The Other Orlando Blog

Another sign of the times:

Busch Entertainment Corp., owner of SeaWorld and other theme parks, has shelved plans to build four parks in Dubai, making the project the Middle Eastern state's latest casualty amid the international credit freeze.

Worlds of Discovery was announced just a year ago with a media spectacle that included performing killer whales and renderings of the parks on a man-made island shaped like SeaWorld's signature Shamu. Busch Entertainment President Jim Atchison touted it as a "momentous occasion" and a chance to put the Busch brands on a "true global stage."

...

Busch and partner Nakheel PJSC, a state-backed real-estate company and leading developer in Dubai, agreed last month to suspend work because of worsening financial conditions. The two companies will reassess the project sometime this summer.

Too bad. I was sorta hoping Nakheel might be a possible "white knight" for Busch Entertainment.

One positive note:

The announcement comes as a number of projects planned for Dubai appear to be halted, though a Universal Parks & Resorts spokesman said Universal's Dubailand park is still a go and scheduled to open in 2012, two years later than the opening targeted when the park was announced in 2007.

Labels: anheuser busch seaworld orlando, dubai, universal, worlds of discovery

Here's a new Island of Adventure for you. Universal is going to develop a new theme park in Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf!

The Sentinel reports:

The park, to be called Universal Studios Dubailand, will be comparable in size to Universal Studios Orlando, should open by 2010 and is projected to eventually draw up to 5 million visitors a year.

Officials of Orlando-based Universal Parks & Resorts and the United Arab Emirates, including Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE vice president, prime minister and ruler of Dubai, announced Monday that a Universal park will be built in the quickly developing Arabic vacation land.

The city already features worldwide landmark hotels, a gigantic Mall of Arabia, stadiums, museums, golf courses and beaches. The master-planned tourist district caters Western-style vacations to the Middle East and draws heavily from Russia, India and much of continental Europe markets. Plans also have been discussed for a water park and other parks.

Universal Parks & Resorts won't own or run the theme park but will license the company's name, expertise, training, operational methods, products and top attractions, such as Revenge of the Mummy. That arrangement makes Universal Studios Dubailand much like what Universal Parks & Resorts has in Japan and Spain, and especially like the new Universal Studios planned in another multiattraction tourism city being built from scratch in Singapore.

Saddle up the camel, Basheer, and throw a spare burnoose into the saddle bag, I wanna go!

Labels: dubai, unibversal studis