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Dubai - May 22

Benjsh

TS Member
Favourite Ride
Steel Vengeance
Hi guys... I'm currently on day 3 of our family holiday to Dubai and today we visited IMG Worlds of Adventure.

First of all let me start by saying this park surprised me a lot. I went in with mixed expectations after hearing some positive and truly awful reviews but we had a great day. There must have only been about 400 people there today tops and we got there for opening so for the first hour or so there was legitimately more staff than guests. We had entire rides to ourselves including 3 early rides on the Velociraptor coaster (basically Bluefire) Very cool and also quite strange too. It almost felt like we had the park to ourselves.

The only slight negative about the day was the second major coaster at the park, Predator, was down all day. They did tell us at the ticket office though to be fair to them. However after seeing the layout I wasn't overly bothered as I have done loads of those coasters before so don't feel like I missed much.

As good as the Bluefire clone Velociraptor is as well as the Spiderman Doc Oc coaster (Storm Chaser), the park really excels in the dark ride stakes;

- Avengers: Battle of Ultron is an absolutely world class dark ride. It's basically Spiderman from Universal Studios but for me slightly better. We had 4 goes on it and it really doesn't miss a beat. A truly fantastic dark ride.

- Forbidden Territory is another superb dark ride which wouldn't look out of place in a major Florida Theme Park. They really did a fantastic job with the dinosaurs and the ride does have a very good atmosphere. You really do feel like you're in the jungle somewhere.

- Hulk 3D was another ride we thoroughly enjoyed. The Tagada style ride with the 360 degrees Dome screen was something I wasn't quite sure would work that well going in but oh boy it's a good one. It's very clever how they made that ride. Would love to see that recreated elsewhere with another IP or theme.

Some other highlights:

The Haunted Hotel. I had to do this one alone as my son is only 8 and you have to be 15 to go in. I went in with a group of about 12 and as always I ended up going first as usual. Lots of actors in there and even though these sort of attractions don't really scare me at all it was so funny watching 3 girls who were quite visibly terrified.

Thor Thunder Spin ride (basically Ripsaw) was fun and made me miss old Rippy.

The Gumball shooting target ride was also really good too. All the scenes worked and the guns were actually reliable and accurate. Imagine that (Merlin I'm talking to you).

Final thoughts:

A really solid Theme Park with some absolutely outstanding dark rides and really fun coasters. A water ride that maybe starts off indoors and ventures outside like the Velociraptor coaster would be a good addition for them next. Definitely needed to fill out the lineup.

Something like this in the UK would be so good and would honestly be packed to the rafters. Was a shame to see it so quiet but apparently these parks are quiet an awful lot of the time which is sad really. They really deserve more guests for the quality of attractions they have.

We are going to Motiongate on Thursday. I will report back my review.
 
* Update1* Storm Coaster

So the day after IMG we had a chilled one at the Miracle Garden (Google if you don't know what it is) and it was fab. Think Alice in Wonderland garden meets Disney meets Dubai. Very cool place. Better still it's about 10 min taxi ride to Dubai Hills Mall where the brand new for 2022 Storm Coaster is located in the brand new for 2022 shopping Mall.

Coaster Verdict? Very cool looking off ride with its location. Awesome pre show and a very cool launched vertical lift but that's about it. The ride isn't anything that special after the launch. Just kind of meanders around a bit with a few okay drops and two very slow inversions. And it was 65 Dirhams for one ride too (12 quid) so very expensive. Worse still was that we were the only riders on the train and we were told we couldn't ride the front as it was 75 Dirhams for the front row. Makes no sense when there are no other riders. I wasn't overly impressed with it and I'd only consider doing this if you're a true cred hunter. It's really not worth the price.
 
*Update 2* Motiongate

Have I just found my favourite Theme Park in the world? I think I might have. Currently it's a toss up between Islands of Adventure and Europa Park for me but this place is definitely in the equation now for sure.

Again like IMG was, it was very quiet. Not quite as quiet as IMG was but still pretty dead with walk on rides all day. The park is very heavily influenced by Universal Studios parks you can tell. The layout and feel of the buildings and theming is first class. The rides are incredible and the staff we found to be very polite and helpful.

