Festival City Mall: Our experience at Ripe by the Bay

Before visiting the Festival City Mall, I asked myself some serious questions, “how long do I want to stay indoors? Will going out for a little while hurt me?” I did this because a lot has been going on with me- from getting little sleep to feeling unusually tired. As soon as I got answers to my questions, I told my husband we needed to hit the beach. Unfortunately, we couldn’t make it to the beach in the morning because, according to some wise men,

“a little sleep will do you some good in the long run”.

I got a good 4 hours of sleep and felt alive afterwards. We decided to visit the Dubai Festival City Mall in the evening after a lengthy debate on where to go.

I want to state that this post isn’t about what you need to know before heading to the mall but solely about my experience. Read on the see how my short visit to the Dubai Festival City Mall went.

We got to the mall at 10 pm and spent an hour and thirty minutes. I immediately noticed the brightness of the lights in the mall (unlike some other malls *eye-rolling*).

You may wonder why we decided to visit the Dubai Festival City Mall instead of the beach; well, a few days ago, I was minding my business on Instagram when I saw the fun-filled Ripe by the Bay, a family-friendly outdoor market and zone for fun located in Festival City Mall and that caught my attention. Of course, I knew that I will check it out this year; now you can imagine how excited I was to head over to Ripe by the Bay by the waterfront for some fun.

As we got there, I noticed a lot was going on simultaneously, from shopping, dining to little cars driven by parents and kids slowly. I was happy I visited this time of the year because the weather was perfect; indeed, perfect for relaxing in the lush greenery area overseeing the waterfront. Suddenly, my amazement was brought to a halt when I heard a loud sound accompanied by the light display. I didn’t know what that was about, but it was seemed cool.

We walked around for a few more minutes, took pictures, decided whether to get the Turkish ice cream, played bouncing body ball game (some weird kids game we played together), then finally we sat for a while and then went back to the mall.

As soon as we approached the entrance, lo and behold, we saw TEXAS ROADHOUSE! I couldn’t contain my joy! I got their famous bread and couldn’t wait to devour them. In fact as soon as we had the bread, we knew it was time to go.

On our way out, we saw the Winter Wonderland everyone was talking about on Instagram; truly, it was an amazing sight!

Now that I have consumed the delicious bread, I will give you a breakdown of what I love about the Dubai Festival City Mall.

1. Bright lights!! I can’t over emphasis this but it was PERFECT for the pictures and videos.

2. Get your sneakers on to walk around the Ripe Market at Festival Bay. As I explained earlier, it is a family-friendly outdoor market at Festival Bay. Ripe Market is set to spoil visitors with alfresco dining, shopping, live entertainment, and fun-filled family activities.

Timing: Daily from 13th October 2021 until May 2022, from 4 pm until 10 pm.

3. IKEA. This is like Buy One Get One Free (BOGO). Although I couldn’t visit IKEA, I like that it is close to the mall, so I know where else to see whenever I go back.

4. Fabyland. For some reason, I believe this will be a perfect place for my son Gabby. Fabyland is a non-stop indoor entertainment in Dubai for kids of all ages – discover all of our fun-filled rides, action-packed gaming arcades and intriguing novelty machines with rewards for every level of skill.

5. ROBO Cafe. I found it cute to see little bots moving around serving the best-tasting and highest quality coffees while performing all the functions of a human barista.

6. Marine Transport Station. The marine transport service runs between Al Jaddaf Marine Transport Station and Dubai Festival City Marine Transport Station.

Contrary to what I usually do at the mall, we didn’t leisurely walk around the mall; instead, we graced the mall’s ground floor with our melanin and headed for the comfort of our beds after purchasing the famous Texas Roadhouse bread.

To plan a visit to the mall, check out all you need to know before visiting Festival City Mall.

See more pictures below.

If you love this blog, kindly share the posts with your friends and loved ones. It will mean a lot to me to know your thoughts in the comments. Love, Grace

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