With guaranteed sun and rich culture, a holiday in Dubai is child's play
THE JEEP plunges down a sand dune and I cling to the roll cage whitefaced as we lurch and buck our way across the desert at high speed.
In the back seat my five-year-old son Robert is whooping with delight.
We are in the United Arab Emirate of Dubai, checking out what this playground of sheiks and oil-rich businessmen has to offer children.
Our hosts suggest a desert safari but as a parent who whips out a crash helmet if my son so much as looks at a scooter, it seems a little risky.
We head to the spice and gold souk where I learn that a five-year-old is no help when it comes to bartering: “Mummy, why don’t you just buy it?”
Yet Waheed, the leader of our 30-strong caravan of Toyota Land Cruisers, assures me we are in safe hands: drivers are trained intensively for three months and learn each dune as fastidiously as London cabbies imbibe The Knowledge.
We soon reach a desert camp where the children board a camel and parents enjoy Arabian coffee and dates as the sun sets.
Later, the little ones are too agog at the glitz of the belly-dancing show to notice that they are wolfing down local dishes of chicken shawarma and tabbouleh, herbs and all.
Back at our hotel, the Address Downtown Dubai, we swap a bedtime story for watching the Dubai Fountain from our balcony on the ear-popping 45th floor.
The half-hourly spectacle makes the fountains at the Las Vegas Bellagio look like a garden sprinkler.
For tonight, fire-coloured jets shooting 500ft from a lake to blasting operatic music beat a chapter or two of Roald Dahl.
Our hotel sticks to the Dubai interior design remit of “lavish with a dollop of opulence”.
The blown glass baubles hanging from the ceiling make it look like it is dripping with gold.
In the lobby Emerati businessmen in white traditional robes make way for toddlers skating on the polished marble floors, this is a culture that loves children.
A short stroll away, the Arabian-themed Palace Downtown Hotel delivers what at least feels like a more authentic Middle Eastern experience, with low-rise Moorish architecture and luxurious candle-lit reception.
From here we take in the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, which at more than twice the height of London’s Shard easily satisfies a child’s obsession with the biggest/ fastest/longest/scariest.
The last on this list is tested as we visit Ski Dubai, an indoor winter resort which defies the 36 degree heat outside with three football pitches-worth of real snow.
“That’s my baby,” I want to scream as its staff help Robert into a giant inflatable snowball and push him down the slope.
But by the time we visit the vast Wild Wadi water park and are zooming down a slide in the pitch black, I’m resigned to the high thrills and join in the screaming.
All this hurtling makes us hungry. Dubai’s hotels and shopping malls serve up a full range of international cuisine as well as local fare.
For lunch we visit Andiamo, one of the 14 restaurants in the Grand Hyatt Dubai, where we enjoy a hummus pizza.
For culture, we head to the spice and gold souk where I learn that a five-year-old is no help when it comes to bartering: “Mummy, why don’t you just buy it?”
Time for a lesson in the value of money at Dubai Mall’s Kidzania, where children play at earning a living in pint-sized shops and businesses.
Robert chooses to be a pilot and learns to land a plane on a simulator inside a real passenger jet fuselage.
Fifteen minutes later he proudly displays his first paycheck of 10 kidZos, which he blows on racing a car round the Kidzania track.
As far as finances go, the cost of attractions and dining is on a par with central London: our pizza was 60 AED (£10), Ski Dubai’s snow fun pass was 200 AED (£36) and entrance to Wild Wadi 295 AED (£53).
The seven-hour flight and child-friendly four-hour-ahead time difference make it an alternative to Florida, with guaranteed sun.
The 30-minute transfer from Downtown to the airport gives us one last look at the Dubai skyline.
“Let’s build that out of Lego,” Robert says, shortly before succumbing to dreams of camels and high adventure.
GETTING THERE: Virgin Holidays (0844 557 3859/virginholidays. co.uk) offers three nights at the Palace Downtown Dubai from £795 per adult, £475 per child (age 4-11), three sharing, B&B. Price includes return flights from Heathrow. Dubai tourism: Dubaitourism.ae