Theme park day today, we were covering MotionGate and Bollywood Parks. MotionGate was all movie themed from the major Hollywood studios, like Columbia, Dreamworks, LionsGate etc, whilst Bollywood was …well all about Bollywood – the very first Bollywood theme park in the world!!
Since Bollywood park opens at 4pm, we had from 11am to 4pm to finish of MotionGate then onto Bollywood which was open till midnight, hoping to complete both in one day – fingers crossed.
No rush this morning, we were leaving at 10:30, so a relaxed start to the morning. Breakfast sorted then onto the Taxi for Dubai Parks – which is very very far, did not realise it, but it is 30 minutes travelling at over 110km/h.
Arrived at the park at 11am. A massive complex, It has 4 parks in it, Legoland, MotionGate, Bollywood and a Water Park. We were doing 2 parks, now to find the entrance to MotionGate. Required a bit of navigating and asking around, then a shuttle to MotionGate and finally we were at the entrance. The place looked like a nice setup, so far so good!
We had pre-purchased tickets, so to the gates, a very cool system of entry, each persons finger was scanned and recorded for the next park. (So when entering Bollywood parks, we would need to scan our fingers to be matched against the ticket to ensure the same person is going to the parks – nifty security). Thru the gates, the park was similar to other theme parks, with the main street filled with shops selling toys, souvenirs etc. Following that the park was divided into each of the lands. Got the maps and tried to figure out the shows to watch and times, gave up in the end and simply went for the top rides – these were easy to identify on the map!!
In the first hour, we did two amazing roller coasters and a virtual reality ride. The Green Hornet was a good coaster, however it is the Hunger Games bullet train that is the best, infact, it would be one of the best coasters I have been on, lots of fun.
It was just past 12 and the Dreamworks land was not due to open till 1pm, chance to get some quick lunch, out to the Smurfs land to the “Very Smurfy Cafe”, a very cute cafe decored in the Smurf theme, all very cute and fun, except for the service, they were soooooooo slow!! Something about being fast & organised, they do not understand or fail to work on.
Food was ok, it was the simple chicken burger and chips, nothing fantastic or worth raving about, enough to recharge the batteries and keep on moving.
Next was Dreamworks land – which had Madagascar, Shrek, Kungfu Panda and How to train your Dragon. An amazing fountain at the entry with characters from all these movies – was so so cool.
This would have to be one of the best character theme fountains I have seen to-date, I reckon even better then DisneyLand!!
First to the Shrek land, and what a setup it was, no rides but the setup was a replica of Shrek’s village!
Next was the land of How to train your dragon, and does it transport you to the Dragon era.
Another roller coaster here, with a lot of turns and spins!
Next was Madagascar and Kung fu Panda, unfortunately rides in Kung fu panda were closed, however the Madagascar coaster was super fun, we went on that twice!
It had been a fun filled few hours, highly recommend this park for all ages! Rides here are great – 5 star!
Around 3:30pm we headed out of the park for the Bollywood park, quick pitstop at Coffee Club for a recovery session, then onto Bollywood Park.
Entering the park, the feel is soooo bollywood, with giant posters of the stars, bollywood music playing in the background, this was great. Neha could not help doing a few dance moves on the songs being played.
The Lagaan and Sholay sets were super. Both showing the same feel of the movies. Lagaan had a virtual ride, not bad, whilst the Sholay was a shootem ride, a bit of fun trying to find Gabbar and kill his baddies.
Dabangg stunt show was next, and it was done very well, had all the famous moves and lines of Salman Khan!
Next was on the sets of Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. (Unfortunately I had put the ISO on high for the Dabaangg show and forgot to tone it down, next few pictures are very grainy due to that 
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Here we were given a chance to see how green screen and special effects are used in the film industry – similar to what is shown at Universal Studios, not at that level, but lots of fun, I was lucky to play a part in that! This was followed by the Bollywood Super Heros, Krissh and Ra.One.
It was only around 7pm, we had finished the park, decided to head back to the hotel, everyone was super tired of all the walking today. The walk back to the Taxi took us through some great mini villages in the park, it was like little Europe, if we had more energy we would have loved to walk through this, but was not to be.
For dinner, I rang ahead to Benhiana Japanese in Jumeirah, they could accommodate us, so Taxi straight to that place. We ordered some amazing Japanese, I guess as we were so tired it did make us less picky, nevertheless this place did serve some very good meals. Highly recommended.
A very big day for us all, but lots of fun and to top it off, a good meal.
, not happy at all about that!!)
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), fried rice and Chicken Kung Pau. The mains were good, but when compared with the amazing food we had at Buddha bar, this was not quite up to it! Still a good lunch.
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