Marvel Theme Park - Summer 2011

[JMora]

Now, before Disney bought Marvel, a joint venture happened between US-based Marvel Entertainment and property developers the Al Ahli Group in Dubai to build a one billion Marvel Superheroes theme park, yes, 1 billion theme park. It will be situated in Dubailand (entertainment complex 20x bigger then Walt Disney World), a mega area filled with other theme parks from Universal Studios to Sea World to Ferrari World & so many more. Marvel Superheroes is scheduled to open in late 2011. It's been under construction, and spare no expense, Disney will have no hand or ownership either!

But first, check out this awesome video that reveals the plans, the models and other collections of not just where the future of theme parks is going (they are taking theme parks to the next level) but also the look of Dubai's future architecture of resorts, etc. The video is 3 years old but the plans have become 99% true to design. Marvel Superheroes is the one with the crashed UFO.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2mIfegMI2o]YouTube - dubailand 1[/ame]
Here's video of Ferrari World, where they have a roller coaster so fast, you need protective glasses, with top speeds of 150mph baby!!!
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs17gj22DxI]YouTube - Ferrari World, Abu Dhabi, to be a roller coaster attraction[/ame]

This photo below was taken a few months ago of the entrance of the city of Dubai, this is what happens in just 4 short years? Hard to believe, and this WAS a desert 6 years ago. The beach is to the right.



Dubailand is an entertainment complex. Here's the list of theme parks being built:
Warner Bros. Movie World
Legoland Dubai
Six Flags Dubailand
Dreamworks Studios Theme Park
Universal Studios Dubailand
F1-X Theme Park Dubai
Tiger Woods Dubai
Bawadi
Falconcity of Wonders
Fantasia
Freej Dubailand
Marvel Superheroes Theme Park
Tourism world
Legends of Dubailand
Aviation World
Islamic culture and Science World
Global Village
Kids City
Giants World
Water Parks - Completed
Sahara Kingdom
Dubai Snowdome- Completed
Astrolab Resort
Dubai Sports City
Emerat Sports World
Extreme Sports World
Plantation Equestrian and Polo Club
Dubai Motor City which includes Dubai Autodrome
...Just to name a few!


So, here's what to look for at Marvel Superheroes...







You have to see what Universal Studios is doing, it puts every Universal theme park to shame! For example, for the Jurassic Park franchise, theyre actually building a Jurassic Park theme park!!! While the water ride will be rescue mission type thrill ride, and another JP ride will be the Ford tour trucks touring Jurassic Park, and the two attractions will interact with each other, and the dinosaurs will some how roam free.

[MikeSkellington]

You have to see what Universal Studios is doing, it puts every Universal theme park to shame! For example, for the Jurassic Park franchise, theyre actually building a Jurassic Park theme park!!! While the water ride will be rescue mission type thrill ride, and another JP ride will be the Ford tour trucks touring Jurassic Park, and the two attractions will interact with each other, and the dinosaurs will some how roam free.

OMG I need to see the info/artwork for it Please!!!!!!!
Can u please post a link or something!
Jurassic Park is my favorite movie and I have always imagined a whole actual park!!

[JMora]

OMG I need to see the info/artwork for it Please!!!!!!!
Can u please post a link or something!
Jurassic Park is my favorite movie and I have always imagined a whole actual park!!

Mine too, I found some visuals that would make any JP fan drool. Universal Studios in Dubailand (entertainment complex 20x bigger then Walt Disney World), a proposed Universal Studios theme park located in Dubai like no other Universal complex on Earth! The project is a joint venture costing over 8 billion dirhams ($2.2 billion US) with Dubai-based Tatweer, a partner in Dubai Holdings, Inc. It's been under construction the past year or so. It's just not 1, not just 2 but 3 Universal theme parks all connected as one mega Universal theme park.

Along with entertainment resorts, CityWalk will actually be a working entertainment city with over 4,000 units of hotel accommodations, over 100 restaurants, & mega mall. A city filled with entertainment from 100 night clubs, casinos & bars too. For Jurassic Park lovers, Universal is actually going to build a Jurassic Park theme park with a JP themed hotel resort included. Guest with rooms over looking some of the jungles of Jurassic Park, can see/hear the dinosaurs walk, & roar 24/7. All while in Jurassic Park, guests can finally ride the Ford tour trucks through Jurassic Park, and try to survive a loose T-Rex!

