Anyone who's been to the UAE in Summer would tell you Dubailand was doomed for failure. It's too damn hot to go outside let alone spend the day at a theme park.
That could be the reason why Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi is still operating today. A majority of the park is indoors, with the only exceptions being their big roller coasters like Formula Rossa and Flying Aces.
That would just create a slow off season in the summer, would just make it even more perfect. If they have to close it during summer who cares, there are Six Flags parks in cold climates in the US that close during winter.
As a lower middle class person, flying to Dubai for vacation is right up there with fantasy lol in my head I'm like "sooo are there just a bunch of rich people out there who can afford to fly to Dubai and then buy these theme park tickets? Enough of them to make such an investment by investors plausible? Am I just poor af? 😭"
A big part of it is that the United Arab Emirates has pivoted heavily towards creating a massive tourism industry in anticipation of the oil industry, on which they are heavily dependent, slowly dying. A lot of the middle eastern countries are now throwing ridiculous amounts of money at infrastructure projects that don't necessarily make financial sense on paper. It will take them a very long time to make any substantial returns on their investments but the alternative is to die along with the oil industry.
When i first look into this video, the first thing that crossed my mind was, Human oven... they would need to make it all indoor. The amount of energy needed to support such an undertaking would be immense...
It's nice to hear that whatever WAS there didn't become a complete ghost town. A school is never a bad thing, and that incredibly landscaped public garden will definitely give a lot of joy to a wide range of people in a wide range of ways. Maybe great things will rise slowly from the ashes of Dubailand, and it will be a great deal more diverse in it's offerings and interesting than a theme park could hope to be. When thing can't shoot up fast, sometimes they grow in more unique ways at slower speeds anyway. I'd love to hear about all the things that did work and are still working here.
This was a terrible idea as it's too hot to do anything outside in Dubai for about 5 months of the year. I've lived in Dubai for 8 years and have seen temps at night of "feels like" 60 C. That's 140 F. At night. As in no sun. But for 6 months or so the weather is perfect.
It would be amazing to watch some deep dives on ANY of these cancelled parks planned for Dubailand! Please go for it! I'd never heard about this resort before but it would be amazing to learn about the plans and dreams that could have come to fruition if a better economy and good management allowed it t happen. Can't wait to take that ride with you guys at ReviewTyme!
I don't know, this sounds like it was doomed from the start. Say what you will about Disneyland or Disney World, the parks are built around a solid theme in mind of happy memories, childlike wonder, magic and exploration. What was the conception of Dubailand? One-upmanship? "Let's pack LITERALLY EVERYTHING into this, all at once!" If your only goal is to beat the competition then you're going to create a gaudy, directionless mess. Maybe I'm not giving them their due, but this sounds like a park built out of spite.
I'm glad they didn't. The politics and social situation of Dubai should not be something any major company wants to associate itself with. I'm all here for new parks, but just don't build them in countries that violate human rights.
They ended up building 2 theme parks a few years ago -- Dubai Parks and Resorts and IMG Worlds of Adventure. They're both kind of mediocre, but huge projects.
Las Vegas has nearly the same temperatures as Dubai....and I lived in Vegas for three years...and the summers were brutal..but thankfully, there was very little humidity, so while it was hot, you didn't feel like you were in a swamp...however, in Dubai, not only does the temperature average in the 90s...the constant high humidity makes it worse...the heat index can reach as high as 140°F...not the place I want to vacation to...no wonder they failed... tons of oil money can't buy everything...
Been here 13 years , your mean the 9 months of amazing 25-35C weather and then the 3 months of 40-48 C weather. Yer right, where are you from that’s better?
in theory, theme parks are a beautiful fantasy world where nostalgia takes your mind away from reality and you live in the universe of your favorite movies and characters you grew up with but in reality they are just a very busy, expensive, hot (in dubai's case) and sub-par attempt at recreating that feel I remember as a kid going to Disneyland in Paris (having grown up in Romania, it was a dream) ... but being there it was not really anything special, everything was super expensive, inaccessible and way too long of a wait for a way too short and underwhelming ride... most definitely not worth traveling to Paris for, i even liked the city more than disneyland itself and i was just 8 or 9 years old
Would all that outdoor rides and walk areas be too hot for folks to really want to hangout there for long time. Indoor rides sure but the outdoor areas seem like folks would roast.
