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Motiongate | Dubai | Theme Park

Dubaidave

Hyper Poster
AS you asked so nicely. Here is my review from December 10th. Its quite wordy so feel free to skip to the photos at the end.

I was lucky enough to be invited to attend a sneak preview of Motiongate in Dubai. We arrived at the main car park and were show. To a parking space by lots of parking staff. We then boarded a bus to be taken to the entrance of Riverland. The bus took us past the almost ready lapita hotel which looks amazing and the six flags theme park area. Once dropped at the entrance of Riverland we had quite a long walk to the gates of Motiongate. It was a pleasant walk through Riverland and it was nice to see how well themed it is. There were Christmas decorations and a massive tree. It was also nice to see that on the other side of the water the new Irish village had finally opened its doors.

The entrance to Motiongate is huge. There was movie music playing and the atmosphere was very exciting. Upon entering the park you are In the studio central zone. the initial view of The New York Street Backlot areais amazing. The attention to detail and themeing blows any other park in this region away! It really does feel like walking into a world class theme park. You totally don't feel like you are in Dubai!
At the end of The street is the hub with a fountain and access to all the different lands.
Working clockwise the lions gate zone is first. This area is still under construction and will feature the Hunger Games coaster amongst other rides.
Next is the Hollywood Theatre where Step Up All In Dubai,a hip hop dance show is currently playing.
Next up is the dreamworks zone. This is all indoors in a massive building. It is split up into several zones including king fu panda, shrek, Madagascar and how to train your dragon. When we visited it was not ready however when open it will almost double the size of the existing park. It is also climate controlled so will be amazing in the warmer months.

Working clockwise the next zone is The Smurfs. The Smurfs village has been brilliantly brought to life. As you stroll through the zone it's again hard to remember you are still in Dubai. The Smurfs zone contains great indoor and outdoor play areas, a rollercoaster, an interactive smurf show and a major dark ride.

The show in the smurfs village play house was interesting. It uses animated surfs on a screen that interact with the audience. Technically it's very clever indeed however it does feel a bit flat. This is mostly due to the degree of audience participation that is required. If, as when we were there, the audience is really interested in participating it does seem like a needlessly drawn out show. They could have done the interaction with kids in five mins and everyone would have been just as impressed. As it was with the show being 20 minutes longs several people left during the show.

The Smurfs Studios Tour is a very good dark ride. It combines some great animatronics with a good story line and provides. Surprisingly long ride experience. Of all the rides I experienced on the preview day it was by far my favourite.

The rollercoaster was. It open during our visit.

The next and final zone is the Sony Picture zone. This is by far the biggest zone at the moment.
As you enter this zone you can see a very impressive and huge looking castle in the distance. This is part of the Hotel Transylvania dark ride. Again this was not open in our visit but if the facade is anything to go by it will be stunning. The forced perspective on the castle is simply stunning.

Also in this area is the green hornet coaster. Due to high winds on the day of our visit it was only open sporadically. However it looks amazing and the screams coming from it seemed to speak volumes about its popularity as did the ques later in the day.

The Ghostbusters dark ride is also in this zone. This is a ride based on the propper Ghostbusters films. Not the new one! The outside is very impressive as is the que line. You will pass a very good ghost containment area along with lots of original photos from the production of the movies. The ride itself is a shooting style dark ride and mixes props with screens that have ghosts to shoot. This is a great ride and the screens work well however it does feel slightly missing something. I can't quite put my finger on it but i think it could have done with a few more animatronics to complement the screens. The ride system reminds me of Bennos great race at Ferrari World. Overall the full experience is amazing. The fact that the que line is so well themed really draws you into the story.

Underworld 4d is also in this zone. Again the themeing and imersiveness of the que is nothing short of stunning. The actual 4d cinema is really good too. The 3D works really well and there are some genuine scares.

Zombiland blastoff is a combination shot and drop tower which was also having issues due to the very high winds the day we visited. Again the themeing of the ride and area is amazing!

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs is a Rapids ride that looks amazing. Again this wasn't open during the preview day but it looks like a great ride.

So. My overall thoughts about Motiongate. I was expecting this to be an amazing park. I had heard some good things and seen some photos. However nothing prepared my for the real thing. The attention to detail and overall themeing is nothing short of stunning. You really don't feel like you are in Dubai. The food quality and price seems a lot better than Legoland Dubai. We are at the Hotel Beastro. And despite them having issues with the ordering system the staff coped very well and were always friendly and polite.
Something that really stands out with this park is the entertainment. There are characters all around the park and entertainment around every corner. It's safe to say that Motiongate will be a massive success. They really have set the bar high.



























