones usually have the graphics on the Burj Khalifa and the fountains moving to music.

Then it was off to bed to rest before a day at the water park.