Patrick and I have been aiming to head out to the UAE to grab the creds for the last year or so and we finally decided to go for it. Catching the end of their Summer we knew the weather would be gross (in terms of heat) but I don't think anything could have prepared us for what we experience (it should be noted that I would have reacted the same way with their average winter temps).
Our journey began on Sat 8th September when we flew overnight from London to Dubai with Virgin Atlantic. The flight was fine apart from the entertainment system dying. Bless the lady in charge trying to get it to work, she must have spent a good hour or two trying to get it to work. It's fine, an overnight flight I think everyone planned to sleep anyway. I didn't get much sleep because it rarely happens for me on flights.
Sunday 9th was a tough travel day after not much sleep. Neither of us drive so we planned to do everything on our trip via public transport. For some reason info is a bit sketchy in regards to this but we eventually opted to get the Metro out to Ibn Battuta (where the line currently ends due to it still being constructed beyond that - yet no signs allude to this which is weird). From there we got the big bus to Abu Dhabi. The site we used for our info hinted at a stop along the route which would be a good place to get off and get a taxi to our end destination but that was not a thing.
Once in Abu Dhabi we got the 180 bus (after much faffing trying to get a Abu Dhabi travel card thing (like the Oyster)) which took us straight to our hotel in Yas Island - the Centro. The journey was long and exhausting, especially with the heat outside but it made getting up to our massive comfy hotel room even more worth it. We relaxed for a bit and freshened up before getting on the free Yas shuttle bus over to the mall. Over the next few days we spent a lot of time in this labyrinth so we got to know it well but for such a big place it was weird that maps were not a thing. After walking around we decided to start the holiday diet off well with a visit to the Cheesecake factory. I'll never get over the size of their cakes, so ridiculous.
Exhausted we went back to the hotel for a great night of sleep before our first park day.
Monday 10th
We headed straight over to the newest theme park in the UAE - Warner Bros. World. I was way too excited about this park and looking back on the planning we really should have led up to this place rather than starting here. So first interesting thing to note is that the shuttle bus and taxi rank for this park is shared with Yas Waterworld which is literally next door. It's a little insane that the entire exterior of this park is wrapped in images of the characters that lie within, it's quite a striking building when travelling around the area.
I'll apologise in advance of all photos after this point - my camera did not like the lighting and it's hard to tell until on a computer so most look out of focus.
The ticket hall is fairly basic and bright and doesn't give a lot of indication of what to expect. The first "room" of the park is the Warner Bros. Plaza which is entered via two corridors. This massive room represents a more generic Hollywood vibe we're used to with Studio parks and it looks great. A really neat feature is that the ceiling is projected onto so the whole room can change between daytime/nighttime constantly throughout the day. The night setting feels really atmospheric and cool. The only thing to be found in the plaza are shops and restaurants and plenty of character meet and greets throughout the day. At certain times during the day the "cinema spectacular" is shown but more on that later.
We hadn't had breakfast yet so we popped into the little cafe which had an amazing selection of pastries etc on offer. The quality of the food was amazing and staff were very welcoming.
After our snacks we bumped into Scooby Doo!
We decided to spend the whole day at this park - so lots of time - so decided to walk around the park before checking out the attractions. We went clock-wise so started with Metropolis which is where you'll find all the Justice League stuff - the area is always at dusk. We bumped into Superman.
We passed under a train bridge which led us into Gotham City where we found Harley Quinn who got us to boo Batman. Gotham City is always set at night.
It was then into Cartoon Junction (always day time) where a bunch of childhood favourites appear - I wonder how many of the characters featured are even known by kids these days. I don't too much as I was LOVING all the references and style of it all.
We then pass into Dynamite Gulch which is the main home of Wile E. Coyote but also some other familiar but stranger choices...
The final area of the park is Bedrock - Home of the Flinstones.
