UAE 06/18 – Yas Waterworld + Ferrari World
Didn’t quite know how this day was going to pan out, but I had the combo ticket for the water park and they opened an hour earlier. I picked up a work colleague who had flown in the night before and wanted to take the opportunity to see first hand what my hobby was all about.
Cred time.
Day 3 – Yas Waterworld
Caved and went for a locker on arrival, mainly to protect the precious paper park ticket.
Once again I was overly early and we spent a good 15 minutes milling around at the door. Everyone else’s excitement was building. I wasn’t so sure.
Got no pictures of the park unfortunately. Not the type of person to feel the need to wear a phone in a plastic wallet around my neck like a few others I noticed here.
(If you look closely, you can spot the coaster track in one of the pictures later. There’s a little game for you).
Walked straight to the cred as fast as my inappropriate footwear would allow and navigated the stairs with some difficulty.
Kinda liked #1 Bandit Bomber, if just for the relative uniqueness of it. Even just having bare feet made it a new experience for me. It’s got the comfy Vekoma SFC trains, 2 lifts and a bit of fun through the layout. Also like the barrels on the front of the train that get automatically refilled with water each time it sits in the station.
Nearly left at this point, but figured there was still time for trying something else. Ah, might as well. I know I don’t trust myself to be flailing solo in a tube, so I’d rather do something where you get to sit in a dinghy. Selected the big 6-seater one (Falcon’s Falaj?) and struggled up even more stairs to the top. Sat down, glasses and footwear in hand, thinking I can’t really hold on to anything now… well, this will be an experience.
Christ it was intense. I might be converting to this stuff at some point. It took less than 3 seconds of the boat tipping backwards off the ramp before I was completely soaked, couldn’t see and was in hysterics, from there it was just a brutal alternating succession of crazy air time that shouldn’t happen and vicious walls of water to the face. It all ended in a blur and you have to jump out into a waist deep pool to escape the insanity. Almost as wet as Valhalla that.
Hmmm. I need to leave now and the shorts I’m wearing all day are somewhat… soaked. Stood around in the sun for a while, carefully toeing the line between drying off quickly and getting sunburnt. Then proceeded to the exit.
Got the car rather wet and drove round to the mall car park, parking next to what I thought was a Ferrari (appropriately). Apparently it was a Corvette. They’re not going to let me in now.
Ferrari World
You know what time it is. Super cred mode. Straight to Rossa, no time to think.
There was a little time to think actually, they were operating it super slow and apparently it was just teetering on the edge of being too windy to run it at all. Never mind that, let’s get it over with.
No one was being brave enough for the front, so we slithered up to the opportunity. They supply you with goggles which were already biting into my face, staring down the launch track. Meh.
It is fast, I’ll give it that. So much face wobble by the end of the straight that I’m rather thankful for the trims to be honest, it felt like I was about to lose a cheek.
Speed isn’t everything though and I wasn’t particularly blown away by the rest of the layout. It impressed me, it’s fast and ridiculous, but sadly it doesn’t offer much else. I admire the limits being pushed and the highlight was probably seeing the water sprays on the wheels during the brake run.
On closer inspection, the layout is bigger Rita…
Took another go in the back later on and that basically just ruined it for us. A staff woman did say “no one ever asks for the back” and now we know why.
Rode really awful in all the corners. Really, brain shakingly awful. No thanks.
On to better things?
Flying Aces was probably my most anticipated ride of the trip.
Didn’t really get the fuss about these Intamin wing coasters on the first lap, it felt like a lot of pointless meandering and not much going on. Gave it a couple more goes during the day. Yeah, not bad. It’s a grower. I’ll come back to it later.
This custom Maurer ride looks like a harmless bit of fun. It’s pretty decent, again if only for being somewhat unique. The lack of banking in the corners give it a bit of extra kick as well as a more genuine feel for what it’s trying to achieve as a car race, which I appreciate.
Never quite seemed to be racing though, it always ended the same way. Wonder if the launches are overly intelligent to make that happen.
Also the restraint unnecessarily having the same hoopy handle as Maurer’s spinners in a really awkward, out of reach place amused me.
Turbo Track to round off the creds. Everything was walk on at this time, so that’s yet another set finished in 45 minutes.
An Intamin launched shuttle ride that was a bit something and nothing really. A very faffy loading procedure for a coaster that’s over in 30 seconds. Chose the seats facing backwards to start off with, but going in blind didn’t even help to give it any noticeable forces.
Felt like it barely made it up the spike as well. Certainly didn’t see much up there.
Think someone else already said this, but it’s a good use of space and that’s about it.