ONE thing we did notice though was the coasters seem to experience a fair bit of downtime. I imagine the intense desert heat is a big factor. It reached 37 today so it's very very hot. Luckily we don't mind the heat plus there's lots of indoor attractions to do.

The highlights? Where do you even start? The whole place was first class but if I had to choose a favourite area then it would be the incredibly large indoor DreamWorks section which houses lands themed to Shrek, Madagascar, How to Train your dragon and Kung Fu Panda. All of them are incredibly well themed and immersive with world class attractions. Dragon Gliders (Arthur at Europa), Madagascar coaster and Shrek Dark ride probably my 3 favourites.

Outdoors areas aren't a let down either. Lionsgate area with Hunger games coaster and the two new coasters (John Wick and Now you see me) is very cool. The Columbia pictures area is also very cool with Ghostbusters and the Zombieland shot and drop tower being my favourites.

We also caught a few shows which were very well put together and met loads of characters too. The park really try hard and it's such a shame that the locals just aren't coming in big numbers. This place would be a sell out at home and that's not an exaggeration. We don't have anything close to what's on offer here.

I honestly couldn't say enough words to describe how amazing this place is. Get yourselves over to Dubai at some point and experience these two parks. Motiongate more so as it's the better of two amazing parks.

11/10. Yes it was that good.
 
I went back in 2017 and really liked Motiongate. Much like yourself the 3 big rides you mention in Dreamworks were excellent especially dragon gliders, which wouldn’t be out of place at Universal. I do think a ride like dragon gliders mixing dark ride and the Mack coaster model would be the perfect fit for a major ride at Alton Towers, suitable for all the family. It is a shame it isn’t busier, hopefully the new rides they have been adding attract some more guests. Due to the temps late oct through to March are the peak period for the park- even then it isn’t ever that busy. I remember the food we had (Chinese resturant in the Kungfu panda area) being some of the best theme park food I have had.
 
I went back in 2017 and really liked Motiongate. Much like yourself the 3 big rides you mention in Dreamworks were excellent especially dragon gliders, which wouldn’t be out of place at Universal. I do think a ride like dragon gliders mixing dark ride and the Mack coaster model would be the perfect fit for a major ride at Alton Towers, suitable for all the family. It is a shame it isn’t busier, hopefully the new rides they have been adding attract some more guests. Due to the temps late oct through to March are the peak period for the park- even then it isn’t ever that busy. I remember the food we had (Chinese resturant in the Kungfu panda area) being some of the best theme park food I have had.

Yeah it's a great park and the food was excellent I must say.

Now you see me High Roller is great fun and will be a hit. However I didn't like the John Wick one a lot really. The theming is exquisite in the queue but I'm not a huge fan of those types of rides. Very uncomfortable and too intense tbh.

Can't fault the place overall though. Shame the rapids is down for a major refurbishment though. That would have been most welcome today in the hot sun.
 
How was the situation at these parks in terms of asking for proof of vaccination / mask wearing? The process for registering on the UAE covid app seems strenuous at best so I'd like to avoid that if it isn't necessary and I do find mask wearing to be rather tedious at theme parks, especially in the heat.

Would be interested to know how the situation actually is over there at present.

Visiting Motiongate next week and it appears both John Wick and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs are closed for maintenance at present - just my luck!
 
How was the situation at these parks in terms of asking for proof of vaccination / mask wearing? The process for registering on the UAE covid app seems strenuous at best so I'd like to avoid that if it isn't necessary and I do find mask wearing to be rather tedious at theme parks, especially in the heat.

Would be interested to know how the situation actually is over there at present.

Visiting Motiongate next week and it appears both John Wick and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs are closed for maintenance at present - just my luck!

We didn't need to show proof of vaccination. Masks were mandatory inside buildings though and on certain rides.

John Wick is awful too. You really wouldn't be missing out on much. The queue is the best part of the experience. Motiongate is incredible though overall. You will love it.
 
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