Why Christmas Has Only Just Ended In This Theme Park

For most theme parks, Christmas is a distant memory. The garlands, gingerbread houses and baubles are already in storage so that they can be unpacked in 11 months time. However, one park’s Christmas celebration only finished at the end of last week and there’s good reason for this.

Mentioning Christmas conjures up images of snowy landscapes, freezing temperatures and winter woollies but anyone who has visited theme parks in Orlando during the holiday season knows they aren’t essential ingredients.

Temperatures in the mid-70s and guests dressed in shorts and tee shirts don’t stop its parks feeling festive. All of the outposts of the major operators drip with decorations and host holiday-themed shows. It has a magic touch as, against all the odds, Christmas Day is one of the busiest times of the year for many of Orlando’s parks.

The decorations cast such a powerful spell that they have become a core component of the calendar for most major parks. So much so indeed that the movie-themed Motiongate park in Dubai hosts an annual Hollywood Holidays festive season despite the dominant religion in the Middle Eastern emirate being Islam which doesn’t celebrate Christmas.

It’s actually not such a surprise as Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which has 12.5 million residents and a massive 88.5% of them are expats. More come from India than any other country and Christmas Day is an official holiday there. Motiongate’s festive season makes expats feel at home and gives the park even more of a surreal selling point than at its counterparts in Orlando.

Snow doesn’t fall in Dubai’s desert environment and it’s even hotter there in December than in Orlando as the mercury can soar well in to the 80s. Motiongate makes the most of the warm weather by keeping its Christmas decorations up from December 12 right up to January 12. Guests stream through its turnstiles to see Christmas trees bristling with baubles and Santa wearing his thick red and white suit under the sun. That’s not the only reason why its decorations are a sight to behold.

Motiongate is the largest Hollywood-inspired theme park in the Middle East and has 29 rides and attractions spread across four lands based on films from different movie studios. Lands themed to Lionsgate, Sony’s Columbia Pictures and The Smurfs cartoon characters are outdoors whilst a hangar-like building houses a vast area dedicated to movies from DreamWorks Animation.

Like Disney’s parks, the lands are accessible from a central plaza which is found at the end of a street stretching from the entrance. The gates to the park are set inside a soaring film reel and after passing through them, visitors find themselves on the street. Known as Studio Central, it looks like it has come from the golden age of Hollywood where wintry weather is almost as uncommon as it is in Dubai. It makes the decorations there seem even more incongruous and therefore especially memorable.

Studio Central’s full-size brick buildings are a melange of the architectural styles found on Hollywood Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard in California with a hint of New York City. Stores are set into the buildings and above their windows are arched red awnings like those which line the fronts of fancy stores in Beverly Hills. Although Studio Central’s stores are only on ground level, the buildings have artificial upper floors which guests can see as they stroll down the street.

Outside the windows of upper floors are balconies formed from ornate iron railings with traditional black steel stairways connecting them to the storey above. The windows are illuminated at night and the walls around them are surrounded by elaborate relief designs which are common on art deco buildings. No stone has been left unturned.

Studio Central’s full-size brick buildings are a melange of the architectural styles found on Hollywood Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard in California with a hint of New York City. Stores are set into the buildings and above their windows are arched red awnings like those which line the fronts of fancy stores in Beverly Hills. Although Studio Central’s stores are only on ground level, the buildings have artificial upper floors which guests can see as they stroll down the street.

Studio Central’s full-size brick buildings are a melange of the architectural styles found on Hollywood Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard in California with a hint of New York City. Stores are set into the buildings and above their windows are arched red awnings like those which line the fronts of fancy stores in Beverly Hills. Although Studio Central’s stores are only on ground level, the buildings have artificial upper floors which guests can see as they stroll down the street.

Outside the windows of upper floors are balconies formed from ornate iron railings with traditional black steel stairways connecting them to the storey above. The windows are illuminated at night and the walls around them are surrounded by elaborate relief designs which are common on art deco buildings. No stone has been left unturned.

