Latest news with #attractions
Forbes
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Disneyland Abu Dhabi Could Be Disney's Largest Theme Park
Disneyland Abu Dhabi has the potential to become Disney's biggest theme park Theme park announcements usually give fans the most important details about upcoming attractions such as when they will open, what they are called and where they will be located. The announcement that a Disney park will be built in Abu Dhabi is an exception. When Disney made the announcement in May it only distributed two pieces of extremely eye-catching but obscure concept art along with a press release containing precious few details. Like a classic fairytale, it kept fans guessing by raising more questions than answers. The biggest question on everyone's lips was when the park will open. On the day of the announcement, Josh D'Amaro, chairman of Disney's Experiences theme park division, told Reuters that a project of this scale could take a year or two to design, and another four to six years to build. On the same day, Disney's chief executive Bob Iger was interviewed by CNBC about the development of its theme parks and said "it typically takes us between 18 months and two years to design and fully develop and approximately five years to build." In contrast, just a few hours later Disney's publicity team told this author that "we have not been giving an estimated opening date" for the park. As this report revealed, the details on the invitation to the Disneyland Abu Dhabi announcement said that it would showcase the "vision for the next five years" of Yas Island, the entertainment destination where the park will be built. This suggested that the earliest it could swing open its doors is 2030, one year ahead of a new park in Britain being developed by Disney's arch rival Universal Studios. This reflected D'Amaro's timeline though Disney's public relations agency was quick to point out that the promise of an announcement about the vision for the next five years of Yas Island was simply a way of inviting media "without mentioning Disney" in order to keep the project under wraps. Even the official name of the park has yet to be revealed. Disney's media site links to fact sheets about its parks with each one showing its official name. In contrast, the tab for its upcoming outpost is simply marked 'Abu Dhabi'. It goes through to the announcement press release which includes a quote from Iger referring to "Disneyland Abu Dhabi" whereas the page about the park on the Yas Island website describes it as "Disney Abu Dhabi". Both 'Disneyland' and 'Disney' are used in the official names of the Mouse's other resorts so both are possibilities. Perhaps mindful of this, the Abu Dhabi government's release refers in general terms to "the Disney Theme Park Resort project" which further suggests that an official naming announcement is still to come. Surprisingly, internet records show that a seemingly unconnected individual registered the domain back in April whereas Disney registered and on May 6, the day before the official announcement. There is good reason why this was done so late. Unlike the majority of Disney's resorts, it won't own or operate the one in Abu Dhabi. Instead, it will be controlled by Miral, comfortably the world's leading dedicated theme park management company. Miral will pay licensing fees and royalties to Disney in return for the right to run the park and use its characters in it. They are in safe hands. Yas Island's current attractions include the Ferrari World theme park (Photo by Beata ... More Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images) Miral manages a collection of four parks on Yas Island and they are widely renowned for being the best in the world outside Disney and Universal. It began working its magic in 2010 with the opening of Ferrari World Abu Dhabi. The park is home to the world's fastest roller coaster and the latest generation of ride from the company behind many of the most immersive attractions in Disney and Universal parks as this report explained. Ferrari World was followed in 2013 with Yas Waterworld, a water park awash with innovative features including a suspended roller coaster which weaves between the slides and a flooding 3D theater outlined in this report. Five years later, Warner Bros. World made its debut and later became the first theme park in the Middle East to appear on the Global Attractions Attendance report with 1.8 million visitors streaming through its turnstiles in 2023 as this author reported in local newspaper The Khaleej Times. Miral's latest park, SeaWorld Abu Dhabi, also launched in 2023 and immediately made a splash with a first-of-its-kind ride described in detail here. The park aces every other SeaWorld and blows the Living Seas pavilion at Walt Disney World in Orlando out of the water. Iger liked what he saw so much that it only took him a matter of months to decide to entrust Disney's brand to Miral. SeaWorld opened on Yas Island in 2023 He told CNBC that he first started considering expanding in the Middle East in 2017 or 2018 but according to Miral's chief executive, Mohamed Al Zaabi, the Disney team only made its first visit to Abu Dhabi in 2024. "For some of them, it was their first time ever to visit this region, and they were saying they could not believe it. That was their reaction," he said in an interview with local title Forbes Middle East. In the CNBC interview, Iger added that he had visited Abu Dhabi three times in the past nine months culminating in the deal with Miral which was signed on April 29 as Al Zaabi revealed on Instagram. It left such a short amount of time to hit the announcement deadline of May 7 that the Miral team had to get to work on the unveiling event before pen had been put to paper. Rafae Ali, Miral's head of brand marketing, events and activations revealed that he and his team only had 14 days to deliver the Disney announcement celebration event which is an extraordinary