I have never been to Dubai, nor have I been to the United Arab Emirates for that matter. However, I know someone who has. Recently, my sister and brother-in-law were out that way. Their trip photos showed an ultra-modern city that could be fun to peruse someday. Especially since the city boasts three LEGO® Certified Stores. As I recently learned, two of them are actually in the same massive mall. My sister took some photos at one of the stores in the Dubai Mall, and brought home a little souvenir for me. Consequently, I thought I’d share my little taste of LEGO® in Dubai with all of you!

Overall, the Dubai Mall store looks pretty similar to the refreshed Yorkdale store in Toronto. That in turn was pretty similar to the 5th Avenue flagship store in New York in terms of aesthetic. It seems this is going to be the generalized new look for LEGO® Stores moving forward. I’m a little surprised at how similar the LEGO® Certified Stores are to the actual LEGO® Brand Stores… but we don’t have certified stores in Canada or the United States, so what do I know? In any case, the Pick-And-Build (PAB) walls at the three aforementioned locations have the same look. I wasn’t impressed when I saw the new PAB design in Toronto, but it seems like Dubai has a bigger one. And, of course, Dubai has a Minifigure Factory like New York, which Toronto does not.

The LEGO® Store in Dubai looks like a cross between a flagship and regular store.

Of course, the piece de resistance at this location has to be the huge model of the Burj Khalifa. I love that this store features a massive local landmark in store. The Dubai Mall location is like a cross between Toronto and New York… it’s not quite a flagship store like New York, but it has a few more bells and whistles than the refreshed Toronto location. I feel like all LEGO® Stores should be more like this, with larger PAB walls, Minifigure Factories, local landmarks, and local exclusive sets. Yes… I said local exclusive sets… I was able to get magnets in New York. However, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve visited other LEGO® Stores and wished I could buy a touristy souvenir. My sister brought me Dubai’s…

The LEGO® Store in Dubai sells an exclusive Burj Khalifa Architecture set. Of course, the famous building has been a LEGO® set on the international market in the past as well. The first version was in 2011, followed by an updated version in 2016. LEGO® reissued the 2016 version in December 2019 under a new set number (21055) for the Arab market. However, they also sold it online in parts of Europe. Interestingly, online sources indicate the 2019 version retired in late 2022. Clearly, that is not actually the case since you can see several of them for sale in the image above. The retirement date must indicate when the set ceased being sold online outside Dubai.

Sets 21031 and 20155 are identical in all but set number.

I hope you enjoyed this little taste of LEGO® in Dubai. Typically, if you’ve seen one LEGO® Store, then you’ve seen them all. Of course, flagship stores differ more. However, I still like to visit them when I travel. I enjoyed getting to see closeups of the Dubai store from pictures. Perhaps someday I will get to go and acquire a new stamp in my LEGO® passport as well. Have you been to the Dubai store? Or perhaps you’ve built the Burj Khalifa set in the past? Let me know what you thought in the comments or on social media. Also, you can bet a review of the Burj Khalifa set is coming!

Until next time,

-Tom

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