Well in Dubai folks usually do these sort of things at night. I was raised there and when we went to theme parks we’d start the day at around 5pm just before sunset and end it around 12-2am
Great video as always guys! Please do cover all the projects that were failures in the project as it really would be a great watch and worthwhile endeavor!
We actually had plans to visit and review IMG World's of Adventure, Motiongate as well as a number of other Theme Parks in the UAE later in the year but sadly with everything going on that won't be happening now, we do hope to get out there and cover them eventually though! - Luke
ReviewTyme well I hope that we can all get back out there to the parks as soon as possible! I was supposed to be going to Disney World in November so I know how you feel! Great video as always ☺️
I remember watching that "TEN Real Estate" one all the time when I was little about the resort because I was so excited at how ambitious the project was. While the F1 park in Dubailand was cancelled, a Ferrari indoor park in nearby Abu Dhabi ended up being constructed
Yep I remember watching it years ago now too and getting incredibly hyped up for what was coming, I don't think we will ever see a project this ambitious again! - Luke
Yeah but the F1 roller coaster did manage to find a home. It's now located at the "Belantis" theme park in Leipzig, Germany where it's known as "Huracan".
Yes it is sad. If the 2008 financial crisis did not happened. Then Dubai would have gotten a great themeparknaras. And hugely benefited from being regional hotspotsvfor theme parks. But now Abu Dhabi has siffered up some of that tourism parks (WB, F1, etc). And whats left in Dubai is too watered out to be seen as a «theme park hub». And also Saudi Arabia is not so passive anymore. And the metrolines to those places also got cancelledcduecto the 2008 financial crisis. And the huge airport in the south, also the operation plans got cancelled/delayed. So people are not coming anywhere near to those parks, unless they know of them and they then take taxis. You will severly limit number of potential customers when you have to rely on cars.
Yeah, I live out here, and when you're walking in 120 degree heat, the last place you want to be, is an amusement park. It's very hot for 75% of the year.
As a year round employee of Six Flags Great Adventure from 2010-2015 I was privy to some interesting information. The Wild Safari was ramping up animal births. Trying to double their population. The reason? a smaller drive through safari park which was planned to open alongside Six Flags Dubai. Many of the animals would have come from NJ. Some of the seasoned workers would have traveled with the animals to see them delivered to their new home. Thankfully it fell through, and never happened.
Oh wow that's a great tidbit Zach, thanks for sharing I had no idea about it. I can't imagine the desert heat would have been perfect for some of the animals, especially compared to the New Jersey weather! - luke
Not a problem. I love your channel. The idea was for most animals, the majority being african, to be sent over. If I remember the only exception was the Elephants.
I remember being so excited for dubailand, and extremely disappointed when I found out it was canceled. IMG is still a fine replacement, and has some thrilling rides, but a huge complex of theme parks galore would have been amazing.
@@ruben7937 first of all the winter season in Dubai doesnt last that long. Its already very hot right and its still April. winter season in Dubai is extremely short (3-4 months at most) Global village is not open year round and cost much less to maintain. If you own a theme park with high costs to maintain and only expect a rise of customers during the short winter; you'll breakeven then lose profits very quickly.
No matter how good it might have turned out I wouldn't have been going. Shocking human rights abuses in the country and using death camp builders projects to construct their amazing constructions leaves me cold.
So I am supposed to walk around in one hundred degree heat and enjoy metal rides sitting in full sun while the citizens stay inside in air-conditioning.
The big question is not “Why did it fail?” The big question is “What ever made them think this would be successful?” And the answer to that is that they still fail to understand the essence of the secret sauce that makes Disney work. And it’s not the amount of money that Disney spends. You can’t match Disney dollar-for-dollar and expect to be as successful. Disney still has that intangible quality that no other company can spend to create. Even if they had built this project out completely, it would have failed completely inside of 10 years.
I think he means a theme park they built outside of the US, as it stands the only theme parks Six Flags has built at all is Six Flags Over Texas, Over Georgia and St Louis.