feat given how elaborate it was as this author reported. When the park will open and what it will be called aren't the only questions which were left unanswered by the announcement. There's also the matter of exactly where it will be located on Yas Island. All Disney and Miral disclosed is that it would be a waterfront park and this was reflected in the concept art which showed the park's gleaming crystalline castle standing right next to the sea. "We'll be able to pull water in and play with it in a completely new and unique way," explained D'Amaro without saying exactly where the park will be located. However, this soon became clear thanks to some detective work by Themeparx, the leading source of attraction construction photos. It noted that the site of the announcement has been described as the future location of the park. The website correlated the buildings in the background of the announcement photos with ones on Google Maps and concluded that it was on the beach in the north of Yas Island. This happens to be the largest area of clear land on the coast of the island so it would make sense for the new park to be located there. There is more than enough space for it to have a happy ending. In the wake of the Themeparx post, a number of other outlets began reporting on the likely location of the new park. They included TheWrap which recently wrote that although "Miral and Disney haven't officially announced how big the park will be, there is a 300-acre parcel of land waiting to be developed on the island. As pointed out by someone working on the project, if that 300-acre parcel is indeed used, this would make it the smallest Disney theme park in the world, just a few acres less than Hong Kong. "It constrains what they can do," an individual who has been shown plans told TheWrap." It is unclear if the outlet was referring to the north Yas site or another one but if it is the former, it seems that it didn't cross reference its information with a map. Drawing a boundary around the north Yas site on Google Maps reveals that it isn't 300 acres but 1.94 square kilometers or 479 acres as can be seen below. That's not all. The reported site of Disneyland on Yas Island is around 479 acres Disneyland Abu Dhabi will be the only Disney park located in a resort which is also home to outposts of rival operators like SeaWorld and Warner Bros. The resort is Yas Island and the north beach site isn't the only area of available space on it. Indeed, two years ago, Al Zaabi told this author that "I would say 60% [of Yas Island is developed already]. Still 40 to go." Accordingly, unlike the majority of Disney's resorts, its themed hotels and dining and entertainment district don't have to be located right next to the park. One of the few exceptions is Walt Disney World where the Disney Springs shopping and dining district is around a 15-minute drive from Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park which, in turn, is also around 15 minutes away from the futuristic Contemporary, the tropical Polynesian and the turn-of-the-century Grand Floridian hotels. If Disneyland Abu Dhabi follows this model then the north beach site could be used exclusively for the theme park which could make it one of the biggest in the world. As the list below shows, measuring the area on Google Maps reveals that each of Disney's existing theme parks should comfortably fit into the north Yas site with more than 100 acres to spare. The size of Disney's theme parks The only possible exception is Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando as it isn't possible to distinguish whether some of the backstage land is unused or is a grazing area for animals. Animal Kingdom's area comes to around 340 acres but according to Disney, it spans more than 500. It isn't clear if that includes car parking spaces, bus stops and other areas outside the berm of the park which could be located elsewhere on Yas Island. Disney also says that its Magic Kingdom in Orlando could fit in the Kilimanjaro Safaris ride in Animal Kingdom which is perfectly possible as the former is 155 acres and appears to be around half the size of the latter park. The areas were all calculated by drawing around the perimeter of the park, including backstage buildings but excluding car parks which could be located elsewhere on Yas Island. Accordingly, although the overall resort in Hong Kong (including three hotels) is around 310 acres, the theme park itself is only 150 acres. It is important to note that just because there is enough space on Yas Island to build Disney's biggest park, that doesn't mean to say this is what Miral will do as its size has not yet been revealed. Miral could of course build multiple parks on the land which is three times bigger than Tokyo DisneySea, widely considered to be the world's most immersive and engrossing theme park. Likewise, it could also build a small park on the site but it has much more reason to do the opposite. When Warner Bros. World opened it earned the accolade of being the world's largest indoor theme park and it wasn't just to boast. Miral is backed by the Abu Dhabi government which is using the vast resources it amassed from oil to build a leisure infrastructure and diversify its economy due to dwindling fossil fuel reserves. In April last year Abu Dhabi approved new plans to boost visitor numbers to 39.3 million by 2030 in order to increase the amount that travel and tourism contributes to its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – the value of all of the goods and services it produces. Non-oil GDP is expected to rise from $13.3 billion in 2023 to $24.5 billion in 2030 and theme parks are at the vanguard of this expansion as they are magnets for tourists. Warner Bros. World opened with the accolade of world's biggest indoor theme park (Photo credit ... More GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP via Getty Images) Ensuring that Warner Bros. World was the world's largest indoor theme