Mousekingdom Blog

If you answered Orlando - you are right, you can find a SeaWorld theme park (next to the unique sister park “Discovery Cove” and the all new water park “Aquatica”) and as well as a Universal Resort (featuring the Islands of Adventure park, the Universal Studios park, the City Walk entertainment disctrict as well as hotels) in Orlando Florida … but there is another answer that is correct:

soon in DUBAI (UAE - United Arab Emirates)!

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Busch Entertainment Corp. (owner of the SeaWorld and Busch Gardens parks in the USA as well as of Discovery Cove andf Aquatica) today announced that it will bring its parks to Dubai early in the next decade.

Busch Entertainment (part of the Annheuser-Busch group) and the localdeveloper Nakheel will together build a complete resort on a man-made island shaped in the form of a killer whale. The island is part of the man-made Palm Jebel Ali island. Nakheel will finance,. build and operate the resort, while Busch Entertainment will license the brands and concept and will manage the resort that eventually will feature four parks: SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, Discovery Cove and an Aquatica water park. In addition hotels, spas, shops and restaurants are supposed to be located in on the resort island.

SeaWorld will be set up in the head / front area of the killer whale shaped island, Aquatica in the center, Busch Gardens in the rear and Discovery Cove in the top fin. This will be the first resort of Busch-Entertainment featuring all four park concepts of the group, as in Orlando (the first and so far only location featuring Aquatica and Discovery Cove) no Busch Gardens park can be found, which instead is located in Tampa Bay.

How long will you have to wait till you can visit this new resort? Well, according to the Orlando Sentinel report from the announcement earlier today the first phase will open in 2012 - but no word about the actual scope of that first phase and when the complete resort will be operational.

But why am I reporting this here on the Mousekingdom Blog - just read the statement of Busch Entertainment President Jim Atchison as cited by the Orlando Sentinel: “‘Dubai offers at true global stage for our brands,’ Atchison said, adding that Dubai “looks a lot like Orlando” before Orlando blossomed into perhaps the best-known family-vacation destination in the world“.

Universal seems to think along similar lines, after all their “Universal Studios Dubailand” (supposed to be similar to the Orlando resort size-wise and estimated to attract about 5 million guests per year) was announced last year and should open in 2010. And these are only two resorts, additional theme and amusement parks as well as other entertainment offerings and water parks are under development as well - as already reported on this blog by Andy in the past. The only “big player” missing out on the game so far? Disney!

As Atchison said: Dubai could very well become the next Orlando - and one much cheaper to travel to for all the Europeans as I might point out, which are currently an essential element of the guest mix in Orlando and without whom Orlando would fall rather deep and hard. So wouldn’t it be natural for Disney to try to get into the game in Dubai as well?? I think so … especially if they could find a local partner willing to food the majority of the bill - which should be no problem considering the amount of captial available for investments in Dubai and the global brand that Disney has developed.

Me personally? I can see myself visiting Dubai for all the parks and resorts, no matter whether Disney is there or not … but then I do LOVE SeaWorld (just ask Andy <g>). I sure would not travel to Dubai and Orlando in the same year. In fact if I look at my own travels I would assume that Orlando might easily drop of the radar unless Disney an attraction is opened in any of the resorts and parks there I would consider “must see”. Afterall for the quick Disney fix there is always my beloved Disneyland Resort Paris, for the best Disney atmosphere there is Anaheim (which has the wonderful state of California as added bonus), and for all new rides, SeaWorld and Universal there would be Dubai (much closer than Orlando). So if the pricing is right, why would I want to travel to Orlando? Only for “must see”-attractions, which might be rather hard to come by if the Dubai resorts would continue to invest into new attractions as well. Sure thesa are only preliminary thoughts, which might be greatly changed depending on actual pricing once the resorts in Dubai open. Also I surely would miss Walt Disney World and would visit it now and then again, but the extensive resorts in Dubai seem to a good chance of reducing the number of trips I do to Orlando. What about YOU?

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 7:00 pm and is filed under Non-Disney theme & amusement parks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.