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Dubai Parks July 2022

D4n

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Hi all,

Presently, I am trapped in a quarantine hotel having tested positive for covid when trying to enter Abu Dhabi; as such, particularly with the duration of quarantine here still being 10 days, I can consider myself extremely bored at this point and therefore more able to delve into a moderately detailed trip report than I otherwise would have bothered with. On the negative side, the main purpose of this trip was of course to visit Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi and that has been wiped from the trip as a consequence of the positive test (I will certainly not be risking another positive result and the subsequent additional 10 days in quarantine) - perhaps I will return to the UAE with this target in mind on a subsequent trip, although I consider that unlikely.

Fortunately, we visited Dubai first and there are no requirements for testing in order to visit the tourist attractions and theme parks there. I was therefore able to experience Motiongate Dubai, Bollywood Parks Dubai, IMG Worlds of Adventure and Legoland Dubai, as well as waterparks in the form of Atlantis and Wild Wadi. These experiences varied rather drastically in quality and thus I will discuss them individually as I progress through the trip report.


The first theme park that I visited in Dubai was Motiongate, purchasing a one-day, two-park combo ticket so that we could also experience Bollywood Parks Dubai on the first day of the trip. I was worried about squeezing two parks into one day but, for two reasons, I needn't have been. The first was that I ended up returning to Motiongate later in the trip on a combo ticket with Legoland and the second was that both parks were rather smaller than expected and also extremely quiet.

Visiting Dubai in summer, one thing that can certainly be anticipated is the extreme heat. On this first theme park day of the trip, the temperature exceeded 42* C with a "feels like" temperature hovering above the 50*C mark. It was absolutely boiling. Considering this, it was perhaps no surprise to find the entrance plaza deserted on arrival and there was a general feeling that there were more staff at the park than guests; something that I have only previously experienced on my visits to Poland to visit Legendia and Energylandia. It is clear that, realistically, these theme parks should be closed during a period where they will be haemorrhaging money but I suppose, in both cases, the parks have moneybags owners and profit is perhaps not the number one priority.

The park is small, dominated by a huge, thinly disguised warehouse at the back which was both a huge relief in terms of providing air-conditioning and also home to the two stand-out attractions at the park. This is the Dreamworks area, split into four separate mini-areas based on a different IP, with each of those mini-areas having a headline attraction and a support attraction. Dragon Gliders is the main attraction in the How to Train Your Dragon themed area and is absolutely outstanding; for those of you that have visited Europa Park this is basically the Arthur ride system bearing its' full potential. Gone are the silly, themeless "coaster" sections replaced by a more compelling storyline which reminded me of Harry Potter & TFJ. Obviously, this isn't quite as good as that but the mixture of screens and animatronics was excellent and this all culminated with a finale soaring over the indoor area, which in itself represents something very similar in the Arthur area at Europa Park. Excellent.

The next stand-out attraction in the area was the Shrek themed dark ride. I loved this! It's very much an old-school dark ride with a variety of effects but screens are very much kept to a minimum. It doesn't attempt to tell a new story but instead is the first film told in "puppet show" format (needless to say, the strings are just for effect, the animatronics are doing all the work). It's a dark ride on a grand scale and has a good 5 minute duration without any real dead spots. Most of all, I felt that this ride had some character to it, something that I did feel the majority of the park is sadly lacking.

Which brings us to a good example of this lack of character, the Madagascar coaster. Essentially a launched Gerst Infinity coaster. The coaster itself is great. It's smooth, helped along by lap-bar restraints, and packed full of air-time. I would actually rank it as my favourite coaster on the trip. However, the ride is completely soulless. The figures used on the ride, on the preamble and launch track, are static and there is nothing going on during the ride itself, it's merely a journey through the black warehouse. Nonetheless, a great coaster.

The remaining "headline" attraction for a Dreamworks IP was Kung-Fu Panda: Unstoppable Awesomeness. This suffered from a major irritation that I had with many of the dark rides across this park and also Bollywood Parks. It was a crap, barely disguised, motion simulator (and for this one you had to suffer through two painfully unfunny "pre-shows" despite the ride, as with all the others, being completely dead) where you sit in a vehicle and it drives slowly into the rudimentary 180* screen at the start of the ride. It's rubbish, it's not believable and the 3D glasses are clunky and also pretty ineffective at actually showing a 3D image when it appears to have been shot on a potato.

