The grand court of the Mall of the Emirates.
Grand court, Mall of the Emirates
Grand court, Mall of the Emirates
Al Barsha and Mall of the Emirates Al Barsha is a district in Southwest Dubai, between Downtown and Dubai Marina, mostly known for the Mall of the Emirates, a fancy mall with many stores and a famous indoor ski slope! The area is mostly filled with midrise residential apartments, restaurants and a lot of hotels - everthing very new since the area was constructed just a few years ago. Some blocks are empty blocks filled with desert sands, in the middle of luxury hotels. It consists of six sub-communities and is bounded by Sheikh Zayed Road and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road. Al Barsha is the area where we stayed, at the Grandeur Hotel. |
MALL OF THE EMIRATES:Mall of the Emirates has about 560 stores and 90 restaurants and cafés on 3 levels. It opened in 2005, and is considered the world's first shopping resort. It has a leasable area of 234 479, that makes it one of the largest malls in the world and the second largest in Dubai, after Dubai Mall. This mall partly reminds of a luxury hotel with its grand court, marble floors, fancy stores, and restaurants, a 14-screen cinema, an Italian street, glass elevators and fountains. Two 5 star hotels, Kempinski and Sheraton, are also adjancted to the mall. But mostly it is famous for Ski Dubai, Middle East's first indoor ski resort, that features an artificial winter climate. It is very fancy with marble floors and glass cupolas, and most stores are really expensive, in many of the 500 stores you probably can't afford anything, but there is a Carrefour supermarket in the ground floor for "normal" people. You can also find branches of the British department store chains Debenhams and Harvey Nichols. The most crazy feature is that you have to enter the mall to enter the metro station, and to enter the mall you have to walk through a heavily trafficated parking garage, among the cars! That is Dubai's punishment to you for not having a car! Staying in Al Barsha, visiting Mall of the Emirates was the first thing we did. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|||
| Mall of the Emirates | Mall of the Emirates |
Male prayer room, Mall of the Emirates. |
 |
 |
|||
| Mall of the Emirates | Mall of the Emirates |
Mall of the Emirates |
|
|
 |
 |
|||
| Looking down to Ski Dubai from the mall | Looking down to Ski Dubai from the mall |
Looking down to Ski Dubai from the mall |
AL BARSHA, MIXED PHOTOS: |
|
|
|
Sheraton Hotel, Mall of the Emirates |
 |
 |
|||
| Al Barsha intersection | Postmodern architecture in Al Barsha |
Al Barsha |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|||
| Brand new residential buildings, Al Barsha | Al Barsha |
Al Barsha |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|||
| Brand new residential buildings, Al Barsha | Street scene, Al Barsha |
Al Barsha |
|
|
|
Mall of the Emirates with Ski Dubai on top
|
AL BARSHA BY NIGHT (also see Dubai by night part 2): |
 |
 |
|||
| Grand Excelsior Hotel | Full moon outside Mall of the Emirates |
Russian restaurant, Al Barsha |
 |
 |
|||
| Entrance to Mall of the Emirates | Sheraton Hotel, Mall of the Emirates |
Ski Dubai, Mall of the Emirates |
 |
 |
|||
| Peninsula Hotel, Mall of the Emirates | Peninsula Hotel, Mall of the Emirates |
Peninsula Hotel, Mall of the Emirates |
 |
 |
|||
| Sheikh Zayed Road, elevated part passing by Mall of the Emirates | Peninsula Hotel, Mall of the Emirates |
Sheraton and Mall of the Emirates |
 |
 |
|||
| The streets where flooded due to heavy rainfall the day before the evening we arrived | Al Barsha by night |
Al Barsha by night |
 |
 |
|||
| Sheraton Hotel and Mall of the Emirates | Al Barsha by night |
Internet City and Al Barsha seen from Al Barsha |
OUR HOTEL - The Grandeur*** in Al Barsha: We stayed at Grandeur Hotel in Al Barsha, a new residential/hotel district in the south part of Dubai between New Downtown and Dubai Marina. It has 10 floors and 125 rooms. The hotel was 3+ and had large rooms with marble bathrooms (but our view was blocked by another building), a nice lunch/breakfast restaurant, a bar, a coffeshop and a pool on the roof. So the building itself was pretty good, but the serivice was bad, it was too slow and sometimes didn't exist. Sometimes we waited in vein for the staff to help us. The room had flatscreen TVs with Arabian and Indian channels, comfortable double beds, desk and phones but wi-fi that is usually free you had to pay for! The lobby was comfortable but pretty small. The breakfast was included, it was ok but a bit mediocre. We stayed for one week and booked the hotel through Solresor. |
Exterior, Grandeur Hotel. |
|
 |
 |
|||
| Lobby, Grandeur Hotel | Our room, Grandeur Hotel | Bathroom, Grandeur Hotel |
 |
 |
|||
| Views from the roof: Marina/Internet City/Media City |
Views from the roof: Dubai Marina | Views from the roof: Dubai Marina |
