Robb & Elissa in the UAE - 2017! Dubai & Abu Dhabi!

[robbalveySite Admin]

So sorry for the bump, but did you guys ride Velociraptor, the Mack Launch?

[thrillseeker4552Why do I still have a donkey title???]

So sorry for the bump, but did you guys ride Velociraptor, the Mack Launch?

EDIT: Robb beat me to it! It's a fantastic video, by the way.

[Imagineer JoshI teach at the school of donkey!]

So sorry for the bump, but did you guys ride Velociraptor, the Mack Launch?

Please excuse my stupidity... I'm in kind of a rush right now.

[robbalveySite Admin]

Yes there was just so much to see and do at IMG Worlds of Adventure that it was impossible to cover in one trip report! So here is part two! We covered a lot of the Cartoon Network stuff already, a bit of the Marvel area, but now we'll get into a bit of the park's back history and of course the rest of the Marvel Comics section!

The owners of the park have a background in restaurant and hospitality and one area they are particularly proud of in the park is the higher end food offerings (we'll get to Tony Stark's restaurant in a moment) and they took us on a behind the scenes tour of the kitchen facility, which is nothing like I've ever seen at any park in the world! It was absolutely impressive...

We took a path around to the back of IMG Worlds to get to the main kitchen area.

Upon arrival you have to go through a "cleaning" process (and trust me, some of our people needed it more than others!) where our shoes had to be washed and we had to wear hair nets throughout the tour.

The first thing we noticed is that all the kitchens were immaculately clean!

There are many different stations for different food items, much like you'd find in most other kitchens, but many of them were separated as to not cross-contaminate.

Here we are hanging out with the head chef!

You can see here that we are in the "Vegetable room" and the staff can see into the other rooms, but they are separate based on what type of food they are working on.

You can get a better idea of it here.

This is the "delicious steak" room.

It all looks soooo good!

Yes, they made Kristen a muffin right out of the oven, and yes it is burning her hand off! lol

All of the bakery items were fantastic!

Yes, this is a thing!

It's like being in a mini Willy Wonka factory!

There were quite a few of these machines making lots of chocolate stuff!

Another favorite room of ours!

Yes, all the ice cream at IMG is made on-site FRESH every day! And yes we ate a LOT of samples! :)

Of course after visiting the kitchen, they wanted us to sample some of the food, so they took us to their Indian restaurant...

Wonderful...

Wonderful...

WONDERFUL!!!

I think you can say we really enjoyed ALL of the food we have been eating at this park!

With all this food excitement...we need a roller coaster! How about a ride on Velociraptor?

Next up with the "Iron Man Experience"

This was a cool upcharge experience where you get facial scanned in to BECOME Iron Man!

"Stand still...this won't hurt a bit!"

Yes! You are now Iron Man and you can play as him in this game...

Whatever motions and actions you do...

...is translated to the screen.

Some people probably just shouldn't become Iron Man! lol

And look! You can even get a full Iron Man figure...

...and your face is 3D mapped under the mask! Who needs Tony Stark?

So speaking about Marvel stuff, let's talk about the Hulk ride...

First of all, we really enjoyed the queue. Well themed and looked great!

When you get inside the theater, it looks a bit unassuming. Almost something out of the old "Mission to Mars" circular theaters.

You sit down, put on your glasses, and you're not too sure what to expect...

There are people across from you, and big empty screen...what is going to happen next?

WOW! When the ride starts, it MOVES....and moves FAST! This ride spins, jolts, twists, etc... and the media visuals look GREAT!

What sets this apart from other "simulator" attractions is that it actually *feels* like a ride. If you turned off the media, you'd still have a good time riding it! (but of course it's MUCH better with the movie playing!)

We were given a behind the scenes, or more like "under the theater" tour of the attraction and it IS impressive!

Here is one of many projectors that blast the film scenes onto the dome theater above and around you.

It's sort of hard to describe what you are looking at here, but we are under the theater looking at the giant, and I mean this is *MASSIVE* engineering work that sits right under you.

These help the theater spin and move.

