Some of you might have seen Dubailand in the news in the last day or two. There was an AFP article ('Dubailand' aims to be Middle East Orlando) that Yahoo was floating around, and also golfer Tiger Woods just broke ground yesterday on a golf course ("Al Ruwaya") and a 197 resident community ("The Tiger Woods Dubai").
But I don't buy this. I think I have to call "shenanigans" on Dubailand.
If I have to hear "Dubailand is Disneyland in the desert" or "Dubailand will be twice the size of [Walt] Disney World in Florida" or "Dubailand is Disneyland on steroids" I'm going to puke.
Because Dubailand is fictional.
Fik shuh nal.
Just because there's a billboard and a logo and some really pretty visual development artwork doesn't mean that this thing exists or will ever exist.
I mean, heck, I could send out a press release saying that I'm going to build a theme park three-times the size of Japan in the woods of Wyoming, and there are going to be dinosaurs and martians and bigfoot and flying cars and more roller-coasters than Cedar Point and happy family-land and shopping and hotels and spas and a artificial lake with artificial islands in that lake, and artificial lakes on those artificial islands, and the whole thing will be staffed by supermodels and it'll be powered by cold fusion and be carbon neutral and it opens to the world at noon on Friday ... but that doesn't mean that it's reality.
To back up, Dubailand is a proposed $64 billion set of theme parks that will cover 278 square kilometers, and include an indoor ski slope, car-racing track, dinosaur theme park, indoor rain forest, Universal Studios theme park and 55 different hotels - including the world's largest with 6,500 rooms. The whole thing should open by 2015.
Or 2018.
Or 2025.
Shenanigans.
See, all of the details are a bit murky. Somewhat sketchy, if you will. The whole thing was announced by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum on October 23rd, 2003. And then every time you see it in the news it gets bigger and more outrageous. "2.5 million people are going to live in Dubailand"? Are you kidding?
But yes, they do have some pretty pictures. (Then again, the visual development for Disney's California Adventure was nice looking, and that park sucks).
I'd tell you what these pictures are of, but nobody seems to know. That thing in the bottom left of the top one looks like it's a roller-coaster, maybe? And the bottom one, um, looks like twinkling city lights around a lagoon.
See? No specifics.
Shenanigans.
One solid fact that they always mention, however, is the indoor ski mountain - SnowDome.
Yeah, I have absolutely no faith in this at all. Right now, this very minute, it's well over a hundred degrees outside and sunny as all get-out. Do you really think that they could have a clear-glass roofed dome over "real snow" in the middle of the desert? How is this possible? Someone, tell me. Please. Use science words. It's okay.
See? Not possible.
Shenanigans.
At least the Sports City is a little more workable a concept. Although I think the months of May, June, July, August, September and October would be mighty warm for an outdoor sporting event. How about a retractable dome? Or four?
And then there's the space and science park. Hope they're not too attached to the space shuttle design, though, because I'm pretty sure by the time this sees the light of day the Orion will have replaced it.
I don't even know what the whole dinosaur thing is. It's like one of the sheikhs just saw "Jurassic Park" for the first time and is now all excited about Brachiosaurs.
But photoshopping a dino into a photograph of Florida swampland is exponentially easier than building the real thing.
She. Nan. I. Gans.
I'd go on more about Dubailand but the details are so sketchy, murky, ever-changing, that I don't think any one website has a good fix on it - heck even the some of the official website pages don't work (yes, that's Lorem Ipsum dummy text).
From what I can gather, though, these are some other parts of Dubailand, as well:
Dubai Outlet City City of Arabia (including Mall of Arabia, the largest mall in the world) LEMNOS (Women’s World) Extreme Sport World Motor City Kids City Giants World Emerat Sports World Plantation Equestrian and Polo Club Dubai Golf World Dubai Heritage Vision Falcon City of Wonders (with replicas of the Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon) The Great Dubai Wheel Pet Land