Our quick lap of the park over it was time to check out the rides. We were going to start with the Flinstones log flume but it was experiencing a technical problem. No rush so we pop back to Dynamite Gulch where we do the Jetsons cosmic orbiter. This is a FAB family spinner where you sit in little space saucers and you can control them to go up and down and also 360 degrees. It is awesome. The location is odd and because it's located so closely to two rides of totally different themes the soundtrack gets lost a bit. Still, we had an awesome time on this ride.
We then bumped into Marvin the martian outside his ride - Yay! His ride is just a little dodgems-esque ride for the very little ones but it's cool that he got something (also his merch was AMAZING.
It was then time for the first rollercoaster of the trip - Fast and Furry-ous. The theming on this coaster is perfect. The ride however rides like most other Vekoma SFC which is to say it is rough. I don't know how these things ride so poorly (dodge wheel assembly?). Aside from that it's a fun family attraction with some fun on-board audio.
Back in Cartoon Junction where we were going to ride the Scooby Doo dark ride but once we stopped being fascinated by the highly detailed queueline we were informed the ride was experiencing technical problems. Seriously though the queueline is amazing with an insane amount of details relating to the story that occurs on the ride.
Upset we couldn't ride quite yet we headed to the next ride along, the parks second and last rollercoaster, Tom and Jerry Swiss Cheese Spin. Yet again the queueline theming is highly detailed and amazing. You start off going round the house which has clearly seen Tom chase Jerry and then you shrink down to the size of a mouse and find Jerry's bedroom before finding the cheese.
I was expecting a spinning coaster, what I wasn't expecting was a four-car train on a spinning coaster from Zamperla. The ride experience was pretty good but is mainly just a coaster with the odd lit up cut out prop and ends with a big 3D one but as it's a spinning coaster it is easy to miss the majority of what is in there. They might have been better off with a Gerst bob or something. So it's fun and pretty good for families but also feels like a missed opportunity.
I think we were going to check out the other dark ride in this area - Ani-Mayhem - but that too was experiencing down time. Hmm, not having much luck with these dark rides so far. We pop into have a look at the ACME factory which houses a fast food place, shop, 3 small kids rides and a climbing play area thing for kids. It's extremely well themed with lots of cool props etc. Frustratingly a lot of cool things were hard to see from the ground.
Out of the other side of the factory we head into Gotham City from a different angle where we bump into Catwoman. Meow.
Both being fans of the films and Gotham TV show (we're aware it's terrible) it was great seeing so many references to all the characters everywhere. The whole place felt really cool. I should probably point out at this point that the "highlight" - Batman: Knight Flight - a dark ride using the same system as Potter was still not open by the time of our visit. Sounds like it still might be some time before they get it open as they are having some major issues with it. We were pretty sad about this as we were excited to see how they use the ride system but that was the risk of travelling here so shortly after it opened.
We decided to check out the Riddler disko-coaster. Merlin, pay attention, this is how you use a derelict warehouse as theming. The whole set up is fab, as the ride is going the lighting and music create an incredible atmosphere while the Riddler throws random riddles at riders. The ride cycle is also really long and with the whole way it's set up it feels fast and exhilarating. Who knew that'd be raving about a bloomin' disko-coaster? Seriously this was so much fun.
We were going to do the funhouse but it was closed for a cleanup so we opted to give Scarecrow: Scare raid a go. Being a spinny ride that can flip it's not our usual type of ride but we felt like we should. Riders can control the flip on the seats using a joystick. I should note that I'm a fan of Gerst skyflys. This ride however flips you at such a slow speed that it just caused insane amounts of headrush which was unpleasant. I was amused that I could see Batman standing on the roof as the ride was preparing to lower. He waved to anyone that spotted him.
There was noise happening in the center of Gotham... ooo a show! (Spoilers ahead) There was a rapper that was hyping up the Gotham villains. Then Harley Quinn appeared and talked to the audience to prepare us for a party. I entered panic mode as I noted her bag of things and that audience participation was about to occur - there weren't many victims for her to choose. Each group watching had at least one person she chose to pick on, I got told to smile and I got a hat! Ok this is fine and amusing. Carry on. Riddler joins Harley where they discuss their gift for the Joker. Joker then appears who is pretty awesome. Scrap that - all three were amazing. They then needed a victim. I panic again but some other poor dude is chosen and it takes a good minute or two to drag him up. Urgh. He's trapped and then inevitably saved by Batman who enters via a zipline.