Outside the windows of upper floors are balconies formed from ornate iron railings with traditional black steel stairways connecting them to the storey above. The windows are illuminated at night and the walls around them are surrounded by elaborate relief designs which are common on art deco buildings. No stone has been left unturned.

The bricks aren’t just artificially weathered, there are period adverts painted on them higher up the sides of the buildings. Right at the top there are intricate cornices – decorative fittings between the wall and the edge of the roof – which were also common in the 1930s era that Studio Central is set in. It is lined with trees, benches and traditional newspaper stands adding to its air of authenticity. At night it is lit by old-fashioned oil lamps and twinkling lights wrapped around the branches of the trees.

It is even more glitzy at Christmas as the reel at the entrance is embedded with lights whilst Illuminated wreaths hang above the doors of the stores and rows of glowing garlands are draped over the street. More lights hang from the balconies of the buildings and encircle a towering Christmas tree at the entrance. It stands at around 40 feet, is wrapped in tinsel and covered with hundreds of baubles.

Dancers dressed like candy canes erupt into song at the side of street and artificial snow (actually soap suds) pours down from hidden dispensers above. It takes more than the wave of a magic wand to pull it all off.

“To provide our guests with memorable family-friendly experiences and delightful moments, it’s important for us to carefully plan and execute our operations well in advance,” says Motiongate’s general manager Denis Pascal. “Transforming the park takes months – nearly the entire year.”

Pascal is one of the most skilled managers in the theme park industry having spent 18 years at Spain’s Parques Reunidos which operates more than 60 parks in around a dozen countries. According to his resumé, he joined the company in 1999 and rose up to become its general manager where he oversaw the full operational and service delivery lifecycle, from setting out pricing structures, designing food and beverage facilities and negotiating contracts to monitoring quality assurance standards.

From there he switched to Vietnam’s Sun Group where he worked on seven parks in Asia and was responsible for end-to-end project management of new builds from pre-opening to full-theme park hand-overs. Pascal’s debut at Motiongate came in 2017, the year after the park opened.

Although the festive season requires intensive preparation, he has a magic formula to ensure it goes smoothly. Pascal explains that feedback from the previous year’s guests is incorporated into “a meticulous planning process, starting with the conceptualization of new live shows and parades while collaborating closely with the entertainment and operations teams.”

During the recent celebration, characters like The Smurfs, Shrek and Po from Kung Fu Panda strutted down Studio Central dressed in Santa outfits during the Hollywood Holidays parade followed by colorful floats and dancers. The characters’ lands were also home to festive shows such as Smurfmas Storytime, where the Smurfs Village became a snowy wonderland for festive tales, magical dances and special character meet-and-greets.

Over in the Dreamworks land, the focus of the festivities was the area themed to its Madagascar movie about spoiled animals which escape from the New York Central Zoo with the unintentional help of four fugitive penguins. In Motiongate the birds starred in the Real Chill Christmas show whilst King Julien’s Holiday Stomp saw guests taking part in a dance-off set to festive tunes.

More traditional entertainment was also on offer including a festive market, a song and dance number featuring Santa and an immersive pop-up ride to his workshop. Given that planning all this takes the best part of a year it’s perhaps understandable that the festive season at Motiongate runs for longer than at many other parks.

Ironically, one of the shortest parts of the process is putting up the decorations as Pascal says that “the turnaround of some elements happens overnight.” Even the elaborate overlay on Studio Central can be put up in a matter of days which is testimony to the experience of Pascal and his team.

“Decorations start to go up only a few days before, with the work happening at night after park closing or before park opening in order not to disrupt the guest experience,” he explains. “The entire staff comes together to bring the enchanting world of Hollywood magic and holiday cheer to life.”

Motiongate’s themed lands are even more immersive than Studio Central and, unlike many theme parks, their rides aren’t housed in hulking angular buildings which blight the landscape.

The Smurfs land looks like a series of gigantic toadstools which are where the blue characters live in the cartoon. Over in the Columbia land, the Hotel Transylvania trackless ride fittingly sits inside an almost full-size castle which looks like it is perched on a craggy mountain. There’s a portcullis at the front, battlements around the towers and faded cream walls with cracks which reveal crumbling brickwork beneath.

