Largest Indoor Family Theme Park to Open at Zabeel

The soft opening of Stargate in Zabeel Park, which is said to be housing the world’s largest soft play area, was announced during a media tour of the facility on Wednesday.

Designed as a spaceship containing five space domes, the centre spread across an area of 400,000 square feet is expected to receive about four million visitors in the first year.

Dubbed as “futuristic edutainment centre,” the Dh450million project is undertaken by property developer Osus Facilities Management on a BOT (build-operate-transfer) contract with Dubai Municipality that manages the emirate’s parks and beaches.

Stargate’s Futuristic Academy promises to provide a high quality edutainment facility with a mix of fun
and learning.

Said to be the first facility of its kind in the region, the Academy is made up of five “pods” having an overhead screen with 3D content.

The 3D theatre at the Saturn Dome will screen 3D animation movies on space-based themes including one on Apollo 11’s mission to the moon.

CEO of Osus Abdullah O. Al Ghobain said the company had established partnerships with schools to ensure that all their activities were curriculum based. “We will have 3D interactive learning sessions, conferences and workshops about planets, maths, physics and modern technology,” said Ghobain.

“We will have first of its kind teaching classes in maths and physics for primary to intermediate students.”

He said simulators will be used to explain the kinetic theory and the rest of the operation of Earth Dome’s main attraction — the Spinning Earth Family Roller Coaster.

Peter Lanz of Xsport Motorsports Management said the electric go-karting section at the UFO Dome houses a driving school for children. While adult racing enthusiasts can explore the wheel-to-wheel-racing on the karts, young drivers can go on a merry
ride with bumper cars.

Visitors can also learn ice skating on the ice rink in the Lunar Dome. The park also houses In Motion Club which offers unique fitness solutions that combine entertainment and exercise for children.

NEST, a care centre for kids below five years, a space mall and the food court are other features of the theme park which offers locator devices, identification tags and wi-fi network for visitors.

Director of Horticulture and Public Parks Department of Dubai Municipality, Ahmed Abdul Kareem, told Khaleej Times the municipality would develop Zabeel Park into a “techno-park” offering a variety of entertainment projects for families and children..

At a glance

• The entry to Stargate is free of charge, except for the entry fee of Dhs5 to Zabeel Park.
• Visitors can purchase a swiping card for Dhs2 at Stargate and can top up the credit according to the fee of riders or facilities they are going to use.
• Individuals need not have separate swiping cards.
• One family can just have a card and recharge it with the amount to be swiped for individual users of the facility.
• The fees for some of the facilities at the park are as given below:

Fun Track-Dh4 to Dh12, Roller coaster-Dh19, 3Dtheatre-Dh15, Ice Rink-Dh25 (per hour), Go-karting- Dh29 (adults) and Dh15 (kids), Bumper cars-Dh10 (kids) and Dh14 (adults).

sajila@khaleejtimes.ae