TANGENT TIME - Disneyland Paris decided to host a Marvel season this year with the lamest super hero shows you could ever imagine. They NEED whoever made this show. Tangent over.
Villains scarper and the show ends and honestly aside from audience participation panic it was amazing, exactly how a super hero show should be done.
After the show all 4 characters can be found for photo ops. I HAD to get a photo with the Joker seeing as I had my little party hat.
Seeing as we were there and it had re-opened we then checked out Joker's funhouse. Very intrigued to see a themed funhouse. The queueline was cool and showed off the villains we might encounter inside. There was a preshow which was random and felt like something wasn't working. First thing was a mirror maze which was closed off by staff - think I know where the cleaning operation was. The concept of this whole funhouse is great, traditional funhouse segments you'd expect to see but themed to different Batman villains. However the reality of it is disappointing. So much space everywhere, just massive wasted space. Funhouses are best when there's just a constant barrage of THINGS, shouldn't be any time to have a chat between elements. Urgh, I just don't understand how they got this so wrong when the theme was so right.
Hitting a major sour note we moved on to Metropolis where we encountered a VERY enthusiastic staff member at the entrance of Green Lantern: Galactic Odyssey. She tried so hard to convince us to go in with zero chance for us to be like "we were going in anyway". I think she was very bored. The queueline was well themed to a really ornate observatory. The ride is a flying theatre type thing and interestingly set up like a knock off I did in China (Joyland) and not any of the main style of seating.
Our experience didn't start off so great with this as once we were all good to go and the ride started up and then.... audio and no picture. Whoops, so they stopped and reset. For some reason the staff decided to then let a batch of people that managed to materialise in that short amount of time and it led to much faff. Burdenous. However we started up again and the ride went off without a hitch. This was actually a good use of the ride system and amusingly very similar to the previous knock off I mentioned in Joyland. A brief introduction to the different Corps and what they mean because no one knows anything about Green Lantern before going into a bad vs good battle which has some very good 3D moments. Some movements did feel repetitive but overall it was enjoyable.
Outside we found the Flash looking lonely.
He was outside the Justice League ride which had a fab hall. Hang on... is that... people? Other people found the park!
The Justice League dark ride was interesting. It felt like a hybrid of Spiderman and Transformers but there was something missing. This feeling probably wasn't helped by all the backstory being set up in the queue which was just walked straight past but this wasn't helped with no random soundbite etc really explaining anything at the start (Transformers sort of has this issue). A weird thing was how huge but cramped the vehicles felt. The front panel also goes so high that if sat in the front row you sort of have to look up the whole time. I think if I didn't have the experience of similar attractions this would blow my mind as it is good, really good. I think the issue I had was they had psychical sets and while they looked good they felt...dead? For example a small smoke machine after something happening would have made a world of difference. I would like to applaud the use of a villain I've never heard of, I find Super hero rides tend to go for the more obvious/marketable ones.
Next up was Superman 360: Battle for Metropolis. No idea what to expect with this and OMG another villain I've never heard of - well done creative peeps in charge. I think I'll put the experience in a spoiler tag in case peeps don't want to know...
Overall it's impressive and it is great to see the 360 degree screen make a return to theme parks.
Back through the main plaza which is looking much brighter than earlier...
It was back to Bedrock for Flinstones which was now open. I love the theming on this attraction but I did grow up watching a lot of Hanna-Barbera and WB cartoons. The boats are weird in that they're made for two to sit in each row but only 1.5 adults could sit in the same row (maybe 2 very skinny adults). The ride feels like going through an episode which is kinda amazing, there's a very clear story throughout. It is a bit short and weirdly scenes have a mix of 3D models and 2D cutouts, there's also an unusual decision to have a turntable at the top of the lift hill (although it has a neat projection that syncs with it). There was a satisfying spray of water on the drop.
