-4º from ordinary | Ski Dubai

I had no idea how cold it would be inside. After all, I've done spring skiing at Northstar in Lake Tahoe when I'd take off my ski jacket in the afternoon. I figured my polar tech fleece jacket would suffice. I was wrong, but fortunately Ski Dubai provides warm jackets and snow boots to everyone using their facilities.

One banner I read inside Ski Dubai had the trademark -4º from ordinary, and having spent a half hour inside with a warm jacket but without gloves or a ski hat, I'm included to believe them on this score: -4º Centrigrade = 24º Fahrenheit. The company graciously provided me with a media pass to review their iconic Dubai attraction.

Is it great skiing? Not if you're accustomed to mile-long runs through fluffy powder or down freshly groomed trails. But if you live in Dubai and love winter sports, or want to notch this experience off your bucket list, Ski Dubai is as good as it gets! A refrigerated ski slope in the desert ... and because it's a constant -4C., you'll never ski through slush (which is what happens at Lake Tahoe when afternoon temperatures get into the 40's or 50's) or slip on hard ice (which is what happens when slushy now melts again).

copyright  (c)  2016 by David Ourisman LLC.  All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell Travel. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.

hello, Dubai!

lobby fountain at Raffles Dubai

On the other side of the world, Dubai is 12 time zones away from San Francisco. After a 15 hour Etihad flight to Abu Dhabi, I am amazingly not feeling jet lagged.

First impressions of Dubai... it's like Vegas on steroids. A large city with huge skyscrapers, busy freeways, and even a smoggy skyline, Dubai boasts the world's tallest building, Burj Khalifa, 2722 feet high, as well as Ski Dubai, the world's only indoor ski resort. Watch here for some pictures tomorrow.

We're spending our first two nights at Raffles Dubai, a 252 room hotel connected to the Wadi Mall with an Egyptian decorating motif. The lobby is especially grand, and the photo above is the view of the hotel's front door as seen through a cascading water fountain.

Today will be a busy day with five hotel site inspections and the afore-mentioned to Ski Dubai.

copyright  (c)  2016 by David Ourisman LLC.  All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell Travel. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.

two weeks from today | Dubai and the Maldives

Two weeks from today, I'll be a bit more than one hour into my non-stop flight from San Francisco to Abu Dhabi.

What a freaking crazy route map! The flight is 8,158 miles in length, and the direct route has a heading 3.1 degrees north of the North Pole. This means that we would fly just to the east of the north pole — but given the west-to-east nature of the winds, I suspect we'll be heading more to the east. Bottom line, I'm flying to the opposite side of the earth.

16 hours of scheduled flight time... I'm beginning to contemplate that reality. Fortunately, I'll be ensconced in the comfortable lie-flat business class seats of the Etihad-operated Jet Airways 777 jet, but 16 hours in the air is still a long time. 12 hours after take-off will be my normal bedtime ... and it will be four hours until landing (and only 1 p.m. in the afternoon when I do land).

Jet lag notwithstanding, I plan to hit the ground running, having a site inspection of Park Hyatt Dubai that evening ... and five more site inspections the next day (as well as a photo op at Ski Dubai).

Starting to get excited and (groan) starting to think about packing.

copyright (c) 2016 by David Ourisman LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell Travel. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.