This was also the case for Panem Aerial Tours , the first attraction in an extremely underwhelming, miniscule Hunger Games themed mini-area, with two impressive ride station buildings and pretty much nothing else apart from a big screen. However, the main attraction here - Capitol Bullet Train - really delivers. It was my first time experiencing one of the Mack shuttle coasters and they sure are fun, especially on the back. The extreme heat was clearly at play to an extent though, with the "Mack rattle" being very prominent and the coaster also seeming crazily intense (I greyed out on many of my rides - something unthinkable on a Mack usually) - both inversions are extremely well taken and there is a rather severe pop of ejector air-time in the middle of the ride. Short, but never a dull moment.

However, both Capitol Bullet Train and neighbouring spinning coaster Now You See Me shared a very similar flaw - lack of theming. Both had beautifully decorated queue lines based on the film that they were inspired by, but then amount to little more than coasters slapped on concrete at the end of the day. I don't know what the reason for this is, but it all feels very Six Flags. Now You See Me was a standard Maurer spinner, probably ranking somewhere between Spinball Whizzer at the lower end but below Dragon's Fury - although queuing 0 minutes rather than 60 was a nice bonus. The John Wick coaster appeared to suffer a similar fate but this one one of two rides closed "for maintenance" along with the river rapids... because why would you keep your only water ride open in 45* heat?

The Columbia Pictures and Smurfs areas of the park are poor, there's no getting away from that. Green Hornet represents another unthemed coaster, whilst Hotel Transylvania is one of the barest dark rides I've ever done and Ghostbusters was an interactive screen-based dark rides with worse graphics than a Nintendo Wii. The Smurfs dark ride had more to look at, but mainly static figures, reminding me in many ways of Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. The Smurfs coaster was actually pretty good for a family ride and did have some theming - worth doing not just for hardcore cred hunters. Zombieland is a very good S&S tower - runs on a shot and drop cycle and packs a punch with both, unfortunately the seats are sat in the sun all day and literally burn you senseless when you sit in them.

Last of all, a shout-out to Underworld 4D for being the absolute worst 4D cinema that I've ever done. An completely, utterly incomprehensible series of random events.


Overall, Motiongate is a park with a lot of nice features, particularly focused in the Dreamworks area. However, it is far from comparable to other, similarly styled parks such as Universal, and unfortunately it suffers many of the same flaws as Energylandia. Hastily added, cheap feeling rides in many areas to "pad out" the ride offering, as well as a complete and utterly undeniable lack of soul. Worth visiting if you're in the area.

Next up, Bollywood Parks Dubai (that'll be a short installment!)
 
Totally don't agree with you on Motiongate. We loved it. It was a brilliant day we had there in May.

The rapids were closed for us too. Seems like they have been all year. Apart from that it was great and I'd love to go back.
 
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Totally don't agree with you on Motiongate. We loved it. It was a brilliant day we had there in May.

The rapids were closed for us too. Seems like they have been all year. Apart from that it was great and I'd love to go back.

An interesting one. I can certainly see the appeal of the park, however I was simply disappointed by the standard of attractions at the park other than the three or four headliners mentioned. I think having the additional two rides open, particularly the rapids, may have made a significant difference to my opinion; as it was, the Columbia Pictures area, although pleasant, lacked any genuinely worthwhile rides.


Bollywood Parks Dubai
We covered this park in an afternoon after leaving Motiongate around 5pm (both parks were open from 12 until 10 despite being so quiet). This place was undoubtedly the biggest disappointment of the trip as we had purchased 2-park tickets a long stretch in advance with the expectation that the new hybrid coaster, Bombay Express, would be operational by now. It has been fully constructed for around a year now and by all appearances is ready to open and has been for a long time - it cycled constantly during our time at the park but clearly hasn't begun a soft opening yet - perhaps the park are waiting for the busier winter season before bothering to open it. It looks incredible, undoubtedly it would have been the coaster highlight of Dubai had it been operational, but alas not to be.

The park itself is extremely nicely presented with an authentic-feeling Indian styling throughout. You can tell that the creative minds behind the park have a genuine affection for India and the Bollywood film industry. The entrance street and main theatre building (which has the appearance of a large temple) at the back of the park are particularly impressive but, again, the park is incredibly small and actually you can't venture far from this central hub. In terms of rides, there is Taxi #1, which was first on the hit-list for this park on the basis that it was their only operational coaster credit; a very basic kiddie coaster model which I needn't actually notice anybody else ride during our time at the park - it's really quite out of the way at the moment with the only other attraction nearby being the Bombay Express which, of course, wasn't operational.

