Dubai: Global Village, the region’s largest outdoor family destination and theme park, opens on Tuesday with an enhanced infrastructure and a slew of other additions to add to visitors’ cultural experience, officials announced on Sunday.
Returning even bigger in its 20th season this year, the theme park will run for 159 days with 32 pavilions and more than 75 countries represented, compared with the 70 listed last year.
With the expanded line-up of attractions, concerts and entertainment for adults and children, visitors will be overjoyed once they see the newly introduced trains picking them up to and from the car park to the new iconic entrance ‘The Gate of the World’ for free. Each train has a capacity of 60 passengers.
The new ‘Gate of The World’ is said to be the largest gate in Global Village’s history featuring 40 turnstile entrances and 40 ticketing counters.
For those who want to avoid the queue, Global Village has introduced a new friendly ticketing system where tickets to the park can be bought online or on a Global Village smartphone application.
This year’s significant improvements and highlights range from infrastructure enhancements and facilities to exciting new shows and artists. Two high-end shows created specially for Global Village were announced, The Fiestaval and Dreams, to be performed by renowned street actors and performers.
There is also the LED Mono-velos street act which will have illuminated monocycles with riders, Bollywood musical featuring the Khans of Bollywood and Bollywood wedding shows and Hollywood stunt show with car chases, bike stunts and action scenes.
Ahmad Hussain Bin Eisa, CEO at Global Village, said the enhancements came in response to guests’ feedback and are in line with the five-year strategic development plan of Global Village, which matches the vision of Dubai Tourism for 2020 and seeks to attract more visitors to the emirate.
“Global Village is the ideal destination for both families and individuals from the UAE as well as from across the Middle East,” he said. “There will be a number of new and exciting surprises throughout the season as well as high-quality entertainment facilities that will guarantee an unforgettable experience and attract our guests to return again and again.’’
New pavilions participating for the first time are Russia and Japan, with the return of Indonesia and Palestine. All pavilion facades have been redesigned to provide better representation of the culture and heritage of the countries.
Among the major enhancements is the 22,000 square metres of additional grass seating areas. The Main Cultural Stage has also been enhanced to boost the audio and visual experience for the crowd, so that they can experience the show wherever they are standing.
Fantasy Island will return once again and will be operated by Mellors Entertainment, a funfair operator that has operated attractions in the heart of London and other venues for more than 100 years. This season’s newly introduced rides include Crazy Golf (Children Ride); Cape fear Ghost Train (Family Ride) and Loop fighter (Thrill Ride).
Apart from offering cuisines from around the world at 100 themed food and beverage kiosks, holding firework displays every Thursday and Friday and featuring cultural and stunt shows by professional performers, Global Village is bringing in musicians and singers from across the world to perform. Artists include Strings, Sa’ad Lamjarrad, Fares Karam, Balqees, Mohammad Assaf, Shreya Goshal and Abdullah Ruwaishid.
Entry tickets will remain Dh15 this year. Children under three years of age, people with special needs and their companion, and people over 65 years old, however, may visit free of charge.
Visitors can visit globalvillage.ae to know more about the kinds of shows this year and their timings.
BOX:
Highlights:
• New iconic entrance – ‘The Gate of The World’
• 22,000 square metres of additional grass seating areas
• Exciting new rides
• New customer-friendly ticketing system
• New pavilions include Russia and Japan and the return of Indonesia and Palestine
• New bespoke shows
• Expanded line-up of attractions, concerts and entertainment. Top shows include The Fiestaval and Dreams, LED Mono-velos, Bollywood musical, Hollywood Stunt show, UFO show and The Jet Ski show.
• Singers performing this year include Strings, Sa’ad Lamjarrad, Fares Karam, Balqees, Mohammad Assaf, Shreya Goshal and Abdullah Ruwaishid.