park drove publicity and made the park more desirable which attracted more tourists. Similarly, the better the parks are, the more tourists they attract which is why Miral's attractions are immaculate. The Abu Dhabi government has even deeper pockets than movie studios do so this is a magic formula to create the best of the best attractions without any need to cut corners. Cutting corners defeats the object of the theme parks for the government as if guests aren't happy with the experience, they might not come back to the city. The bigger the brand, the more tourists the park is likely to attract and the farther they are prepared to travel to get there. Although Disney is facing stiff competition from Universal, it still dominates the theme park industry which makes it a dream ticket for Miral. The only hurdle is Disney's home-grown competition. Abu Dhabi is in a sweet spot with one-third of the world's population located within a four-hour flight. It is also part of the largest global airline hub in the world, with 120 million passengers traveling through Abu Dhabi and nearby Dubai each year. The closest Disney park is currently in Paris which is a seven hour flight away giving Disneyland Abu Dhabi a catchment area with a huge untapped audience. However, Abu Dhabi's ambitions are greater than that. It aims to be the world's leading theme park destination and in order to take that crown it will have to attract guests from far and wide which will put its Disney outpost in competition with all of the others. To tempt tourists to Abu Dhabi instead, its Disney park will have to be better than the rest which explains why Iger made the bold claim that it will be "the most technologically advanced theme park that we've ever built." It could also be why it might end up being the biggest.
CNN
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
This is what Disneyland looked like when it opened 70 years ago
Billed as the 'Happiest Place on Earth,' Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955, ushering in the birth of the modern theme park industry. Walt Disney wanted to create a destination where both parents and children could have fun together — a clean space that immersed families in elaborate theming, with attractions inspired by his stories and films. Despite strong skepticism from financial backers and operational challenges in transforming 160 acres of orange groves, Disney promoted the park by appearing in a weekly television show and eventually hosted a grand opening live on ABC. Opening day entry prices were $1 for adults and 50 cents for kids, with each ride as an added cost, according to Don Munsil of who tracks historical ticket prices. Main Street USA, Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland and Tomorrowland welcomed guests to experience 20 attractions. Today, the original park has grown to more than 50 rides, shows and exhibits. A second park, Disney California Adventure, was added to the resort in 2001. With plans for the property to be rezoned in order to expand its theme park footprint over the next several decades, the company embraces Walt Disney's saying that 'Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.'
The Sun
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
The trendy London neighbourhood with world-famous new museum and cool hotels
STRATFORD is having a moment thanks to some exciting new museums and attractions. Put on the map following the creation of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in 2012, the East London neighbourhood is slowly becoming a trendy spot to go to. 3 3 3 So much so, it was named the coolest place to visit in London by Time Out earlier this year. And that's been backed further by the opening of the much anticipated V&A East Storehouse ( at the end of May. It is certainly expansive – spread across four floors, taking up the space of 30 basketball courts. Free to visit, after putting my handbag into one of the many lockers (big bags and bulky coats along with food and drink aren't allowed inside) I was ready to explore. The museum's collection is broken down into three 'themes' – items that have a story, items inspired by the V&A and items that show a working museum. An element I loved was the lack of walls so you can see everything while standing in one spot – almost reminding me of an IKEA warehouse. But the variation of items (of which there are 250,000) means there is something for everyone. Kids will be fascinated by the sword displays, while I loved the items from important protests throughout history. Architecture lovers will be taken by the famous Frank Lloyd Wright rooms and there is enough art and memorabilia to keep all types occupied, from motorbikes and guitars to magazines and interiors. Yet, it's a museum made for the modern day – every piece has a QR code to scan for more information rather than huge signs of text. Take a look inside London's Hotel 41 Later this year it will open the David Bowie Centre, an archive dedicated to the six decades of the late singer's career. And next spring will see the opening of V&A East Museum, a 7,000sqm attraction space with live shows and pop-ups. But that's not the only new boost of culture at Stratford. Following the success of Sadler's Wells Theatre in Islington, the new Sadler's Wells East ( has also opened just around the corner from the new V&A. Huge bowls of pasta With live dance shows, from flamenco to hip hop, I was left in awe watching Find Your Eyes – a show created by photographer Benji Reid who used dance alongside his live photography on stage. With my battery running low, I needed some downtime and thankfully just around the corner was the stylish Gantry Hotel. It's a great evening destination, where you'll spot everyone from laptop types in the lobby to after-work drinkers on the terrace. The day-lounge-turned-evening-restaurant Union Social kept me well fed with huge bowls of pasta followed by a glass of wine from the retro Coupe bar.