We went to motiongate in 2018. It's way too hot during the day for visitors, it was in the low 40s in August, the park was really good though spending most time in DreamWorks indoor complex, as it was air conditioning, shame that there was only around 150 people in the whole park
Should’ve built it. I’ve been to Dubai and it is an absolute marvel for the eyes to see. It’s incredible. That being said, I would never go back there as there is hardly anything to do really. I spent 10 days there and did practically everything great it had to offer including Ferrari World. Once you’ve done those once, it has no appeal to do it again. If they had built this, I’d be going every year for sure, this sounded unbelievable! If anyone does ever go though, for the love of god never go in July 🥵 it makes ORLANDO feel like an average summers day in the UK. Maybe that’s why a project this big there would fail unless they covered most of it like Ferrari World. Definitely do more videos on the separate projects! Great video 👍🏻
Wow.... you guys really are not knowledgeable about Dubai. But i guess it is Dubai own fault for not marketing itself better. I could easily spend 6 months with daily activities and still not be «done» with Dubai.
I hope the in the near future they will revive these plans. The SF dubailand project seemed really promising, the concept art and idea was 10x better than what was proposed for SF Dubai...
I think they're looking back at it now and thinking "whew, glad we got out of that place before we had lost too much money there!". Apparently the parks in Dubai are bleeding money and getting less than half the projected attendance, and that was before the Covid pandemic.
I’d love to see the Dubai Parks and Resorts area to expand to new plots of land with multiple theme parks and brands and would expand to the proposed Dubailand area in an effort for Dubai Parks and Resorts to become Dubailand Parks and Resorts Dubai!
I'd love to get your take on Alton Towers in a video. I know others have done it before but alternative videos with different content, opinions, and inward/outward-looking thoughts and expectations are always great to watch and listen to.
Hey Mark, we do want to head over to the UK and visit and review their Theme Parks sometime, but with everything going on in the World currently sadly it might be a little while until we can leave Australia again! - Luke
I once heard a rumor of someone wanting to building Star Trek Themed Park in Dubai. There was even some concept art made for it. Obviously nothing came of it, but I'd like to hear what it could have been like.
I wouldn't say it failed because basically nothing was built. For it to fail, or would have had to open and then close. Anyway, this video is 99% fluff, describing all these things the parks could have had, and then 1%, saying "well, the money dried up because of the financial crisis."
It’s a Fail. This is a private project and contracts were made, since owner didnt pony up on his end. The contracts got canceled. This much construction would not occurred if the contract stated a finish date for the project and money got placed down on insurance if owner doesn’t bring in the money.
lol, Thats definitely not why, considering without the park they reached their goal of 15 million visitors last year. Dubai has relaxed and opened up to the wester's way of life. Dubai is not the radical city like the rest of the united arabs are.
I adore Dubai and have been there many times.I was so looking forward to this project especially the Restless Planet with the dinosaurs.I was so disappointed when it was cancelled.Could you please elaborate more on the Restless Planet which if I remember correctly you hardly mentioned.
Restless Planet is something we are considering to look at in a future video, we're just trying to find enough information on it to make sure we have our facts straight. How can we go past the closest thing we were ever going to get to "Jurassic Park!" - Luke
I'm seeing an overreaching theme in this video "... made up of a number of distinct lands" "...with 6 different lands" "... with 4 different lands" " ... different lands" even the graphics in the background flashing up the different areas of the park :D
For everyone wondering why this was all cancelled, it’s very simple... In late 90 to early 2000s the boom hit Dubai and every crazy idea you can think about was planned to be built, but the 2008 economic crisis came and they put it all on a hold but the economy never went back to the way it was which led to all these projects being on hold and later on canceled 🙁
If it had been able to be finished it would have easily been the best with multiple disney parks universal parks and every other type. I was keeping track of everthing with it during the first 10 years. The amount of indoor park stuff was also amazing it was going to have 100s of firsts. Its ideas and plans would have excited walt disney himself
Every fool on the planet is full of ideas and plans, but they never get beyond the talk stage. The UAE is also full of fools with ideas and plans but they were even more foolish because they spent their money to get drawing of their foolish ideas. Dubailand was never anything more than the fever dreams of low IQ people with too much money.