Large motors that do the things that large motors do.

Everything we were looking at was, as the Backstreet Boys would say, Larger Than Life!

I always find it fascinating to look at all this stuff.

You forget that, as a rider being entertaining by all the visuals and the fun elements, that behind all that magic are giant machines that make it all happen. And it's great to be able to see it up close like this!

The other star attraction of the Marvel area was the Avengers: Battle of Ultron ride!

Once again, the queue was very well done with many elements you'd recognize from the Marvel Cinematic Universe films.

You get to see costumes of all the superheroes from the second Avengers movie.

The ride itself is much like Spider-Man or Transformers and it is **VERY** well done! In fact, the best ride of it's kind I've been on since those two, in fact, I actually liked it more than Transformers.

The scenes in the ride were great! Although these will be a bit blurry, because... 3D so watch the video to get a better idea!

Thank you for saving the world once again Avengers...I mean... Tony!

There is also Thor: Thunder Spin...

And yes, Thor and Loki are both here as well!

A fun take on a classic Top Spin ride...

We took a spin on the Amazing Ride of Gumball...

...and if you're a fan of the show, you'll noticed you are instantly transported into the school where Gumball and friends hang out.

Kristen thought this was amazing!

Lots of things from the show are also transported here.

Yes, it's an Alterface shooting dark ride and we thought it was great!

Fans of the show will love this! Watch the whole video below...

The Haunted Hotel was the park's year-round haunt walk through and it was really well done!

Monsters and zombies and lots of crazy stuff!

Yep, we all enjoyed it!

No, no...they weren't going for a "Tower of Terror" look...I mean, that's what all bellhops wear, right? ;)

We ended our night with dinner at Tony's Skydeck.

The restaurant is themed to having a fancy meal at Tony Stark's penthouse suite at the top of Stark Tower.

The restaurant looked and felt amazing!

It's great having a "high end" restaurant at a theme park!

Here is tonight's line-up.

Loved the soup!

Loved the "mocktails"..

Iron Man's suit was hanging out with us.

Really, the place looked fantastic!

Absolutely loved the "comic book...yet high end" feel to the place.

And this was quite possibly one of the best steaks I've ever had!

Elissa & Kristen LOVED it! We can't wait to come back!

And the desserts were amazing, too!

We had such a wonderful trip to IMG Worlds of Adventure!

Our hosts and tour guides were fantastic!

We are already planning our next trip back to visit again!

Thanks for reading! We will have more Dubai updates soon!
Oh yes, be sure to POST YOUR COMMENTS!!!
(we took the time to write the report, the least you could do is say something nice about it!)

[thrillseeker4552Why do I still have a donkey title???]

Great report! I had completely forgotten that this is the park with the Sierra Sidewinder clone. Cool stuff. And all that food looks soooo good.

[robbalveySite Admin]

Great report! I had completely forgotten that this is the park with the Sierra Sidewinder clone. Cool stuff. And all that food looks soooo good.

I do not think those two rides are clones at all. They seem very VERY different to me.

[vuurvogelJason X versus the Robot Space Donkey!]

As kitchens are a big part of my work. Seriously impressive! Great they make everything themselves

[thrillseeker4552Why do I still have a donkey title???]

Great report! I had completely forgotten that this is the park with the Sierra Sidewinder clone. Cool stuff. And all that food looks soooo good.

I do not think those two rides are clones at all. They seem very VERY different to me.

Obviously the theming and experience is far more extensive on Spiderman (thus probably resulting in a better ride), but the track layouts are indeed identical according to RCDB and after watching a POV.

[PKI JizzmanJizzy jizz jizz jizz jizz]

Great report! CN is the main brand I work on so I'm forwarding this to my team to check out now

[robbalveySite Admin]

the track layouts are indeed identical according to RCDB and after watching a POV.

RCDB lists them as having two different track lengths so they are not identical. Did you actually READ the stats???!? I've been on both rides. I could be wrong, but they don't seem like clones to me. I guess I'm also not coaster dorky enough to give a crap either. Like, why does this matter?