Most impressive in the park's ride line-up is the world's tallest SkyFlyer - a truly fantastic experience. The views from this thing were magnificent, looking over the impressive Dubai Parks & Resorts and then out into the literal desert is an incredible experience. The ride cycle was nice and long because of how quiet the park was and it was actually an incredibly refreshing experience in the 45* heat; usually when I ride like this I'm actively waiting for it to be over due to the bitter cold when soaring high above the skyline, so it was nice to get a genuine enjoyment out of this type of ride.

Visually stunning, but less impressive to experience, was the colossal big wheel that soared over the opposite side of the park. Both this ride and the SkyFlyer were lit up beautifully after dark and I would recommend anybody who is planning on visiting Bollywood Parks for a half day (it's certainly not a full day park) to head there in the evening in order to fully appreciate the theming. Unfortunately, the views from the wheel are far less impressive, primarily because of the (perhaps inevitable) build-up of dirt on the windows of the gondalas; this makes it very difficult to get a proper view out. Nonetheless, the ride is pleasantly air conditioned and has a good duration to it - having toured many UK seaside amusement parks, it's also nice to ride a large ferris wheel which isn't subject to an upcharge.

The biggest surprise at the park was that it boasted a flying theatre attraction. It was actually built to a good standard and the video / effect quality was good, although it boasted questionable CGI. It was based on some kind of Bollywood superhero franchise that I wasn't familiar with, and was a little lost on me, but I still prefer this type of effort to the likes of Soarin and Voletarium which feel really lazy.

The other rides that we experienced were another abysmal interactive dark ride (in the exact same vein as Ghostbusters next door), yet another 180* screen simulator type attraction themed to Don Chase (essentially the Kung-Fu panda ride but with an IP that was unfamiliar to me) and a Mack Twist 'n' Splash. I actually hadn't ever ridden one of these before, despite so many examples closer to home, because the weather has never been appropriate. It seemed rude to skip the version here, with the temperature still high and the queues non-existent. They're actually quite good fun - a great ride for a warm climate.

As much as I, as with most of you I'm sure, am a ride enthusiast primarily, it was clear that the majority of visitors to Bollywood Parks Dubai were largely interested in the shows. The park boasts a huge variety of Bollywood style shows in the gigantic temple-themed building at the back of the park, with one beginning each hour and lasting 20-30 minutes. We experienced a couple of these in the hugely impressive theatre building and they were of extremely high quality - singing, dancing, acting, costumes all to the highest standard that I've seen in a theme park. Unfortunately, with the huge cast of these shows, they pretty much outnumbered the punters watching, this made it pretty awkward for all present. I imagine this is how it feels for people who bother to attend Hot Ice.

Bollywood Parks is a difficult one to judge. Pleasant enough and with some good rides and shows but, even when Bombay Express opens, it will remain only a part-day park, relying on the 2-park combo passes with Motiongate or Legoland in order to get punters. Indian and local visitors to the park seemed blown away by what they were seeing, so perhaps I'm not best-placed to judge the place, but I would only recommend a visit as a tag-on to Motiongate.



VR Park - Dubai Mall
The next day we visited Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa. Little did I know that there was a coaster credit lurking within the huge shopping centre and a park called 'VR Park' - free to enter and taking up two stories in a part of the centre. All rides required a VR headset and we opted to only experience the headline attraction - a Gerst spinning coaster - for approximately £7 plus £1 for a 'fun card' (completely unnecessary waste of resources considering we were never going to visit again or experience another attraction).

I hadn't ridden a Gerst spinning coaster before but unfortunately the VR made it very difficult to review. I had ridden Temple of the Nighthawk's conversion into Crazy Bats recently, the first example of VR on a coaster that I had genuinely enjoyed and which I felt improved the ride. However, given the hugely bulky nature of the headset and the way it presses into riders' faces when tightened, something as wild as this ride, with the consequent head movement, was an absolutely terrible idea for this park. The coaster span rapidly throughout, with some seriously intense moments, however this was very unpleasant with the VR headset pushing into your face and shifting from side to side. The video was a low-res aerial tour of Dubai.

I would have loved to have ridden this coaster again with no headset, to judge it (and the coaster model) more fairly, but at £7 a time I opted not to. Something that I don't like about the design of the car, though, is that they're inwards facing. Without a VR headset, this means that you could be directly facing strangers during the ride whilst with the headsets it leads to legs bashing into the people opposite.

