Disney Announces Plans To Open Theme Park In Abu Dhabi

[PartySick 175,015]

16 minutes ago, Red said:

I don’t understand how Disney hasn’t built a park in Brazil or somewhere else in Latam

They probably don't see the audience for it. 

If Google's summary is accurate, South America as a whole got ~32 million tourists in 2023 (Brazil got 6 million) while this little island got 38 million and "is a 4 hour flight" from 500 million potential customers.

[Red 99,631]

13 minutes ago, PartySick said:

They probably don't see the audience for it. 

If Google's summary is accurate, South America as a whole got ~32 million tourists in 2023 (Brazil got 6 million) while this little island got 38 million and "is a 4 hour flight" from 500 million potential customers.

g0rl please Disney World is PLAGUED with Brazilians, of course it would be a hit here 

[RAMROD 118,174]

36 minutes ago, Red said:

I don’t understand how Disney hasn’t built a park in Brazil or somewhere else in Latam

Often times it mostly dealing about how easy it is getting permissions from local governments, safety & conduciveness factor, location availability & funding from investors. 
 

[PartySick 175,015]

2 minutes ago, Red said:

g0rl please Disney World is PLAGUED with Brazilians, of course it would be a hit here 

Yeah but theme parks' main source of income is tourism, that's why they all cluster together in places like Orlando or Los Angeles where tourism is already pretty beefy.

They can't rely on just locals to keep a park afloat 'cause that's a limited market  once someone that lives half an hour from Disney goes once or twice they're less likely to go again. That's why they're cool with giving locals discounts and annual passes at cheaper rates. The bulk of the cash doesn't come from them anyway so incentivizing them into getting into the park to pay for concessions and such is how they profit from them.

They make more money having Brazilians travel to Disney in other countries than they would having a park in Brazil which only draws in 6 million people a year (5 million to Rio) vs places like Florida (142 million per year, 75 million in Orlando alone), California (252 million per year, 50 million in LA alone), France (100 million per year, 50 million in Paris alone), or the UAE (120 million per year, 38 million at Yas Island alone).

[PartySick 175,015]

Just now, PartySick said:

Yeah but theme parks' main source of income is tourism, that's why they all cluster together in places like Orlando or Los Angeles where tourism is already pretty beefy.

They can't rely on just locals to keep a park afloat 'cause that's a limited market  once someone that lives half an hour from Disney goes once or twice they're less likely to go again. That's why they're cool with giving locals discounts and annual passes at cheaper rates. The bulk of the cash doesn't come from them anyway so incentivizing them into getting into the park to pay for concessions and such is how they profit from them.

They make more money having Brazilians travel to Disney in other countries than they would having a park in Brazil which only draws in 6 million people a year (5 million to Rio) vs places like Florida (142 million per year, 75 million in Orlando alone), California (252 million per year, 50 million in LA alone), France (100 million per year, 50 million in Paris alone), or the UAE (120 million per year, 38 million at Yas Island alone).

The amount of time I'm willing to waste on researching stuff like this

[Karl 3,586]

As a long time disney parks obsessive I find this to be a bad idea. Firstly of course a large chunk of their audience are women and gays, not the best place for that. Secondly the weather there is brutal, the parks in Dubai that are outdoors are ghost towns for half the year, although some like SeaWorld on yas island do well year round due to them being totally indoors (which would take away from the classic Disney vibe imo). If this is designed for a more middle eastern/Asian audience fair play, I would rather here than Saudi. 

[gagzus 25,740]

11 hours ago, MonsterPaws said:

As someone from the UAE it's so frustrating because the censorship and overall attitude to LGBTQ+ is very flip-floppy.

Sometimes entire gay scenes and innuendos are left uncut and even some streaming services like Netflix or shows on OSN+ (our version of HBO) are never censored or blocked here. But Disney+ and theatrical releases are censored and/or removed (e.g. Strange World still isn't available on Disney+ UAE).

In some cases you even have local queer art and film celebrated (though obviously the queer aspects are very subtle) like Only Men Go to the Grave made by an Emirati (and presumably gay) filmmaker.

Same goes with people's social and public life. On one hand the amount of queers™ who are out and about is very obvious (hell, one of the most popular MUA's back in like 2023 is based in Dubai--Hindash for those who know him) and technically well tolerated for an Arab country, but on the other hand you still hear stories of trans individuals getting stopped at the border, and dating apps (both straight and gay) are still blocked here.

It's like the government can't make its mind up on whether to decriminalize "threats to public morals" (read: anything gay) or not.

