Last weekend I took my 9 years old daughter and three of her best friends to the Ice Rink in Dubai Mall. When I looked at the sessions that were bookable online, I saw one called “Dubai Snowfall” at a for us very convenient time. That sounded and looked quite promising, as you can see in the main picture of this post which is the same as the one featured on Dubai Ice Rink’s webpage where the session is described as “Experience A White Winter All-year Round. When soft flakes fall gently around you and when fresh flurries make your feet and fingers glow. That’s magic! Visit Dubai Ice Rink, the only place where snow falls in Dubai”.
When we arrived at the venue with our at home printed out tickets, we were easily admitted without having to stand in line. What was awkward though was that in order to receive our skates from the counter, we needed to give them our shoes. It might be convenient on their part, as you can’t leave without getting back your shoes and skates are easily put back into the right shelves this way but if you consider that the floor in the preparation area is partially wet because of melting ice from skates, getting wet socks isn’t very hygienic and comfortable from the customer’s perspective.
The rink itself was quite spacious and the session was lots of fun. There were little penguin helpers and snowmen who assisted little kids and rookies, making the area safer for all skaters. Our more experienced girls got the drill easily and enjoyed skating hand in hand to the music the DJ was playing. Soon they also realized there was a little hole in front of the window behind which he was playing and decided that was obviously an invitation to make a song wish. They asked him for Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop The Feeling” and the DJ nodded. Unfortunately he somehow didn’t get to play it for the whole 1.5 hours we were there, though they reminded him a couple of times. Can’t imagine how he could refuse 4 beautiful, irresistible ladies like that. His loss 🙂
There was one bigger disappointment though: The promised snowfall!
We got joyous like little kids (oh, yes true, all but me were kids after all) when it first started to gently snow down on us but before we could really catch some flakes it was already over. Furthermore it had only snowed from one machine in the middle of the huge rink. When I asked one of the friendly staff skating in the rink, I was told it would only snow for 1 minute every 10 minutes. I made them aware that it had only snowed onto one spot in the whole rink and was definitely not satisfying. He told me he’d check it next time and let his manager know. When I nudged him about it again after 10 minutes he agreed, talked into his walkie-talkie and tataaa after 10 minutes another of the machines started spraying foam unto the rink. Oh, did I mention it was foam and not snow 🙂 Somehow with Ski Dubai just around the corner you expect the artificial snow fall to be made of water, don’t you? Well, that was another part of the disappointment.
Let me conclude buy saying that I’m generally not a person to complain a lot. We loved skating at Dubai Ice Rink and will definitely go again. The reason I am putting so much emphasis on the snowfall is that it is supposed to be the “added value” which makes this session’s price go up from 60 AED to 100 AED per person. It’s almost double of the regular price but doesn’t add much to the atmosphere nor the experience. If they aren’t going to majorly improve it, I think they should just either loose it (who “needs” snow while skating?) or just not reflect it on the admission price. I wouldn’t mind the “foam fall” if I didn’t have to pay for it after all 😉
(All photos are taken from the Dubai Ice Rink and Emaar websites.)
Globally Happy 
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