Universal Studios Dubai will also have over 12 top rides. From a dueling King Kong roller coaster, actually building giant audio-animatronic King Kong's at various stages of the roller coaster. In addition, new The Mummy, ET, Back to the Future, Fast & the Furious rides to name a few. This place is going to be AMAZING. Opens December 2012 - Universal Studios Dubailand

Here's what to expect...
The over-all Universal complex (below)

Universal Studios

Jurassic Park section is seeing at the bottom (more additions have been added since this photo has been taken)

See that huge lagoon at the lower right hand corner, that's part of Jurassic Park theme park, with scenes like this...

Here's the Jurassic Park themed resort hotel with Jurassic Park theme park in the foreground.

Here's the King Kong roller coaster.

[DLRP_bopazot]

last time i heard about this project was a few months ago and the Projects was still pending for further informations from Dubai Gouv and they ve had to decide about whats going on with all Dubailand projects .

Universal Studios Dubailand is still on hold till the Economic Recession is over especially in the UAE .

[tloolgb]

And the dinosaur park was a different park, not part of Universal.

[DisneyFan28]

28 different theme Parks? O.o

Wow..glad they have the room to build most of these parks

[MikeSkellington]

last time i heard about this project was a few months ago and the Projects was still pending for further informations from Dubai Gouv and they ve had to decide about whats going on with all Dubailand projects .

Universal Studios Dubailand is still on hold till the Economic Recession is over especially in the UAE .

I heard that 98% of people in Dubai/UAE
are NOT harmed by the recession

[TimmyTimmyTimmy]

in the middle of the day it is around 120 fahrenheit... who wants to be in a themepark the entire day in that heat?

[tloolgb]

I heard that 98% of people in Dubai/UAE
are NOT harmed by the recession

Well Dubai and the UAE are in very different places...Dubai's neighbor of Abu Dhabi is in fine shape. Dubai is not.

But if 98% of people are not harmed by the recession, it must be the remaining people now that all the expats have fled (or those that are allowed to anyway). The emigration rush that has happened in Dubai makes me think there is not a chance 98% of Dubai is fine. You wouldn't see mas exodus if the city was stable.

Though a comparison of Dubai to the rest of the emirates would be interesting.

[indianajack]

I'm posting this reply right now from Dubai (mods can verify this by the IP), and I can tell you that none of the Dubailand projects is being worked on at the moment, and it's uncertain whether any of them will come to fruition in the near future. I can pretty much guarantee the Marvel Park will never happen; I don't think Disney is even worried about it. Universal Studios will probably happen at some point though not in the location with the arch in the picture above. I was just by that worksite a couple of days ago and nothing is being done out there, it's just a desert beyond the arch. Legoland is rumored to open now by 2015. That dinosaur park is called Restless Planet and it is attached to an under-construction mega-mall called Mall of Arabia. The first phase of that mall is scheduled to open in 2013 (it was originally supposed to open last year), and there's no guarantee the Restless Planet park will open with it, though the dinosaur animatronics are all done and in storage in Japan. The company in charge of Dubailand, Tatweer, no longer exists as an independent entity. It's been collapsed into the Dubai Holding portfolio with Nakheel (the company that made all the artificial islands), which are the two big losers racking up almost $30 billion in debt. The FX-1 Theme Park is half done and there's no money now to complete it though they're looking for investors if you're interested...
That's the sad scoop in Dubai.

For Abu Dhabi, down the block from Dubai an hour south, the Ferrari Theme Park looks ready to open on October 28. There are some problems with the sand and dust for the roller coasters which are the only rides besides the drop tower outside in the elements (the rest are indoors). This is why goggles will be required to be worn for the super fast coaster so granules of sand don't scratch your eye during the ride. Next park project for AD after Ferrari will be a huge water park with some new types of rides that have never been done before. That's scheduled for 2012 and looks promising to open on time. Beyond that is the Warner Bros theme park but that's too far in the future for any reliable projections.

