Armani, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Tiger Sharks, Stingrays, Giant Groupers …The Dubai Mall has it all!!
Shop, Dine and Dive? Trust Dubai to take shopping to a whole new level and to make it more exciting than ever. The World’s largest shopping mall ‘The Dubai Mall’ houses the The Dubai Aquarium and Underwater Zoo within its 12 million sq ft (i.e equivalent in size to more than 50 soccer fields) complex, allowing visitors to not only shop with predators of the seas but also scuba dive with them.
As part of this 20-billion dollar shopping mall project the Dubai Aquarium built one of the largest tanks in the world holding more than 10 million liters of water. The aquarium boasts of 33,000 living animals, representing more than 85 species including over 400 sharks and rays combined. The best part is you can dive with them!
The mall offers shoppers a chance to go Shark diving 3 dives a day, with sand tiger sharks, reef sharks, basking sharks, stingrays, giant groupers and a whole lot more in an aquarium environment, for an incredible diving experience. Certified divers can turn up at the mall an hour before the dive (with prior booking) whereas non-certified divers are required to take an introductory scuba-diving course conducted by ‘Al Boom Diving’. A 20-30 minute Shark dive will set you back about $225 (625 Dirhams) for certified divers and $300 (825 Dirhams) for the non-certified. Apart from the diving, the aquarium puts on daily shark and stingray feeding shows entertaining shoppers of the mall.
So the next time you head for the gulf desert wonder that is Dubai, take a trip to the mall and trade in your shopping bags for a wetsuit and Scuba gear to have an experience of a lifetime diving with Sharks!
