Snow… In the desert.

IMG_2034You know when you’re in the desert? And it’s hot, and arid, and camel-ridden? And all you can think is, “I really fancy a spot of skiing”?

Well. Your wait is over.

Ski Dubai will defeat all obstacles to your desert-snow fantasies. Because? If Dubai wants snow in the desert, Dubai gets snow in the desert.

Yes, yes I’m aware – it’s not unusual to find snow in The Gobi desert. Or Antarctica (the largest desert on earth!) but it’s not usually a weather feature associated with the Sinai Peninsula, where daytime temperature can surpass 50 degrees centigrade. At no point in Aladdin or Arabian Nights was anyone ever inconvenienced by frost!

But Ski Dubai is all you could ever wish from a snow-slope in the hottest region on the planet:

  1. For a start, it’s cold – the sort of step-stopping freezing that makes you momentarily seize up with shock the instant you lunge inside. Minus-4 is the median temperature – so you really get the authentic “I AM GOING TO DIE FROM HYPERTHERMIA… AND ENJOY IT” Alps-experience. Wear gloves. Unless you enjoy frostbite.

2. They give you clothes. It’s likely your apparel on arrival will be more appropriate for a sauna (given the local lizard-friendly climate) – so luckily Ski Dubai cover clothing-hire in the entrance fee. IMG_1990And my gosh, – you will look dashing in your matching, multi-coloured shell-suits! You will feel like the Russian ski team…  Just without any doping scandals.  And you will resemble your parents in the 80s. So many dreams fulfilled!

3. It’s pretty big. You think you’ve reached the top of the ski-climb… when suddenly you turn a corner, and there’s another 500 feet of snowy wonderland. A ski-lift will propel you up into the rafters at a leisurely jaunt, where you can observe all the much-better skiers putting you to morbid shame far-below… including a surplus of small children casually flying down the 400m-long course with ease, while you cling to the sides and wonder which route would be less painful – to slide down on your arse or your face?

4. There are penguins. Monolithic ones, the size of those same small children who just whooped your ass at skiing.  And they come right up past your waist and waddle about you with disarming charm. If you pay a little extra? You get to cuddle one too. For a certain price you can probably take one home. If you opt for the expensive “peng-friend encounter” the website boasts you will “meet up to 14 penguins!” Imagine… Making small-talk with 14 massive penguins?! Every day of your life afterwards will be rubbish in comparison.


5. You can Zorb. At some point, someone discovered that cocooning people in huge rubber balls then launching them down a mountain-side can be all sorts of fun… though now they’re likely the recipient of a Darwin Award (and dead).

Tumbling along a slope, arse-over-face, plunging to the bottom in a war against dignity and gravity really is even more spectacular than it looks… in fact it was the highlight of my visit… I only kicked myself in the face twice.


  1. There’s also a toboggan run, which was the scariest thing I’ve ever willingly participated in (… and I grew up in Wales!)  I made the sort of noises a goat suffering a cardiac arrest might make… if it was thrust down a hillside on a sledge.There’s no helmets. No safety padding. Just you, clinging with numb fingers to a piece of flaky plastic and praying that the next bend doesn’t end in concussion or mortality.                                                                                                                               If  after all that you feel like you haven’t tempted death enough? You get to go tubing on inflatable rings… And about fifty other things you’d never imagine yourself doing unless under some illegal influence, or without being sectioned.

Definitely go to SKI DUBAI.




  1. I’ve heard about Ski Dubai, but I hadn’t realized there are penguins; that’s awesome. 🙂 It isn’t so great for the environment (resources used to keep it running), but it does look like lots of fun!


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