[jimmay]

I'll be amazed, and frankly disappointed, if any of the Dubailand projects ever come to fruition. They were some grand plans to be sure, and I was particularly interested in the early possibility of an all Star Wars themepark that was teased, but building them all in the middle of a scorching desert on the other side of the planet was a fatally bad idea.

Let the ideas rot in peace.

[indianajack]

Why would you be "frankly disappointed" if any of the theme parks in Dubailand came to fruition? Isn't more world-class theme parks on the planet a good thing for us aficionados?

Americans need to keep in mind that Dubai is halfway around the planet for them, but is only a 6 hour flight for most of the world's population. Dubai's (and Abu Dhabi's and, for that matter, Qatar's) tourist target does not include North Americans.

The whole Star Wars theme park was nothing more than wishful thinking on the part of rumor-spreading net fans. No one at Tatweer ever spoke of or leaked that concept.

The scorching hot thing would just mean the parks would close in the summer as European parks do in the winter. Making the parks seasonal for European (and Asian) tourists was kind of the point of the whole enterprise. The plans for the Universal park showed that 60% of it would be indoors anyway.

Right now a lot of the future depends on the success or failure of the Ferrari park in Abu Dhabi. If it makes a lot of money and is teeming with tourists then we'll likely see the purse strings open for the Universal and Legoland parks to get built in Dubai.

[TimmyTimmyTimmy]

Sand that scratches the eye... sounds like a place that NOBODY would like to see.
Dubai is an example of that it takes more than just money to be another Walt Disney.

[jimmay]

Why would you be "frankly disappointed" if any of the theme parks in Dubailand came to fruition? Isn't more world-class theme parks on the planet a good thing for us aficionados?

Americans need to keep in mind that Dubai is halfway around the planet for them, but is only a 6 hour flight for most of the world's population. Dubai's (and Abu Dhabi's and, for that matter, Qatar's) tourist target does not include North Americans.

The whole Star Wars theme park was nothing more than wishful thinking on the part of rumor-spreading net fans. No one at Tatweer ever spoke of or leaked that concept.

The scorching hot thing would just mean the parks would close in the summer as European parks do in the winter. Making the parks seasonal for European (and Asian) tourists was kind of the point of the whole enterprise. The plans for the Universal park showed that 60% of it would be indoors anyway.

Right now a lot of the future depends on the success or failure of the Ferrari park in Abu Dhabi. If it makes a lot of money and is teeming with tourists then we'll likely see the purse strings open for the Universal and Legoland parks to get built in Dubai.

I'd be ""frankly disappointed"" for purely selfish reasons. If there are world class theme parks being built, I'd prefer them built in places where I might have a chance of seeing them. Frankly, I'm not wild about scorching deserts with blowing sand. I like my theme parks in pleasant areas like California, Paris, Tokyo, and Orlando. That way I can even set an extra day or two to see something else in the area. Dubai strikes me as an over-inflated Las Vegas, and I hate Las Vegas. I realize that's not a popular opinion, but one I hold nonetheless.

[indianajack]

I know a lot of people compare Dubai to Vegas but they're actually completely different in many ways. There are no casinos and gambling in Dubai, and alcohol is restricted to certain places (nightclubs and hotel restaurants) just for starters as big differences. Dubai has way more cultural diversity than Vegas; there are parts of the city that feel more like India than the Middle East. There's certainly glitz in Dubai, but so does LA and NYC, and no one says Vegas is like them. As for the scorching heat, it's like winter in Tokyo and Paris, not pleasant for a theme park visit but that's just one part of the year; Dubai's weather is great in the winter and spring. Americans are spoiled and fortunate to have such nice year-round destinations with pleasant weather like Southern California and Orlando for our parks.

I don't think the decision-makers in Dubai ever really believed in the theme park concept as a lucrative business to go whole hog on it. Well before the financial bubble burst they could have started building a couple of these projects but did nothing more than tamp down the sand and put in a few pipes. The formula that's worked for them is to have a big shopping mall with attractions such as Ski Dubai attached to Mall of the Emirates, and Sega Republic and Kidzania attached to Dubai Mall. It's tough for them to change that mentality.