The Ghostbusters shooting gallery attraction takes place in the team’s firehouse headquarters (of course) and nearby is one of the most Instagrammable restaurants of any theme park worldwide. Based on Columbia’s Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs computer-animated movie about an inventor who makes massive mounds of food fall from the sky, it draws visitors in from around the park as a huge artificial upside-down ice cream cone sticks up from its roof.

Inside it looks like a retro diner but, in-keeping with the premise of the movie, huge items of food appear to be crashing through the ceiling. There’s a gigantic piece of pizza, a burger complete with lettuce and tomato slices and, of course, meatballs. Even the tiles around the edges of the food seem to be cracked.

The theming continues into the river rapids ride next door which passes by animated models of the oversized dishes. The water splashes from the ride are a welcome respite from the searing heat whilst the Lionsgate land has a different way of keeping guests cool. It is home to Now you See Me: High Roller, the world’s fastest spinning rollercoaster.

Named after the heist movie starring Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine, it tells the story of a team of magicians who use the tricks of their trade to carry out a robbery in Las Vegas. The elaborate queue for the ride is set in a bank vault but the real highlight is right outside where there’s a mini replica of Fremont Street in Sin City. It comes complete with a shorter version of the arched LED screen which runs above the length of the street.

Just when you think you’ve seen it all in Motiongate comes the DreamWorks land. The studio’s famous cloud-shaped logo covers the front of the cavernous pale blue structure. Inside it’s a whole new world.

The first thing you see is a fountain cascading from an intricate golden sculpture of DreamWorks characters. Water spouts from the mouths of Shrek’s ogre offspring whilst the display is crowned by Toothless, the cat-like dragon from the How To Train Your Dragon movies. The statue sits under a rotunda with clouds in the shape of the characters painted on the ceiling. It makes it look like a shrine and the doorways around it lead to temples to DreamWorks movies.

As the land is entirely indoors its scenery can be much more elaborate than in outdoor theme parks as there is no danger of it being damaged by the wind or bleached by the sun. It immerses guests in ways which its rivals can only dream of doing.

Shrek’s swamp is dimly-lit and dotted with thatched cottages as well as reeds and artificial moss covering fake wooden logs. The plants in the fields look just like the ones in the movie and there are nods to it all over the land.

Tinkerbell, who is seen as somewhat of a weakling in the Shrek films, is flattened against a lantern in the land which is also home to props previously only seen digitally on screen. One is a full size replica of the carriage formed from an onion that Shrek’s ogre bride Fiona rides in. There are cobbled floors, full size trees and a towering stump which is where Shrek himself lives.

The darkness of the land gives it a dingy atmosphere like an actual swamp and, fittingly, an inconspicuous opening in a tree stump leads to Shrek’s Merry Fairytale ride. As the land is indoors the ride buildings can be completely hidden by the interior facades which ensures that the structures don’t spoil the immaculately-themed landscape as they often do in outdoor parks. It adds to the sense of anticipation and if you think you know what you’re in for because you’ve been on Dreamworks rides at Universal theme parks then think again. The DreamWorks rides at Motiongate are all unique to the park and are amongst the best in the world.

The entrances to the rides are subtly and logically integrated into the facades and this attention to detail continues throughout the attractions. The queue for the Shrek ride winds through the ogre’s cottage and then the swamp. Everything has been carefully thought through and even the lights are hidden behind branches hanging above.

Then comes the main event as trackless slow-moving ride cars pull up and give guests a new take on the classic fairytale which puts Universal’s 4D Shrek show to shame.

Ingeniously, it starts with movie-accurate life-size models of Shrek and Fiona telling the story of the movie to their children through a puppet show. The following scenes are set in that show and tell the ogre’s story through life-size wooden puppets complete with mock strings attached to their arms. The ride makes the most of its trackless vehicles and at one point they split up to travel down separate aisles in a church when a good-natured dragon saves the day at Fiona’s wedding to the evil Lord Farquad.

