Abu Dhabi – If you happen to be passing through Abu Dhabi, UAE, how about setting aside a few hours to see the Justice League headquarters, Gotham City, the Flintstones cave, Scooby-Doo Museum, the Joker’s house? You can do all that and much more in the latest theme park to open in the emirate: Warner Bros. World. The venue features rides and activities inspired by movie characters, comic books and cartoons produced or distributed by the US-based film company.
Spanning about 153,000 sqm, this is the brand’s biggest theme park in the world. Almost everything about it is bombastic, beginning with the artificial sky on the roof of the main square. If you get there as the doors are opening, you get to watch famous movie clips on a big screen, complete with emotional music, heart-stopping sound effects, evil shadows flying across the sky-roof, fireworks going off, chilling laughter from the Joker, and the crowning of Aragorn.
If it’s a school field trip day, the show ends the minute people start running for the many aisles leading to the toy areas. Bedrock? Dynamite Gulch? Cartoon Junction? Gotham City? Metropolis? There are plenty of options, but you must choose quickly, because the competition is fierce for the most thrilling, scariest attractions, especially when it comes to the teenagers – who’ll jump, shout, run and cut in line anywhere in the world, in Portuguese or Arabic.
One Thursday in December, lots of people wanted to ride The Riddler Revolution, a spinning rollercoaster themed after Batman’s enemy. The settings are dark, the music, suspenseful, and the screams of people on the ride are loud. Instead of several cars, everyone gets aboard a huge, round-shaped unit that goes up and down as it spins on its axis. In between the ups and downs – which get faster and faster –, you get a squirt of water in your face.
And if the Riddler ride wasn’t scary enough, it sits right next to The Joker Funhouse. You enter the area through the character’s wide-open mouth. In the first room, visitors are surrounded by laughter, scary speeches and Joker faces that appear and then vanish. Is that all? No, wait, the floor is sinking! And the way out of the room is a maze full of mirrors that’ll test your orientation skills.
But nothing compares to Batman’s Knight Flight. There is a job fair here, and the superhero invites visitors to take a test for a job driving a prototype urban patrol vehicle that will help keep Gotham safe. The moment you sit in a suspended chair, the adventure begins. The chair moves all over, as virtual reality tricks the driver into believing they’re flying amid skyscrapers and blasts, as Batman fights his enemies.
The three attractions mentioned above are in the Gotham City area, but not everything is scary at Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi. In the Metropolis area, whose themes are the Justice League, the Green Lantern, Superman and the Teen Titans, you can simply visit the League headquarters and take pictures with big statues of your heroes. The Teen Titans Training Academy offers adventure sports, including a big, toy-like piece of equipment for you to walk on and a zipline hanging from the ceiling.
The other areas in the park – Bedrock, Dynamite Gulch and Cartoon Junction – are the most playful, and therefore most attractive to smaller children, as well as those who used to watch the cartoons as children and would like to take a trip back in time. In Bedrock, the big attraction is a boat ride in the world of the Flintstones. The artificial river runs through the city, and right next to the boat, lots of things happen to Fred, Wilma, Pebbles, Barney, Betty, Bamm-Bamm and their friends, including the family dinosaur. The vessel goes up and down a couple of times, showering its passengers with droplets of water.
In the Jetsons-themed Dynamite Gulch, small spacecrafts spin round and an inverted roller coaster goes up and down and around, its cars hanging, as Wile E. Coyote tries to catch the Road Runner, in a setting reminiscent of the desert in southwest USA.
The Cartoon Junctions area houses the Scooby-Doo Museum of Mysteries. After walking through rooms with sinister pictures in which some faces have lit-up eyes, visitors get on a trolley to join Scooby, Shaggy, Fred, Daphne and Velma in trying to find out what’s wrong with the museum, which is about to be shut down. One of the funniest bits is when the car the visitor’s in gets chased by another one with Shaggy, Scooby and a ghost onboard.
The rides are plenty and it takes a lot of energy to enjoy everything in one day. Several shops and restaurants are available. You can get hamburger, ice cream, spaghetti, sandwiches and lots more in between your rides. You can also get a Flintstones purse, a Batman shirt, a Superman mug and endless options of clothes, toys and souvenirs. The park also hosts shows and other attractions on special dates.
Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi is located in Yas Island, close to other tourist and leisure attractions, like the Ferrari World theme park and Yas Mall. Tickets sell online for AED 295 for adults and AED 230 for kids up to 1.1 meter tall. Admission is free for children age 3 or under.
Quick facts
Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi
Open every day from 10 am to 8 pm
Yas Island – Abu Dhabi
Find out more: +971 600 511115 or contact@yasconcierge.com
Website: https://www.wbworldabudhabi.com/
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum