Dubai: At the heart of Dubai Parks and Resorts’ complex will be a restaurant and retail area known as Riverland.
Unlike the theme parks surrounding it, Riverland will be free to enter, and general manager Marcel Hendriks is keen to promote it as an alternative venue for Dubai’s weekend and evening restaurant set.
Riverland’s casual dining restaurants — which account for 77 per cent of its 57 units — are arranged in four themed areas, he said during at interview at the Arabian Travel Market on Monday.
The French Village is based on France in the 1600s, Boardwalk, which is 1950s America, and Indiagate based on 1930s India. The central Peninsula, based on turn-of-the-century France, will be licensed.
Running through the Riverland area will be a kilometre-long, 65 metre wide, artificial river.
“We foresee a lot of tourists who will go tot he parks after enjoying dinner here and a lot of residents from Dubai and Abu Dhabi — we’re 68 kilometres from Abu Dhabi Airport, 65km from Dubai International — to come here instead of going to the mall for lunch.
“The good thing is it’s free. No tickets, just come and enjoy.”
Siegfried Boerst, general manager of the Legoland, was also keen to stress the enjoyment aspect of his theme park. “Our main focus is really delivering a great guest experience for people,” he said. “Most of our staff will be completely new, so we don’t want an all-out crowd, we don’t want people waiting for hours. We’re really focusing on delivering the best experience possible for the guests and not on bringing the big crowds in the beginning.
“The capacity of the park is really great, we have over 40 rides and shows and we can easily accommodate more than 10,000 people a day in the theme park alone.”
Legoland, like the other theme parks in the complex (Bollywood Parks and the Hollywood-based Motiongate), has room to expand later.
“We have an expansion area and in the future we want to invest and reinvest and add new attractions over time. We won’t open the park and it will stay like that. But everything we are announcing right now will be open in October.”