None of the other rides looked particularly interesting, with a couple of simulator type rides and a couple of mini drop-tower type rides, of course with accompanying VR headsets, as a well as a large arcade. I wouldn't recommend bothering with this park; instead make the extra effort (and take na extra bus) to get to Dubai Hills Mall to experience Storm Coaster - more on this in the next report, as well as my opinions on Legoland Dubai.
 
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Sounds like your experience at Motiongate was pretty similar to mine a couple of years ago - some great rides but several rides closed all day resulting in a park which felt a bit lacking
 
If Motiongate was in the UK it would immediately be the best park in the country for me. I do feel some of the comments may be tainted by the fact you have got Covid on your trip over there perhaps? Understandably you'd be a bit gutted.

The only major ride we didn't get was the Rapids. The Theming in most parts of the park is top quality. I'd go as far to say it is's one of my favourite parks I have visited too and I have done loads. My wife and son loved it too.

We didn't even bother with Bollywood Park. Didn't look worth it and sounds like we were right.
 
If Motiongate was in the UK it would immediately be the best park in the country for me. I do feel some of the comments may be tainted by the fact you have got Covid on your trip over there perhaps? Understandably you'd be a bit gutted.

The only major ride we didn't get was the Rapids. The Theming in most parts of the park is top quality. I'd go as far to say it is's one of my favourite parks I have visited too and I have done loads. My wife and son loved it too.

We didn't even bother with Bollywood Park. Didn't look worth it and sounds like we were right.

Nah, opinions on the parks I've experienced were well established prior to being quarantined. There were a few factors which may have influenced my thinking relative to yours. The first, as I've already alluded to, was that it was very clearly too hot to be at a theme park on the days that I visited; there wasn't much joy to be had in observing the outdoor theming which I did appreciate was nice on the entrance plaza and in the Columbia Pictures area in particular (I maintain that the Lionsgate area was small and a bit of an ugly mismatch). The second, I'm not usually a fan of screen-based dark rides even when they're executed well - I felt that the one's at Motiongate (Kung Fu Panda, Pan Am Aerial Tours and Ghostbusters) were all NOT done well, all were low-res, all felt like glorified 4D cinemas really. Very basic simulator attractions. This stood out even more having visited IMG later in the trip and experienced some quality dark rides in the form of Forbidden Territory and Avengers: Battle of Ulton (more on them later). Lastly, I think coasters with no landscaping or attempt at theming are a little ugly, and it's very jarring when contrasted with well presented street scenery and queue lines - Capitol Bullet Train, Green Hornet and Now You See Me all suffer from this.

I still appreciated the park for what it was, but I was expecting an Islands of Adventure type of park and it just isn't close to that level. As for your UK comparison, I actually disagree with that to and think it's a classic example of not appreciating what we have here. Alton Towers is much, much better than Motiongate for me. The coaster line-up is beyond comparison, whilst Alton Towers also leads in terms of atmosphere, overall park environment, food and water rides (somehow). Motiongate has a couple of really excellent dark rides, as already discussed, but also many proper duds. Duel is better than Ghostbusters even in its' current state, whilst Gangsta Granny has far more interesting elements than the static Hotel Transylvania.

The friend who I visited with, who doesn't consider himself to be an enthusiast, was much more scathing than I was. He didn't like the park (other than Dragon Gliders) and described in as the "worst theme park he has visited" (he has also been to Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, PortAventura and Parque Warner). He opted out of a second day there.


A second visit to Motiongate hadn't been on our itinerary, and neither was Legoland Dubai, but as we ran short of activities in the final days I opted to return there. I wanted a few more rides on my favourites - Bullet Train (x9), Dragon Gliders (x5), Shrek (x3) and Madagascar (x10) and, again, thought I would take advantage of the park hopper offer to visit Legoland Dubai.

What a strange experience! Considering what has always put me off the Lego parks in the past being the ridiculous crowds trying to squeeze on to the low throughput rides (I'm a teacher so visiting off-peak is out of the question), it was bizarre to be one of undoubtedly less than one hundred guests in this Lego park.

I was only there for around an hour and a half. This Lego park was much smaller than those that I've visited previously (Windsor and Billund) but had equivalents of The Dragon, Dragon's Apprentice, Laser Raiders, Atlantis and Wave Surfer for me to enjoy. In each case I was the only visitor on the train. Most of these rides were exactly the same as their Windsor counterparts, just minus the queue, but I have comments on a couple of them.

