General Chat / Dubai + 100,000 themparks = Big money?

As you may or may not know Six Flags will open a new themepark in Dubai. I myself was pretty surprised by this. ''Six Flags Dubailand'' is scheduled to open in 2011.

http://www.sixflags....sDubailand.aspx

I'd like to hear your opinions on this.

Edited by Mozilla, 13 February 2009 - 02:42 PM.

why not?

more background info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubailand
http://en.wikipedia....Flags_Dubailand

I'm having a hard time right now. Where to buy a villa. Barcelona or Dubai? Looks interesting. And big.

Damn, the Wiki page shows a lot of parks there. I may go there just to see what Dubai is all about.

On an interesting note, I bet Dubai either outgrows itself because of over-advertising or they turn into an overestimating tourist attraction and fall due to it turning into a ghost town. Or maybe they (Dubai as a whole) will succeed and turn into a Super (Micro)Nation.

^Like the Vatican City? I doubt it.

But I do applaud Six Flags for taking this excellent marketing opportunity. I just hope they don't beat CP for having the most coasters in one park...

And wasn't Dubailand supposed to be more like DisneyWorld? Very family friendly, without any huge coasters. I could've sworn I read that somewhere.

But I do applaud Six Flags for taking this excellent marketing opportunity. I just hope they don't beat CP for having the most coasters in one park...

Why's that?

Also, the entire "twice as big as Disney World; the world's largest theme park" headlines are ridiculous imo. WDW and Dubailand are completely different. Dubailand is made up of several theme parks built by different companies in one one area, WDW is one theme park resort, built by a single company. How can they compare..?

^ Because they're both a large collection of theme parks, under one name (Dubailand vs. WDW), within very close proximity of each other. And I imagine Dubailand also includes plans for transportation between them, just as at WDW. Each park doesn't have the same company label, but otherwise it's about the same idea.

And Dubai as a whole would equate to Orlando as a whole, since there are several other park projects even outside of Dubailand, just as there are outside of WDW (Busch Gardens, Seaworld, the F1 park, the Ferrari Park). But according to its plans, Dubai should end up with double what Orlando has now.

Anyways, while the plans for Dubai are amazing, progress has been somewhat slow. According to Screamscape, only a few of the planned parks seem to be under construction at the moment. Not that it's too surprising, given the outlandishness of it all.

Stupid move on the part of Six Flags, IMO.

Dubai will be a ghost town within a decade. There's absolutely nothing behind it's growth bubble except for a rapidly dwindling oil supply. And try as they might, it'll be years before anyone considers the Middle East to be a great tourist destination again.

-ACE

Stupid move on the part of Six Flags, IMO.

Dubai will be a ghost town within a decade. There's absolutely nothing behind it's growth bubble except for a rapidly dwindling oil supply. And try as they might, it'll be years before anyone considers the Middle East to be a great tourist destination again.

-ACE

Actuallyyyy, I'm pretty sure that the income that oil brings in is only about 5%.

They're building all this other crap to replace this 5% loss for when their oil supplies run dry.

I thought it was a bit weird to open a new themepark during a financial crisis, even though it will be build in one of the biggest tourist spots. Anyone who thinks Six Flags will sell the park after a few years, please raise your hand. *Raises hand*

I don't think it's that big of a crisis for the Oil Tycoons over there, but I could be wrong.

Lawl. Six Flags invested no money into this. Theyre just using the Six Flags name.

They are? Then the park Dubailand is already there? This doesn't fit in with the story that they will start building in 2009.

No the park is not there yet.

So, they're getting someone else to build it, and then use the Six Flags name? Smart Son of a Beast!

Why's that?

Because I don't want to travel overseas to get a T-shirt for Dubailand, the "park with the most roller coasters." I'm lucky enough to have CP so close, and I'd still like to go there. Next summer's King's Island trip is still up in the air as well.

Oh, and CoasterKing, there are quite a few parks that have the Six Flags monicker that were never built by Six Flags. Magic Mountain is the only example that comes to mind right now. It was bought by Six Flags and then expanded upon. I think SF St. Louis was also a park that was bought by Six Flags.

They're using that old strategy again. The same way they did in Europe. Bying up some of the major parks, expanding them. It didn't proof to be a success and they left in five years.

I share your hope for not beating Cedar Point, Full Metal. But according to the rollercoaster database Magic Mountain will get a new rollercoaster in 2010.

I think that would only give them 16 though. CP has 17.

And let me correct my previous post. It wasn't SF St. Louis, it was Elitch Gardens (which recently got rid of its Six Flags monicker).

Yeah, Six Flags has very rarely built any parks from scratch. I'm too lazy to look it up, but I think the only ones they built, and didn't just buy and rebrand from someone else, were SFOT, SFOG, and SFStL. And WBMW in Spain, if that counts. So considering the many, many parks they've had, that's not many that they started.

I think I read on Screamscape that they were looking into starting a few other international parks as well.

Pretty dumb move on Dubailand's part. With all the awesome other shit going on, who's going to want to go to a Six Flags? Don't they know Six Flags sucks?