As we re-entered the Gulch area we spotted Wile E. Coyote! He walks around in an amusing way which made me happy.
We had another go on Fast and Furry-ous and the Jetsons orbiter. Both are great. We then got on the Scooby ride and it was fab! Like the Flinstones ride it feels like an episode of the show with a very clear storyline (even more if you pay attention to the queue). They have all the iconic moments you could ask for and with 3 trackless ride vehicles going around together there are unique moments for each vehicle and also (minor spoiler) a famous corridor chase sequence. I don't think I could ask for more from a Scooby ride as they absolutely nailed the feel of the show.
Outside Ani-Mayhem we found Taz!
So, Ani-Mayhem. I had been looking forward to this as they'd been quite a lot of excitement on my Twitter regarding it. It's an interactive dark ride that goes through lots of different Warner Bros. cartoons. It felt like there was a lot going on and I'm sure there were plenty of easter eggs from the cartoons that I totally missed. It's really fun though and it has a small mix of physical and screen based targets.
Now having ticked all the rides off we decided to grab some food. We had lunch at one of the restaurants in the Plaza. The quality of the food was good. I did have a Tiramisu which was slightly disappointing but thats due to me being fussy. Food now consumed we went back to ride our favourites. We started with the Flinstones...
Fast and Furry-ous again before Scooby and Ani-Mayhem.
Did I say how much I love this part of the park?
We then bumped into some more heroes on the way to Gotham...
SPITEFUL THING
We rode Riddlers Revlotuion again because it's just very fun. Before our go a lady getting off the ride acted so weird that us and the ride ops had to keep looking at each other to be like "is she for real?". I think she was just acting up to show who she was with how much it took out of her but it was just bizarre. She fake collapsed after getting off the seat and then once on her feet stood by the ride op box being... hysterical? Can't say I've seen anyone act so unusual when exiting a ride.
We then had another go on Justice League: Warworld attacks. I took some time to appreciate the 2.5D effect they did with some of the backgrounds in Metropolis. Really helped give some depth to the backdrops.
That woman was being a faff, got too impatient to wait for her to get out the way
We then chilled out in the plaza area waiting for the Cinema Spectacular to start. This is such a neat concept but the edit of the whole thing was just... frustrating? It does show how many major movies and IPs Warner have put out over the years though and it must be kicking them that they let Universal have Potter in the parks. It was cool how they had projections all over the place, really used the whole room.
And that was the end of our time at Warner Bros. World. Some things I didn't mention were the shops and tat. The shops had incredible theming and the range of merchandise on offer was great (some things were slightly pricey). One thing that we found annoying because it was so quiet was the size of the queuelines. They have clearly built this place to handle big American park crowds but they didn't build shortcuts into the queuelines for when it was quiet which made re-rides a less desirable thing. However, as I'll probably moan as I go on, this was a common problem during the whole trip.
Either way this is a pretty amazing park. It feels like it is lacking a really big re-ridable attraction that draws in the crowds. I can't even pin what that could be, maybe a Big Thunder Mountain-esque coaster? I know they didn't want to be a coaster park as they wanted to be a complementary offer to Ferrari and not rival but maybe not having one big coaster harms it? I don't know where they've put it but apparently there are loads of expansion pads so if they do expand I'll be excited to see what they do. Will it ever pull in the crowds it needs to keep open? I hope so, along with one other park out there it feels worthy of attention.
We managed to miss the last shuttle bus to the hotel from Warner as it was before the park closed? So we walked to the mall to get it from there. That walk in the evening humidity was something. We were certainly glad to get back to the hotel after that.
That's it for part one. Thank you for reading and I'll hopefully get part 2 (more Yas Island goodness) online soonish.
