Day 13 (2023) Motiongate Themepark Dubai & Yas Bay Abu Dhabi

4/17/2023

Day 13

Visited Highlights: Motiongate Themepark

What would you do if you had a theme park all to yourself???

That is probably the dream of every roller coaster junkie.

This dream came true for us - (almost) alone in Motiongate Themepark Dubai! After breakfast we head towards Dubai around 10:15 a.m. The park, which is located just before the gates of Dubai and can be easily reached via the E11, a 5-lane highway, opens at 11 a.m.

We arrive shortly after 11 a.m. and follow the familiar signs for 'Visitor Parking', which we have followed on our previous visits to the park in recent years. Unfortunately, the road in the middle is closed, we have to turn around. Hm. And now???

We follow the signs for VIP Parking. Just before the entrance to 'Riverland', there are also signs for 'regular parking' displayed. The VIP spots in the front row are empty. We park in the second row. There are about 15 cars in the huge parking lot - for 4 parks! (Legoland, Legoland Water Park, Riverland, Bollywood Park & Motiongate Park).

Okay, it won't be crowded today. We stroll through the park city, an artificially created lagoon landscape, with the Legoland hotel in the background, across the plaza with restaurants and shops, past the largest 'inflatable' jump park I have ever seen (no children inside) to the entrance of Motiongate Park. In the park we see a handful of people. We start in the 'Lionsgate' section of the park with the new roller coaster based on the movie 'Now You See Me', a roller coaster in the style of the 'wild mouse', but with light twists and, to my dismay, the seats rotate. You sit back to back with someone and never know if you're going forward or backward when you plummet into the depths 😅

My son is not a roller coaster junkie, but he dares to ride with me in the front so he can see what's coming. Great, at this point we had no idea that the seats would rotate. So, it goes as it must: we go forward on the tracks steeply up and then go backward, as our car suddenly turns just before the drop, heading downward. We spin before every turn and twist, I hardly know if I'm looking forward or backward. Yuck, not my thing... Okay, I bravely went along on this ride, but I let the family ride alone on the second round. By the way, we are the only ones in the car 😅

Also on the way to the Lionsgate section with the 'Hunger Games' roller coaster 'Bullet Train', we are alone. We ride the roller coaster 3 times, with different combinations of riders. We share the entire ride with a maximum of a handful of other roller coaster junkies. This is also one of our favorite roller coasters at the parks in the UAE. If you don't know what to expect, you're amazed when you suddenly lose speed on the way to the loop, rush back, and stand almost vertically in the air on a track, only to be catapulted into the loop. So much fun!!!

We continue to Dreamworks. Here is one of our favorite rides, the 'Dragon Glider' from the movie 'How to Train Your Dragon'. But first, we start at Kung Fu Panda with a 3D river adventure in the simulator. Not for me, I feel sick after the first rapids, so I close my eyes and listen to everyone else having fun. Then we go to the Dragon Glider. We fly through the world of 'Hiccup and Toothless'. Simply a super cool ride, which we ride 5 or 6 times today. No need to wait in line. The queues are impressive, designed for hundreds of tourists. It's crazy, if they were full, you would have to wait 60-90 minutes. We just walk through all the 'cattle gates'. Even my time-lapse video takes 15 seconds to walk through the queues. Insane...

The kids ride everything they can. From the carousel to the pirate ship swing to the roller coaster in the Madagascar section. We really like the 'Mad Pursuit'. A launch coaster in the dark 😅😜 Sooo much fun. Even my son likes it 💪🏻

We then go to the Smurf Village. We ride the Green Hornet roller coaster, shoot ghosts in Ghostbusters, get scared in Hotel Transylvania, experience the thrill in the free fall tower (beware, you will be startled by a horror clown in the queue area) and go on the 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' rafting adventure.

The last 4 times we were here, we didn't get wet on the rafting ride. Apparently, they made it more intense because on the first run, the Russian guy in front of us gets wet in the first wave. Shortly after, another wave splashes over our raft and soaks my daughter, and the last wave makes my backside wet. But it's fun.

In previous years, it was very hot here and we would have welcomed the cool down. Today, it's cloudy, +27 degrees Celsius, and windy, rather 'chilly'. Actually, it's an ideal temperature for an amusement park, but a bit too cold to get soaked.... However, that's exactly what happens to me on the second rafting run. I go through every wave, the last one splashes me sideways with full force, so that I am soaked on both sides down to my underwear 😱🙈 Luckily, I'm wearing sandals, so my feet are also washed...

We treat ourselves to a €5 cappuccino and I try to dry off a bit. It's uncomfortable when your underwear is wet and it's not over +30 degrees anymore. We start the second round at Dreamworks and Lionsgate around 5 p.m.

After the kids' 5th round on the Madagascar roller coaster and my 4th round on the Bullet Train, we leave the park around 6:30 p.m. Due to Ramadan, there are probably no shows at the Hollywood Theater, but that was not a problem. Since we were almost alone everywhere and never had to queue, we rode each attraction 2-9 times 😅😅

Something like this would never happen in a German amusement park!!!

The parks were never crowded here, but it was never as empty as today. It's almost exhausting to have done all the attractions in 1.5 hours 😅 We walk back to the Riverland exit. I quickly take a photo of the 'hands' in front of the entrance to Bollywood Park and see that it is closed. Maybe because of Ramadan? We had actually planned to stop at Last Exit at the food trucks for dinner, but after the many roller coaster rides, our stomachs are not hungry yet. We drive back towards Abu Dhabi, stop at Deerfields Mall and buy some groceries at CARREFOUR, then we continue to Yas Island to the new promenade to show the kids the giant diver. We even find the Waterfront parking garage right away, which leads directly to the waterfront with the astronaut. After strolling around everything, we stop across from the Al Raha International School at the food trucks and have salad, shawarma (a kind of wrap), and a halloumi roll for dinner from a local provider. What a cool day.