They're either waiting for the population to be more accepting of the LGBTQ (highly doubt this ever happens especially with the worldwide regress on gay rights) or the flip-floppiness is more indicative of the attitudes of the higher ups in government (can't spill too much but there have been discussions in government circles of officially decriminalizing "sodomy" aka homosexuality for a couple of years now but there's pushback from certain members of the ruling families).

It's all a mess tbh.

I think it’s because Disney is primarily known for being a child focused brand in their early days and it’s their heritage as a brand. Whereas the company itself is just that; a company and copyrighted name but they do also still have to live upto Walts’ legacy and the brand he built.

Then obviously on top of that you have the religious aspect, especially in countries where religion dictates the law, where they’re at odds in a modern world because they want to follow their strict views but also don’t want to scare away tourists who might have differing views. I mean we all know nobody LGBTQ+ is gonna go on holiday to a country like Abu Dhabi, but some straight people might not wanna go either if it goes against their morals.

I just also wanna send love to you guys, I’m not sure what everyday life is like in the UAE but we love you guys were all family here. Hopefully everyone on here remembers that.

[MonsterPaws 2,745]

10 hours ago, Karl said:

As a long time disney parks obsessive I find this to be a bad idea. Firstly of course a large chunk of their audience are women and gays, not the best place for that. Secondly the weather there is brutal, the parks in Dubai that are outdoors are ghost towns for half the year, although some like SeaWorld on yas island do well year round due to them being totally indoors (which would take away from the classic Disney vibe imo). If this is designed for a more middle eastern/Asian audience fair play, I would rather here than Saudi. 

The outdoors part is critical.

If Disney makes the entire park outdoors it doesn't matter how good it is, it WILL be empty for at least 3-4 months a year. For comparison, Motiongate (which is about an hour away from where Disney will be) is a great park but it's basically dead because it's 99% outdoors. And the one indoor section--Dreamworks--is all the way at the back of the park, so even in the summer it's simply not worth visiting.

But at the same time I get why they might prefer it being outdoors. The indoor parks in the UAE (Warner Bros in Abu Dhabi, IMG in Dubai) feel claustrophobic and too dim. They need to figure out a happy medium between the two, maybe something like Ferrari World.

[River 129,182]

All the non-US parks are inferior and a waste of time honestly.

after visiting WDW in Orlando, Disneyland Paris is unvisitable for me, such a bad experience.

 

[skaxboy 7,109]

Apparently Disney isn’t paying anything for the construction of the park. The Miral group will find the $10B project per this article:

 

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2025-05-07/disney-q2-earnings#:~:text=Walt Disney Co. plans to,Financial details were not disclosed.

 

Last month I was watching videos of the Yas Island area’s theme parks because I was interested in the Bollywood theme park they had. It’s now closed and is a “Real Madrid” theme park which makes no sense to me at all.
 

The Warner Brothers park looks pretty cool and all of the DC attractions look better than any Six Flags DC attractions.  The park cost $1B. 
 

The only issue with the Yas Island area is, they have very low attendance. The lines are designed for huge capacities but the rides are basically walk ons. The  area is willing to invest in funding the full Disney part for the sakes of attracting the Disney community tourists to the area.

I just don’t think I would want to visit the country tbh. I don’t even want to visit Florida at the moment. 

 

[Flareon Voyager 379]

Controversial, yes.

but isn’t Abu Dhabi kind of a neutral zone for tourism? Like they won’t go arresting women and gays on sight. 

[Karl 3,586]

6 hours ago, River said:

All the non-US parks are inferior and a waste of time honestly.

after visiting WDW in Orlando, Disneyland Paris is unvisitable for me, such a bad experience.

 

Tokyo is widely regarded as the best park in terms of theming, cleanliness, food and operations though tbf

[River 129,182]

5 minutes ago, Karl said:

Tokyo is widely regarded as the best park in terms of theming, cleanliness, food and operations though tbf

yeah I want to visit it once in my life, the beauty and the beast attraction looks amazing and if I'm not wrong they have the revamped pirates attraction

[RAMROD 118,174]

10 hours ago, River said:

All the non-US parks are inferior and a waste of time honestly.

after visiting WDW in Orlando, Disneyland Paris is unvisitable for me, such a bad experience.

 

Disneyland JP and their Disney Sea are better

[skaxboy 7,109]

4 hours ago, River said:

yeah I want to visit it once in my life, the beauty and the beast attraction looks amazing and if I'm not wrong they have the revamped pirates attraction

I cried during Beauty and the Beast and noticed others did too. 
 

Shanghai Disneyland has the revamped Pirates. 
 

10 minutes ago, RAMROD said:

Disneyland JP and their Disney Sea are better

Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea are incredible. Everything is super cute and some of their unique rides are so good! And it’s cheaper than any US park. Plus they have Duffy and Friends at DisneySea. I love these two! So cute!!!