Our journey began on Sat 8th September when we flew overnight from London to Dubai with Virgin Atlantic. The flight was fine apart from the entertainment system dying. Bless the lady in charge trying to get it to work, she must have spent a good hour or two trying to get it to work. It's fine, an overnight flight I think everyone planned to sleep anyway. I didn't get much sleep because it rarely happens for me on flights.
Sunday 9th was a tough travel day after not much sleep. Neither of us drive so we planned to do everything on our trip via public transport. For some reason info is a bit sketchy in regards to this but we eventually opted to get the Metro out to Ibn Battuta (where the line currently ends due to it still being constructed beyond that - yet no signs allude to this which is weird). From there we got the big bus to Abu Dhabi. The site we used for our info hinted at a stop along the route which would be a good place to get off and get a taxi to our end destination but that was not a thing.
Once in Abu Dhabi we got the 180 bus (after much faffing trying to get a Abu Dhabi travel card thing (like the Oyster)) which took us straight to our hotel in Yas Island - the Centro. The journey was long and exhausting, especially with the heat outside but it made getting up to our massive comfy hotel room even more worth it. We relaxed for a bit and freshened up before getting on the free Yas shuttle bus over to the mall. Over the next few days we spent a lot of time in this labyrinth so we got to know it well but for such a big place it was weird that maps were not a thing. After walking around we decided to start the holiday diet off well with a visit to the Cheesecake factory. I'll never get over the size of their cakes, so ridiculous.
Exhausted we went back to the hotel for a great night of sleep before our first park day.
Monday 10th
We headed straight over to the newest theme park in the UAE - Warner Bros. World. I was way too excited about this park and looking back on the planning we really should have led up to this place rather than starting here. So first interesting thing to note is that the shuttle bus and taxi rank for this park is shared with Yas Waterworld which is literally next door. It's a little insane that the entire exterior of this park is wrapped in images of the characters that lie within, it's quite a striking building when travelling around the area.
I'll apologise in advance of all photos after this point - my camera did not like the lighting and it's hard to tell until on a computer so most look out of focus.
The ticket hall is fairly basic and bright and doesn't give a lot of indication of what to expect. The first "room" of the park is the Warner Bros. Plaza which is entered via two corridors. This massive room represents a more generic Hollywood vibe we're used to with Studio parks and it looks great. A really neat feature is that the ceiling is projected onto so the whole room can change between daytime/nighttime constantly throughout the day. The night setting feels really atmospheric and cool. The only thing to be found in the plaza are shops and restaurants and plenty of character meet and greets throughout the day. At certain times during the day the "cinema spectacular" is shown but more on that later.
We hadn't had breakfast yet so we popped into the little cafe which had an amazing selection of pastries etc on offer. The quality of the food was amazing and staff were very welcoming.
After our snacks we bumped into Scooby Doo!
We decided to spend the whole day at this park - so lots of time - so decided to walk around the park before checking out the attractions. We went clock-wise so started with Metropolis which is where you'll find all the Justice League stuff - the area is always at dusk. We bumped into Superman.
We passed under a train bridge which led us into Gotham City where we found Harley Quinn who got us to boo Batman. Gotham City is always set at night.
It was then into Cartoon Junction (always day time) where a bunch of childhood favourites appear - I wonder how many of the characters featured are even known by kids these days. I don't too much as I was LOVING all the references and style of it all.
We then pass into Dynamite Gulch which is the main home of Wile E. Coyote but also some other familiar but stranger choices...
The final area of the park is Bedrock - Home of the Flinstones.
Our quick lap of the park over it was time to check out the rides. We were going to start with the Flinstones log flume but it was experiencing a technical problem. No rush so we pop back to Dynamite Gulch where we do the Jetsons cosmic orbiter. This is a FAB family spinner where you sit in little space saucers and you can control them to go up and down and also 360 degrees. It is awesome. The location is odd and because it's located so closely to two rides of totally different themes the soundtrack gets lost a bit. Still, we had an awesome time on this ride.
We then bumped into Marvin the martian outside his ride - Yay! His ride is just a little dodgems-esque ride for the very little ones but it's cool that he got something (also his merch was AMAZING.
