|
DUBAI PARKS & RESORTS
Dubai Parks & Resorts LLC, a Meraas Holding company
Amusement Resort complex featuring Riverland Dubai retail / dining area, the Lapita Hotel, and several theme parks:
MOTIONGATE Dubai (Opened Dec. 16, 2016)
BOLLYWOOD PARKS Dubai (Opened Nov. 15, 2016 - Closed April 20, 2023)
LEGOLAND Dubai - (Opened Oct. 31, 2016) & LEGOLAND Water Park (Opened Nov. 15, 2016)
SIX FLAGS DUBAI - CANCELED
---- THE LATEST BUZZ ----
(4/21/2023) Bollywood Park Dubai Now Closed For Good (MORE...)
(1/22/2023) Dubai Parks & Resorts Add Dino Mania Parade (MORE...)
(11/19/22) Dubai Parks & Resorts To Add Real Madrid Theme Park (MORE...)
(1/23/22) Motiongate Dubai - First Look at John Wick and Now You See Me Coasters + Legoland Hotel Update
Resort News - (1/22/2023) Dinosaurs are coming to Dubai Parks & Resorts! Teased on social media over the past week, it was confirmed that a new “Dino Mania” dinosaur parade kicked off at the resort on Jan. 20, 2023 that will run as a free bonus attraction throughout the resorts more popular and cooler winter months.
(11/19/22) Dubai Parks and Resorts has apparently signed a deal to build the world’s first “Real Madrid theme park” that will feature sports themed rides, attractions and experiences. According to this article the goal is to open the new attraction by late 2023, which seems like a very short timetable to me. One thing to consider however is that Dubai Parks & Resorts did begin construction years ago on a proposed Six Flags Dubai theme park, only to shelve the project in the early phases of the build. With that in mind, if the Real Madrid project is going on the same site, they may be planning on repurposing any infrastructure and grading work already done on the site for the abandoned Six Flags project to speed up the build of Real Madrid.
This would make sense as I believe several of the ride’s originally purchased for the Six Flags project were also moved and used to expand the existing Motiongate and Bollywood Parks on site at Dubai Parks and Resorts.
While the idea of building an entire theme park around the theme of a single sports team of any kind seems to be a bit out there, the dream to build a Real Madrid theme park has been something talked about for many years now. While still a bit foreign a concept to the American marketplace, the fact is that Real Madrid is one of the most popular Football clubs (aka: Soccer teams) in the world today.
(4/26/21) The bad news is that Dubai Parks & Resorts has reported a Q1 2021 loss of 360 million dirhams ($98 million). The good news is that the loss in 2021 is actually is actually only about 63% of what DBX lost in Q1 2020, which was 564.6 million dirhams ($153.72 million). It seems a good sign that things are getting better, but they’ve got a ways to go still before the resort becomes profitable.
BOLLYWOOD PARKS Dubai (Opened Nov. 15, 2016 - Closed April 20, 2023)
 Park News - (4/21/2023) In a very sudden announcement, Bollywood Park in Dubai announced via their Instagram feed that Thursday, April 20th was the official closure of the theme park for good. However, the park really actually closed a short time ago when the park announced they were temporarily closing on March 22 for the Ramadan holiday period. However it never reopened after that.
It’s worth noting that the announcement contains some interesting text. For example, nothing was said about demolishing the park, and in fact they confirmed that “The iconic Raj Mahal will continue to be available for private events and the re-opening date will be announced soon.’ In the closing, the post also states that we should “Stay tuned for exciting news coming soon from the Middle East’s largest theme park destination!”.
So what does this mean? Well, for starters, if you’ve see the layout of the Dubai Parks & Resorts property, the Bollywood theme park sits in the middle between Motiongate Dubai and Legoland Dubai, both of which are remaining open, though between the parks there are large parking lots, so it might be difficult to just merge the small Bollywood park to become simply an expansion or new land for Motiongate Dubai.
I believe the future of the Bollywood Dubai theme park actually lies in an announcement made in November 2022 when the resort property announced that they had signed a deal to build the world’s first “Real Madrid theme park”, themed to the famous sports team. In what seemed to be a strange factoid, they announcement also said that the goal was to open this new theme park by “late 2023”, which seemed an absurd timetable at the time.
Another interesting item of note is that while the Bombay Express wooden coaster was built at Bollywood Dubai over the pandemic, the theme park has yet to officially open this new roller coaster and has strangely let it sit idle all this time. The park also has pieces of two new rides from Mack Rides that were originally destined to be part of the canceled Six Flags Dubai theme park, a Mack PowerSplash and track for an unknown layout Mack roller coaster design, thought to be a Hypercoaster style ride.
My thought here is that the former Bollywood Dubai theme park will undergo a period of rapid-fire remodeling, and perhaps even new construction to assemble the pieces of those rides sitting in the backlot, to be transformed into the aforementioned Real Madrid theme park. Once might say that the writing was on the wall for the closure of the Bollywood park as soon as the Real Madrid agreement was signed last year.
The timing of this also fits well, as I’ve always been told that the warner summer months are actually the slow season for the theme parks in Dubai, simply because it is too hot. The busy season in the region for theme parks is actually more from October to March, essentially ending with the start of month-long Ramadan period, so the timing of the closure of the Bollywood park right now just makes perfect sense.
So what will the future reveal here? For now, we’ll just have to wait and see.
LEGOLAND Dubai (Opened Oct. 31, 2016)
2023 - Nothing new is known to be in development at this time...
MOTIONGATE DUBAI (Opened Dec. 16, 2016)
2023 - Nothing new is known to be in development at this time...
|
