What kind of holiday in Dubai would it be without a visit to the water park? What if I told you that Dubai is home to two of the best water parks in the world? I wonder what earned them this title? Then read on.
We immediately started thinking about our itinerary. We chose between Atlantis Waterpark on Palm Jumeirah and Wild Wadi Waterpark. In the end, we chose the latter… Why?
The price.
Atlantis Waterpark would have cost 5,000 roubles per person, or 10,000 roubles for two. No discounts available.
Slides.
In fact, judging by reviews of Atlantis, most of the slides are the same as at Wild Wadi. The highlight of Atlantis is the large aquarium, through which one of the slides passes. But it’s not worth paying a lot of money for that.
Location.
Atlantis is located on Palm Jumeirah, so you first need to take the metro (about 30 minutes from Burj Khalifa), then change to the tram (another 15 minutes), then the monorail (another 15 minutes).
As for Wild Wadi, it is easier to get there.
Take the metro to the Mall of the Emirates station (15 minutes), then walk towards the Burj Al Arab hotel for about 15 minutes.
The entrance to the water park offers an excellent view of the Burj Al Arab hotel. However, many reviews said that the hotel can only be seen from far away from the road, but we got very close to the checkpoint.
You can also see the hotel from the water park itself, especially from the slides.
The water park is not the largest among other water parks in the UAE. It covers almost 5 hectares with gardens and rivers, water slides and extreme attractions.
Among the park’s features are an 18-metre waterfall with light and music show called Wadi Wash, which starts every 10 minutes, a beach on the shore of an artificial lagoon, and unique wave pools for surfing.
When is the best time to go to the water park?
We were at the water park on Tuesday, a weekday. If you go on a weekend (Friday or Saturday), there will be a lot of locals and long queues for the slides. The park is open daily from 10 a.m., and we arrived when it opened.
Is it cold at the water park in winter?
We were there on 2 January, and at first I thought it would be cold. The air temperature was around 25 degrees, not hot, of course. The floors in the water park are quite cold, and the water park itself is open-air. I got goosebumps from time to time, but my teeth weren’t chattering. It wasn’t cold on the slides, but standing in line barefoot was chilly. Sometimes we ran to warm up in the main pool, where the water temperature was 30 degrees.
Requirements for swimsuits and other clothing and jewellery!
Important: remove all long or large earrings, bracelets, watches, and flip-flops. You will not be allowed on the slides with them!
Wild Wadi Water Park slides.
When I read the reviews, I was impressed that there were 11 slides in the park.
I thought I would get my fill. In fact, this is a bit of a deception. How so? I’ll tell you now. Here is the order in which I recommend visiting the slides: 1. Jumeirah Sceirah (high-speed water slide).
You enter a transparent cabin, press your back against the wall, cross your legs, and place your arms crosswise on your shoulders. The countdown begins: “3…2…1…” and the floor of the cabin you are standing on opens, and you fly vertically down a couple of metres, and then the slide becomes gentle, and from a completely closed slide, you end up in an open one.
Duration – about 10 seconds. When the slide ends, a crowd of people is looking at you. The main thing is not to lose your swimsuit! I was wearing a one-piece and it got stuck very tightly, you know where. If I had been wearing a two-piece, I probably would have arrived at the bottom in the nude.
Tantrum Alley & Burj Serj
These are two slides, and I don’t understand why they are listed as one.
I would describe the first one as a toilet. Because you float on a ring and are washed away by a whirlpool into a pipe a couple of times.
Duration – about a minute. Fun and exciting! The queue is 10-15 minutes.
The second is a high-speed open slide, and sometimes it feels like you could fall off the slide and die… Although I haven’t found a single fatal accident that occurred at this water park on the internet.
The ride lasts about a minute. The queue is about 7 minutes.
White Water Wadi
It combines 11 slides. In most cases, you don’t go down, but up with the help of a hydromassage water stream. That is, first you just float with the current, then you hit the slide, and so on 11 times.
Duration: 7-10 minutes. Here, too, hold on to your swimming trunks!
Flood River Flyer
This combines 6 slides. It is similar to the previous attraction, except that here all the slides go down instead of up.
Wipeout Flowriver
This attraction has now been converted into another one – the opportunity to stand up on a surfboard.
Duration: 1.2 minutes.
Wave pool and children’s slides.
We came to this pool to warm up when it was freezing. It is very crowded, but there are free sun loungers. There are slides for the little ones right in front of you. By the way, there is a view of the Volna Hotel from here.
The rest of the attractions are not really attractions at all, but pools, food courts, etc. So, in fact, adults can ride the first four attractions and try surfing. By the way, the famous Wadi Wash waterfall was not working.
There are maps and signs throughout the park showing where to go. However, we often got lost, as one staircase can lead you somewhere completely different from where you wanted to go.
The park itself is based on the tales of Sinbad the Sailor (Yuhay), a popular character in Arab folklore.
There is a small waterfall next to the changing rooms for aesthetic purposes.
By the way, lockers, towels, food and other services are available for an additional fee. You are given a wristband that opens the locker.
How much time do you need to visit the water park?
It took us about 3 hours to go around all the attractions. We didn’t even get hungry after breakfast. So, we headed home at two in the afternoon. To be honest, I still don’t understand why it is considered one of the best in the world. Perhaps it’s because there aren’t many water slides like these anywhere else. But I would like to see more attractions for adults. So, I’ll take off one star. Of course, it’s paradise for small children.