 

davidm

Strata Poster
^ Ta! :)

It does look very nice ; that Ghostbusters ride looked good too, just the ride itself seemed (from the video) rather lacklustre - I mean you could see the next shooty section as you were still at the previous one it seems, and the screens seemed very small?
 

Dubaidave

Hyper Poster
The thing I noticed with the rides when I was there was that they seemed quite light. I don't know if it was. Cause I was there pre opening but I can imagine if the lights were lowered a bit it would add to the rides a lot. The themeing in the ques is stunning too. I'm going to visit again soon and get a second opinion.


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gavin

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
See, I don't get why they would hold a preview event when next to nothing is actually ready. I get the reasoning behind previews - mostly staff training to be honest - but they know that people will report on it, so why present something half-arsed?

Just going to throw this in here. For anyone who's not aware (most of you plebs) the Transylvania area is clearly modeled on Bran Castle, touted as "Dracula's Castle" so they can use it as a massive tourist trap. Some pics from my report a while back:

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Pink Cadillac

Giga Poster
Oh wow thank you! Great to see more of this section. I love the golden Gerstlaurer train - if you ignore the mounted zebra head!
That fountain however ..... I don't want to see it ever again.
 

Lofty

CF Legend
What does the Gerstlauer actually DOOOOOO. I know it's launched but I have absolutely no idea about the layout of it, or if it even has inversions?!
 

Dubaidave

Hyper Poster
SO. I visited Motiongate again today. I only had 3 hours and have to say the park is coming along very nicely.
First off. Madagascar Mad Pursuit was running amazingly well. There are no inversions but a nice animatronic scene followed by a fast launch and some amazing airtime. Since my last visit a lot of the show elements have been improves and the who ride is full of props that light up and near misses with all manor of objects. The ride was always amazing but the addition of the show elements really turns this into a world beating ride.
I won’t give too much away but its easily the best ride in the park at the moment.
The Ghost Busters block party was as camp and amazing as ever. Even withy the B team performing today to around 20 people they still put everything i not it. Its a total must see if visiting the park.
Smurfs Studio Tour was running well today with several new effects working although some lighting effects still didn’t work properly.
Ghostbusters was running well and the guns seemed quite accurate now.
Hotel Transylvania was running ok although some of the physical effects weren’t working, although several new lighting effects were.
Cloudy with a chance of meatballs was testing with all the rafts running without water dummys and ,looking from the Zombieland Blast Off Tower the ride seems larger than I had thought. On that note. the tower is still very good, with a very well themed que and a ride that provides and amazing pop of airtime and very comfy seats! and yes, its an s and s
I didn’t do much else today other than take photos.
I did go to the Step up dubai all in show. Although the performance was stunning as always it still suffers from poor attendance and far too loud sound. This is clearly because the level is set to a fuller auditorium but with the public being made to sit in the front section close to the speakers i heard several people including me complaining about the loudness.
I had lunch at Baby Brents Luncheonette. the 2 slices of pizza I had were very good and reasonable. Although the tiramisu was ok, but the price AED 29 the same as my 2 large slices of Pizza was ridiculass.
overall it was a great davit was very quiet as I was there early on a weekday. One last mention has to go to the am,gazing staff. Everyone, including the guy sweeping trash, asked my how my day was going!

Enjoy the pics. I did take lots. The first few are of Riverland Dubai.













































































































 

Lofty

CF Legend
The park is starting to look a lot better now that it's settling in. I'm really wanting to visit when it's all open. especially Capitol Bullet Train.
 

Dubaidave

Hyper Poster

Should work now!

Here's video of the Ghostbusters show.


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davidm

Strata Poster
Fun game ; try to spot humans in Dave's pics of the park! Counted a couple in that last update, but looks empty.
 

Dubaidave

Hyper Poster
I do specifically go when is nobody else there. In Dubai there is a rule about not having members of public in photos on the Internet without their permission. Hence that's the reason most of my photos don't have people in


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Ethan

Strata Poster
After almost 10 years of being a CF member I still haven't worked out how to add videos... But TPR have just uploaded a video of the Gerst coaster!


(Oh, it worked)
 

Lofty

CF Legend
Looks like quite a good family coaster to me - I still find it really weird that some of the crucial things to make these types of rides great are just MISSING at the park. Like OBA for this, sound effects for the props, just an immersive atmosphere? It's so weird.
 
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