It was then time for the first rollercoaster of the trip - Fast and Furry-ous. The theming on this coaster is perfect. The ride however rides like most other Vekoma SFC which is to say it is rough. I don't know how these things ride so poorly (dodge wheel assembly?). Aside from that it's a fun family attraction with some fun on-board audio.
Back in Cartoon Junction where we were going to ride the Scooby Doo dark ride but once we stopped being fascinated by the highly detailed queueline we were informed the ride was experiencing technical problems. Seriously though the queueline is amazing with an insane amount of details relating to the story that occurs on the ride.
Upset we couldn't ride quite yet we headed to the next ride along, the parks second and last rollercoaster, Tom and Jerry Swiss Cheese Spin. Yet again the queueline theming is highly detailed and amazing. You start off going round the house which has clearly seen Tom chase Jerry and then you shrink down to the size of a mouse and find Jerry's bedroom before finding the cheese.
I was expecting a spinning coaster, what I wasn't expecting was a four-car train on a spinning coaster from Zamperla. The ride experience was pretty good but is mainly just a coaster with the odd lit up cut out prop and ends with a big 3D one but as it's a spinning coaster it is easy to miss the majority of what is in there. They might have been better off with a Gerst bob or something. So it's fun and pretty good for families but also feels like a missed opportunity.
I think we were going to check out the other dark ride in this area - Ani-Mayhem - but that too was experiencing down time. Hmm, not having much luck with these dark rides so far. We pop into have a look at the ACME factory which houses a fast food place, shop, 3 small kids rides and a climbing play area thing for kids. It's extremely well themed with lots of cool props etc. Frustratingly a lot of cool things were hard to see from the ground.
Out of the other side of the factory we head into Gotham City from a different angle where we bump into Catwoman. Meow.
Both being fans of the films and Gotham TV show (we're aware it's terrible) it was great seeing so many references to all the characters everywhere. The whole place felt really cool. I should probably point out at this point that the "highlight" - Batman: Knight Flight - a dark ride using the same system as Potter was still not open by the time of our visit. Sounds like it still might be some time before they get it open as they are having some major issues with it. We were pretty sad about this as we were excited to see how they use the ride system but that was the risk of travelling here so shortly after it opened.
We decided to check out the Riddler disko-coaster. Merlin, pay attention, this is how you use a derelict warehouse as theming. The whole set up is fab, as the ride is going the lighting and music create an incredible atmosphere while the Riddler throws random riddles at riders. The ride cycle is also really long and with the whole way it's set up it feels fast and exhilarating. Who knew that'd be raving about a bloomin' disko-coaster? Seriously this was so much fun.
We were going to do the funhouse but it was closed for a cleanup so we opted to give Scarecrow: Scare raid a go. Being a spinny ride that can flip it's not our usual type of ride but we felt like we should. Riders can control the flip on the seats using a joystick. I should note that I'm a fan of Gerst skyflys. This ride however flips you at such a slow speed that it just caused insane amounts of headrush which was unpleasant. I was amused that I could see Batman standing on the roof as the ride was preparing to lower. He waved to anyone that spotted him.
There was noise happening in the center of Gotham... ooo a show! (Spoilers ahead) There was a rapper that was hyping up the Gotham villains. Then Harley Quinn appeared and talked to the audience to prepare us for a party. I entered panic mode as I noted her bag of things and that audience participation was about to occur - there weren't many victims for her to choose. Each group watching had at least one person she chose to pick on, I got told to smile and I got a hat! Ok this is fine and amusing. Carry on. Riddler joins Harley where they discuss their gift for the Joker. Joker then appears who is pretty awesome. Scrap that - all three were amazing. They then needed a victim. I panic again but some other poor dude is chosen and it takes a good minute or two to drag him up. Urgh. He's trapped and then inevitably saved by Batman who enters via a zipline.
TANGENT TIME - Disneyland Paris decided to host a Marvel season this year with the lamest super hero shows you could ever imagine. They NEED whoever made this show. Tangent over.