Ok, I’m not feeling this park as much. As with the Spanish place, it’s all a bit Ferrari up its own arse, which isn’t the best vibe. I wonder if the dark rides will fix that.
If you start with Speed of Magic. Noooooooooo.
The preshow starts off with a kid on a bed playing a game with this cartoon guy called Nello and he’s a rather unpleasant character – encouraging kids to act like they’re the best at everything and everyone else sucks. Cool.
The boy gets pissed off with the game (rightly so), then Dad walks in. “I’VE JUST BOUGHT A FERRARI MATE.” Best Dad ever (right?). “Here’s the keys.” Nello steals the keys. Gotta play the game to get ’em back boy.
Sigh.
Once you’re on the simulator it ain’t that great either. Don’t really remember much beyond obnoxious shouting from Nello as he drags you around on strings through the jungle, ice, lava, desert? Then FUTURISTIC FORMULA 1 and you beat him in 5 seconds. You got lucky punk.
In total contrast to this, Benno’s Great Race is really good. An inventive twist on a shooting dark ride where a rabbit is racing the feds (beavers?) through Italy, the ‘gun’ is a spanner and you have to help him along the way by breaking boxes, cutting spiders webs and putting bees in jars. Great stuff.
Think it was pizza time after that. When in Rome. Again, quality food, reasonably priced. UAE you’re killing it.
Oh here’s that other dark ride of the factory tour, Made in Maranello. Didn’t rate it, wasn’t particularly interesting and a bit more ‘look how great we are.’
Did the cultural maze full of quotes from Zayed himself, this being the year of Zayed. That was more interesting.
This dumb thing still isn’t ready.
They had lots of ‘decades of music’ mini events going on around the park with local DJs which was quite amusing. An 80’s one with Rubiks cubes, graffiti and 2 blokes having a dance off. 70’s one with disco people trying to grind against you while you walk past. 60’s one with hula hoops.
Then the 90’s one – it had this beatboxing guy who was very good at his job. He announced the entrance of a skateboarder, a BMX guy and someone on rollerskates. World Champions in their field he says. They messed up so many times that it got rather embarrassing and we left (not sure why we were watching in the first place).
Well if that’s the tone being set, I’m gonna find out if they do handstamps so we can leave. They do.
Went out into the mall to find the bonus cred in FunWorks. On the way there was this exhibition about the new Warner Bros. park I missed by a month. They were getting people to pre-book for cheap, so I had a little nose around and got given a WB passport souvenir in which you’re supposed to fill in your details. Good for the collection I guess.
FunWorks
#7 Yolo Works then. Bad staff, bad guests, awful ride. A stain on this country. Didn’t take a picture in my disgust.
The ride suffers from the same problem as halfpipes in that you don’t want to be facing 90 degrees to a snappy launch mechanism with a shoulder restraint in your face. My colleague didn’t know what to think after sitting this one out and watching the ordeal I went through only for me to then tell him how terrible it was. Why do you ride it if it hurts? Don’t question it.
Had some more food in a food court style area and a bit of a sit down. What time does the park shut? I ask myself.
I’ve got 11pm in my head. Looked it up. 8. What’s the time? 7:15. Ah…
Forcing down the rest of a sandwich and half a litre of sprite while powering back through the mall, hope I’m not gonna regret that.
Ferrari World
Flying Aces at night. Oh man this thing came to life. Rides ‘warming up’ is apparently still a thing even when it’s 40°C outside to start with.
It did things to me. Things that I’ve not felt before on a coaster. Dangerous things. I grew to love it, character and all.
The queue is amazing, but if anything it’s jarringly loud. I wouldn’t want to be stuck queueing in that rocky section with the planes going over. Thankfully they let me run through the fastrack entrance every time, once I got into marathon mode.
The lift hill is just ridiculous. Love those minimalist supports. It has such a great sense of purpose as it pulls you up to the top whether you like it or not. I was just laughing with glee at it and after a few laps it turned into one of those magical moments.
Insane first drop and the non-inverting loop is fun, but this is all stuff I’ve seen before.
It’s the little things that set it apart. The speed hill chucked in out of nowhere which is killer, then this upward banked corner into an air time hill which throws you dangerously sideways instead of upwards for no good reason. It wasn’t doing that earlier and I’ve never felt a ride do that before, especially with so little holding you in. The stuff dreams are made of.
The snappy twists in the second half, if you’re in the front or back wing seats, are just brutal in the best way and it only got better and better the more I rode it. Fantastic ride.
You’ve saved Ferrari World.
Day 4