In-keeping with the theme of abysmal interactive dark rides on this trip, this version of Laser Raiders was terrible, even worse than the one in Windsor. It's exactly the same style as the Windsor version but much, much shorter. The ride can't last much more than a minute. It's really bizarre to go to the effort of building an entire area themed to this ride when it's ridiculously short.

Atlantis and Wave Surfer were as you would expect but I did enjoy how they had been combined into an underwater styled area - I hadn't seen anything like this at a previous Lego park and I thought this suited the Wave Surfer ride type much better than other themes that have been patched on to it.

The Dragon was a really good coaster; having the train to myself, I took the back, and it's actually a pretty huge family coaster that's really good fun. Very forceful (more so than Th13teen) and the only downside was the slight rattle that many of the coasters seemed to be struggling with in heat. Unfortunately, the dark ride section was ruined but the complete lack of any audio or sound effects - this let down the attraction as an overall package, unfortunately.

What stood out most at this park was the hugely impressive, indoor, Miniland area. This felt very different to those id seen elsewhere as it focused almost exclusively on Dubai, showcasing different areas of the city, whilst not seeming to compromise much on size at all. I was more impressed by this Miniland than those that I had seen elsewhere, but I'm unsure how much this was to do with how quiet it was. Certainly the scale of the models, with the Burj Khalifa reaching into the sky, was hugely impressive, and the indoor nature of this version of Miniland meant that there were no sun-faded buildings, often very noticeable in Windsor.


In the evening, we paid a trip to Dubai Hills Mall. This is slightly more difficult to get to than the Dubai Mall. You have to get the metro to the Mall of the Emirates (no creds here sadly!) before getting a bus to here. But it's all very easy and public transport over here is cheap and regular. We visited at night and oh boy is this coaster immediately impressive from the outside with the glass walls surrounding it and its' beautiful lighting package. I hadn't done much research into this attraction and, contrary to my expectation, the coaster is actually housed in a glass penis shaped building on the edge of the mall, whereas I had had images of it weaving around above the shopping centre.

This means that the ride itself is very, very compact. It is quite a feat to have featured this length of coaster into such a small space. Before riding, guests are treated to an elevator simulator-style ride, climbing the "weather tower" to check out "the storm". This sets the scene quite well as a pre-show and rides quite similarly the the glass elevator at the end of Charlie, so could be considered a ride in itself, with screens on each side. We're then told that we're going to be "launched into the eye of the storm" for... some reason.

After this, we reach the coaster. It has lovely trains and really nice, airy restraints which were greatly appreciated. I don't think a single ride that I've ridden out here has had OTSRs, which is a nice change. The ride actually starts with a "vertical launch" which I was really looking forward to but, frankly, it makes no impact whatsoever. There's a slight burst of pace before crawling over the peak and I don't really understand the point of this unless it improves throughput ... not a major concern when I visited as it had a short wait of around 10 minutes. I'm not sure I would have even realised that it was meant to be a launch if I hadn't looked this up beforehand and if it wasn't for the pre-show telling us this.

But after this initial disappointment I did really enjoy the ride. It's very smooth, it has a couple of great (albeit similar) inversions - both dive loops - and although in does meander around a bit in a slightly Icon-esque way, it does have pops of air-time and it does do it at speed. The coaster is also pretty long, which at £15 a pop is probably a good thing! I can't help but think how much better this would ride in the dark, with perhaps thunder crackling over a speaker system and strobes to represent the lighting, but unfortunately I think they've prioritised the appearance of the coaster over the actual ride experience on this occasion - it does look impressive and they are relying on PPR so I guess I don't hold that against them too much.

A really solid coaster, probably ranking below Capitol Bullet Train and Madagascar in terms of those that I've experienced this trip, and at £15 (more for the front!) it really is a once and done, although I believe you do get some kind of discount for booking multiple trips. It was nice that they had tried to turn it into a complete experience with the pre-show, and it seemed genuinely popular, which I was surprised by as there weren't many tourists around and I can't imagine something like this pulling crowds at a UK shopping centre - maybe it would?



My next post will include my thoughts on my favourite day of the trip - Atlantis Aquaadventure - as well as touching upon the other waterpark that I visited, Wild Wadi. Thoughts on IMG Worlds of Adventure (my favourite theme park of the trip) also still to come.
 
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