Villains scarper and the show ends and honestly aside from audience participation panic it was amazing, exactly how a super hero show should be done.
After the show all 4 characters can be found for photo ops. I HAD to get a photo with the Joker seeing as I had my little party hat.
Seeing as we were there and it had re-opened we then checked out Joker's funhouse. Very intrigued to see a themed funhouse. The queueline was cool and showed off the villains we might encounter inside. There was a preshow which was random and felt like something wasn't working. First thing was a mirror maze which was closed off by staff - think I know where the cleaning operation was. The concept of this whole funhouse is great, traditional funhouse segments you'd expect to see but themed to different Batman villains. However the reality of it is disappointing. So much space everywhere, just massive wasted space. Funhouses are best when there's just a constant barrage of THINGS, shouldn't be any time to have a chat between elements. Urgh, I just don't understand how they got this so wrong when the theme was so right.
Hitting a major sour note we moved on to Metropolis where we encountered a VERY enthusiastic staff member at the entrance of Green Lantern: Galactic Odyssey. She tried so hard to convince us to go in with zero chance for us to be like "we were going in anyway". I think she was very bored. The queueline was well themed to a really ornate observatory. The ride is a flying theatre type thing and interestingly set up like a knock off I did in China (Joyland) and not any of the main style of seating.
Our experience didn't start off so great with this as once we were all good to go and the ride started up and then.... audio and no picture. Whoops, so they stopped and reset. For some reason the staff decided to then let a batch of people that managed to materialise in that short amount of time and it led to much faff. Burdenous. However we started up again and the ride went off without a hitch. This was actually a good use of the ride system and amusingly very similar to the previous knock off I mentioned in Joyland. A brief introduction to the different Corps and what they mean because no one knows anything about Green Lantern before going into a bad vs good battle which has some very good 3D moments. Some movements did feel repetitive but overall it was enjoyable.
Outside we found the Flash looking lonely.
He was outside the Justice League ride which had a fab hall. Hang on... is that... people? Other people found the park!
The Justice League dark ride was interesting. It felt like a hybrid of Spiderman and Transformers but there was something missing. This feeling probably wasn't helped by all the backstory being set up in the queue which was just walked straight past but this wasn't helped with no random soundbite etc really explaining anything at the start (Transformers sort of has this issue). A weird thing was how huge but cramped the vehicles felt. The front panel also goes so high that if sat in the front row you sort of have to look up the whole time. I think if I didn't have the experience of similar attractions this would blow my mind as it is good, really good. I think the issue I had was they had psychical sets and while they looked good they felt...dead? For example a small smoke machine after something happening would have made a world of difference. I would like to applaud the use of a villain I've never heard of, I find Super hero rides tend to go for the more obvious/marketable ones.
Next up was Superman 360: Battle for Metropolis. No idea what to expect with this and OMG another villain I've never heard of - well done creative peeps in charge. I think I'll put the experience in a spoiler tag in case peeps don't want to know...
You start off by entering the Daily Planet's news studio where on monitors you watch Clark Kent and Louis Lane introduce us to the brand new drone cameras they're launching all over the city to record all news as it's happening live. These cameras are also 360 degrees. But there's a problem and oh no the roof is collapsing on the news anchors. Lights go out and then suddenly the studio building is gone and the massive 3D 360 degree screen is revealed and we're seeing the drone footage of the city being attacked by things. The show is long and the story is a bit weird (probably why I've never heard of this villain) but the scope of it is pretty good and I absolutely love that room disappearing effect.
Overall it's impressive and it is great to see the 360 degree screen make a return to theme parks.
Back through the main plaza which is looking much brighter than earlier...