Can you do a video on Disney's Seas project that Disney was planning on building in Long Beach, CA. Also can you include how these plans were changed for the Oriental Land Co when they wanted to build a second theme park. Namely Tokyo DisneySea. Finally was DisneySea the only concept Disney pitched to the OLC?
Was Dubai Global Village ever part of the Dubailand plans? Global Village moved to its current location in 2005 and is near some of the projects mentioned in the video like Miracle Gardens and IMG World.
It would be interesting to compare what the Dreamworks and Legoland parks had in mind in Dubailand vs what we actually got. I think the proposed Six Flags in Saudi Arabia is a lot closer to the Dubailand concept vs what they were planning for Dubai which is a Six Flags themed to Six Flags parks pretty much.
It does look like Dubailand might have gotten an Intimin Pre-fab, with the last one being T-Express and they had built El Toro. I personally prefer Holiday World and Knoebles' wooden coasters though
Six Flags Dubai the second version of the park which would have been built next to Motiongate, Legoland and Bollywood looked to be incredibly underwhelming and just a generic Six Flags park compared to the incredible looking Dubailand concept! - Luke
Yeah there was plans for Disneyland Dubai but they were never officially announced, we have covered the Disneyland Dubai project previously if you're interested in finding out more about it - Luke ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-c6HgsnMx4qQ.html
I was honestly surprised to hear that they did not understand the results stagnant water near residential areas. I mean, they were building Island residential area after Island residential area. I can't believe they didn't consider using pumps or even using decorative fountains to pump in freshwater and allow the water in the stagnant Zone to drain more. Now I regret not just assuming that people who live in the desert don't know water.
First Six Flags park outside of the USA? I remember ‘Walibi Holland’ being called ‘Six Flags Holland’ when it opened in 1971. Also the other Walibi parks in Belgium and France were called Six Flags. What’s up with that?
Forgive me if I'm wrong but the Walibi parks were purchased by Six flags around the late 90's and I believe Six Flags mexico started out with a different name before being purchased by Six flags as well. I think they might have meant the first built from the ground up Six Flags park abroad.
Even if he meant „first Six Flags built from the ground up outside of the USA“ it’d be wrong, that was Parque Warner. Six Flags had multiple parks in Europe, Six Flags Mexico and LaRonde in Canada.
In the year 2000 Six Flags Holland was opened in Biddinghuizen, The Netherlands. They closed in 2004 and it was sold to the Belgium based Walibi theme parks.
Hi Luke, could you make a video about what country in Europe would be the best location for a Universal Resort to be built (including a large theme park and hotels), with the super small chance if there would be one in the future? Countries like Germany, Spain, The Netherlands as a possibility maybe? That would be interesting to watch :)
The fact there is no Universal park in Europe seems to suggest they've already found out it isn't really feasible to build one there. Disney struggled to establish themselves, and Universal sold their stake in PortAventura, so I think the market situation simply isn't good enough to risk it. Maybe it would even give some undesired competition to their Florida parks, which probably see a lot of European visitors.
Building the world's largest and awesome theme park in Dubai is like building it on the moon. How many people are going to have the opportunity to travel to the desert in the middle east to enjoy it? I am fascinated by Dubai and want to visit it but the logistics are considerable. And you have to submit to injections.
Loved this video, too bad Dubailand didn't get completed as planned it would've been amazing. I'd love to see a video on each of the proposed parks. I seem to recall they were going to build a dinosaur themed park called Restless Planet.
It seems that all of you love to talk bad about the UAE Theme Parks , oh well bad news for you - Have a look at your Universal “ Epic Failure “ in Orlando is getting delayed or Cancelled. The best part of this is UAE 🇦🇪 is having the last laugh 😂 , Dubai Parks & Resorts is expanding and Sea World Abu Dhabi is under construction.
We got free tickets when we booked with Emirates, so went to Motion Gate - Great day, very hot outside but most things are inside with air conditioning, no one was there, saw around 20 people. Small with not that much to see or do, but it filled our day. Best thing was having the place to ourselves.