The Sun
10-07-2025
- The Sun
Four savvy ways to enjoy cheap days out with the family this summer
WITH all the fine weather, it's the perfect time to get out and explore some top attractions. But big days out can be very hard on your wallet. Here are ways to have some family fun for less. CONSIDER A PASS: You will usually find the best-priced tickets by booking online and in advance. If you have a paid attraction near you that you enjoy, annual passes that allow multiple visits or give money off can also work out as exceptionally good value. Keep an eye out as some venues offer passes at sale prices, often around January or Black Friday in November. The National Art Pass is currently £20 for three months and gives half-price entry to a host of exhibitions and sites across the UK such as Kensington Palace. You'd only need to use it around two or three times to make your money back. CHECK YOUR PHONE: Look at what you can get as extra customer perks through your utility providers. O2 and Virgin Media broadband customers can tap into offers every Monday through the Blue Mondays scheme with Priority from O2. Recent drops have included a half-price 'day out with the kids' VIP pass which unlocks children-go-free and two-for-one offers. VERY BENEFICIAL: If you're on Universal Credit or other selected benefits, you can get cut-price entry to a range of attractions often for as little as £1 or even free. But you will usually need to book in advance to take advantage. Contact the admissions office or check websites for the special tickets. London Zoo, the Eden Project in Cornwall and Hampton Court Palace are just some of the places where you can get cheap tickets. TRAVEL BY TRAIN: If you're travelling for a day out by train, you can get two-for-one and other discounts at attractions across the UK, including the Roald Dahl Museum in Buckinghamshire and the Brighton Toy and Model Museum. Claim offers online at All prices on page correct at time of going to press. Deals and offers subject to availability. 7 Deal of the day JET away with this three-pack of wheeled suitcases, down from £101 to £59.99 at SAVE: £41.01 Cheap treat REVIVE your skin with the PS . . . pomegranate sheet mask, £1.30, from Primark. Top swap GIVE yourself some extra storage with the six-drawer Malm chest, £149 from Ikea. Or save some cash with a similar style, £95 from B&M. Shop & save MAKE yourself a classsic summer cocktail with Pimm's on offer at better than than half price – £10 a litre – with a loyalty card at Tesco and Sainsbury's. PLAY NOW TO WIN £200 7 JOIN thousands of readers taking part in The Sun Raffle. Every month we're giving away £100 to 250 lucky readers - whether you're saving up or just in need of some extra cash, The Sun could have you covered. Every Sun Savers code entered equals one Raffle ticket. The more codes you enter, the more tickets you'll earn and the more chance you will have of winning!
Telegraph
09-07-2025
- Telegraph
The 25 best things to do in the New Forest
Considering it contains Britain's smallest National Park, the New Forest offers a surprising number of highly diverse attractions. Many involve outdoor pursuits, but theme parks and museums get a look in too, as do its prettiest urban settlements. It's a special place, the landscape unchanged in 1,000 years, and those of us who live in, love and look after the New Forest are constantly mindful of the fine balance between entertaining visitors and preserving its fragile ecology. Investigate the history and living traditions of this ancient land and you will be richly rewarded: plenty of the attractions on this list allow you to do just that. All our recommendations below have been hand selected and tested by our resident destination expert to help you discover the best things to do in the New Forest. Find out more below, or for more New Forest inspiration, see our guide to the region's best hotels, restaurants and pubs. Find things to do by type: Best for families Best free things to do Best for sunny weather Best for rainy days Best for active exploration Best for families Buckler's Hard Step back in time Enchantingly set on the Beaulieu River, Buckler's Hard transports you to its 18th-century heyday as a shipyard for Nelson's navy. With a lively and engaging museum, reconstructed cottages, a river trip to the mouth of the Solent, a bustling marina and an atmospheric pub, Henry's at the Master Builder's, Buckler's Hard is unmissable. Insider Tip: Don't miss tiny St Mary's Chapel and its stunning altar frontal, designed and stitched by the late Belinda, Lady Montagu. An 8am communion service is held there every Sunday. You can walk to Beaulieu on the two-mile riverside path and breakfast afterwards at the Master Builder's.