It was back to Bedrock for Flinstones which was now open. I love the theming on this attraction but I did grow up watching a lot of Hanna-Barbera and WB cartoons. The boats are weird in that they're made for two to sit in each row but only 1.5 adults could sit in the same row (maybe 2 very skinny adults). The ride feels like going through an episode which is kinda amazing, there's a very clear story throughout. It is a bit short and weirdly scenes have a mix of 3D models and 2D cutouts, there's also an unusual decision to have a turntable at the top of the lift hill (although it has a neat projection that syncs with it). There was a satisfying spray of water on the drop.
As we re-entered the Gulch area we spotted Wile E. Coyote! He walks around in an amusing way which made me happy.
We had another go on Fast and Furry-ous and the Jetsons orbiter. Both are great. We then got on the Scooby ride and it was fab! Like the Flinstones ride it feels like an episode of the show with a very clear storyline (even more if you pay attention to the queue). They have all the iconic moments you could ask for and with 3 trackless ride vehicles going around together there are unique moments for each vehicle and also (minor spoiler) a famous corridor chase sequence. I don't think I could ask for more from a Scooby ride as they absolutely nailed the feel of the show.
Outside Ani-Mayhem we found Taz!
So, Ani-Mayhem. I had been looking forward to this as they'd been quite a lot of excitement on my Twitter regarding it. It's an interactive dark ride that goes through lots of different Warner Bros. cartoons. It felt like there was a lot going on and I'm sure there were plenty of easter eggs from the cartoons that I totally missed. It's really fun though and it has a small mix of physical and screen based targets.
Now having ticked all the rides off we decided to grab some food. We had lunch at one of the restaurants in the Plaza. The quality of the food was good. I did have a Tiramisu which was slightly disappointing but thats due to me being fussy. Food now consumed we went back to ride our favourites. We started with the Flinstones...
Fast and Furry-ous again before Scooby and Ani-Mayhem.
Did I say how much I love this part of the park?
We then bumped into some more heroes on the way to Gotham...
SPITEFUL THING
We rode Riddlers Revlotuion again because it's just very fun. Before our go a lady getting off the ride acted so weird that us and the ride ops had to keep looking at each other to be like "is she for real?". I think she was just acting up to show who she was with how much it took out of her but it was just bizarre. She fake collapsed after getting off the seat and then once on her feet stood by the ride op box being... hysterical? Can't say I've seen anyone act so unusual when exiting a ride.
We then had another go on Justice League: Warworld attacks. I took some time to appreciate the 2.5D effect they did with some of the backgrounds in Metropolis. Really helped give some depth to the backdrops.
That woman was being a faff, got too impatient to wait for her to get out the way
We then chilled out in the plaza area waiting for the Cinema Spectacular to start. This is such a neat concept but the edit of the whole thing was just... frustrating? It does show how many major movies and IPs Warner have put out over the years though and it must be kicking them that they let Universal have Potter in the parks. It was cool how they had projections all over the place, really used the whole room.
And that was the end of our time at Warner Bros. World. Some things I didn't mention were the shops and tat. The shops had incredible theming and the range of merchandise on offer was great (some things were slightly pricey). One thing that we found annoying because it was so quiet was the size of the queuelines. They have clearly built this place to handle big American park crowds but they didn't build shortcuts into the queuelines for when it was quiet which made re-rides a less desirable thing. However, as I'll probably moan as I go on, this was a common problem during the whole trip.
Either way this is a pretty amazing park. It feels like it is lacking a really big re-ridable attraction that draws in the crowds. I can't even pin what that could be, maybe a Big Thunder Mountain-esque coaster? I know they didn't want to be a coaster park as they wanted to be a complementary offer to Ferrari and not rival but maybe not having one big coaster harms it? I don't know where they've put it but apparently there are loads of expansion pads so if they do expand I'll be excited to see what they do. Will it ever pull in the crowds it needs to keep open? I hope so, along with one other park out there it feels worthy of attention.
We managed to miss the last shuttle bus to the hotel from Warner as it was before the park closed? So we walked to the mall to get it from there. That walk in the evening humidity was something. We were certainly glad to get back to the hotel after that.
That's it for part one. Thank you for reading and I'll hopefully get part 2 (more Yas Island goodness) online soonish.
