SeaWorld wins with beautiful Abu Dhabi park – Whittier Daily News

The same marine-themed area is the centerpiece of SeaWorld Abu Dhabi, with a 230-foot-wide plaza surrounded by what the park claims is the world’s largest LED screen. (Courtesy of Sea World Abu Dhabi)

If money can’t buy happiness, a lot of it can certainly build a theme park that will make your heart melt.

So let’s talk about the new SeaWorld Yas Island that opened in Abu Dhabi last week. Although the park is named after SeaWorld, it is built and operated by Miral, the Emirati company that owns and develops the Yas Island resort. Unlike licensor SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment, Miral has billions of dollars to spend, and it forgoes a large portion of building this spectacular, multi-story indoor theme park that redefines what it means to be a SeaWorld park.

There are no orcas here. Instead, the star of this sea world is the building itself, which features eight themed “realms” that simulate marine habitats from around the world. The first, Abu Dhabi Seas, is to SeaWorld what Main Street America is to Disneyland—a prologue grounded in nostalgic appeals to an idealized past. A full-size dhow docks in the harbor opposite the touch pool, creating an environment reminiscent of a pre-oil emirate.

Added to this is the park’s hub, One Ocean, which physically and symbolically ties all of SeaWorld’s realms together. Surrounding the 230-foot-wide plaza is what the park bills as the world’s largest LED screen, a wraparound 360-degree surface that showcases hypnotic loops of legendary underwater scenes captured in 8K video. Below this, visitors will find the entrances to the six remaining areas of the park.

MicroOcean is SeaWorld’s kiddie playground that looks a lot like Tokyo DisneySea’s non-IP version of Triton Kingdom. That’s not the only similarity to Disney here. Several of SeaWorld Abu Dhabi’s attractions are also themed by a group called “SEA,” which here stands for “scientists, explorers and adventurers,” as opposed to Disney’s “Society of Explorers and Adventurers.”

SEA’s main attraction is Hypersphere 360, located in the park’s arctic zone, Intamin’s innovative gravitational sub-attraction that provides full-scale visual immersion in virtual reality without the need for isolation goggles. But the best ride in the park is Manta, the third SeaWorld coaster to bear that name. It’s a launch coaster, also from Intamin, and it’s not only the best new coaster of the year in my book, it’s the best coaster in the Middle East. (I’ve posted a video of Manta on Theme Park Insider’s YouTube channel.)