At around five minutes it is longer than the average ride in a U.S. theme park and this isn’t an exception. Colorful paper lanterns hang from slate-roofed pagodas in the Kung Fu Panda land and tiny model houses are built on hills which line the tall walls to make look like they are far in the distance. A lengthy simulated raft ride across China is concealed behind one of the pagodas and its movie-quality ride film is so impressive that it was partly integrated into a show at Universal Studios Hollywood a year after it debuted in Dubai. However, this isn’t the clearest example of how far ahead of the game the DreamWorks land is.

In May this year Universal will swing open the doors to its Epic Universe park in Orlando which reportedly cost more than $6.6 billion to build. One of its attractions is themed to the popular How To Train Your Dragon movies but instead of using cutting-edge simulators to convey the feeling of flight, it resorts to the age-old format of a sit down roller-coaster. That wouldn’t cut the mustard in Motiongate. Its How to Train Your Dragon area uses a cutting edge ride system to make riders feel like they are actually flying beneath a dragon.

It is based on the eponymous 2010 movie about a young Viking named Hiccup who aspires to follow his tribe’s tradition of becoming a dragon slayer but instead ends up befriending one with a cat-like face. The Motiongate ride recreates Hiccup’s Viking land of Berk which is perched on a rocky mountainside lining a cavernous room in the hangar-like building. High up the sides of the room is a forest of fake fir trees on the peaks of the mountain and on the lower level there’s a harbour with full-size longboats sitting in it. Several are part of a children’s play area and another is a ride which swings to-and-fro past a huge windmill.

On the first floor of the mountain there are rows of wooden huts which have steeply sloping roofs in a classic Norwegian style. Many are there just for show but others have food stalls and shops in them. The flagship Dragon Gliders ride is buried deep within the mountainside with soaring stone statues of Vikings flanking its carved wooden doors.

They lead to what appears to be a giant stable and DreamWorks uses every trick in its spell book to make it feel rustic. Hay is scattered on the floor and bales of it sit in the corners of the barn, just out of reach from the queue which winds through it. In the rafters there are rows of beams with wooden dragon heads carved into them and metal lanterns hanging from their mouths. It even smells like a stable.

A map of Berk on the wooden wall appears to be parchment but suddenly waves in the water around the island ripple as guests pass by as it’s actually an ultra high resolution screen. Making it harder to tell the difference between virtual and actual props, genuine tapestries also hang on the walls while computer-generated footage on screens in fake windows makes it seem like baby dragons are flying around outside. Models of sleeping little ones sit in nests on the beams above and if you stand watching them for long enough they twitch their noses and claws. Even the staff are part of the story as they are dressed in Viking furs.

The ride itself is made by German roller coaster manufacturer Mack, the leader in its field and one of the most respected names in the theme park industry. Its technical wizardry is what makes Dragon Gliders so immersive.

Known as an inverted powered coaster, the ride is one of only a handful in the world. Instead of sitting on top of the track, the seats hang underneath it with guests’ legs dangling down. Unlike most roller coasters, it doesn’t rely on gravity as the cars are powered by electric motors. This allows them to stop and start at will as well as move up inclines and across flat stretches of track. Crucially, although the ride never goes upside down, its seats spin laterally and this is used to great effect.

Racing up an incline facing sideways then going down a hill backwards is an exhilarating experience in itself and it is used to drive the story forward. The seats have what look like makeshift wings above them as they are meant to be gliders created by Hiccup. Through hidden speakers in the wings he tells guests that they have been enlisted for flight training but they actually end up saving Berk from an attack by a rogue dragon.

As the ride races around the track it turns to face life-size moving models of the characters as well as computer-generated scenes on high-definition projection screens which are so sharp they seamlessly blend into the sets. There are models of battling dragons and miniature villages which seem like they are far below the track. Cleverly, whilst speech comes from the speakers in the wings, there are others hidden in the scenery which are used to make it sound like noise is coming from afar.

At one point, it seems like a dragon is breathing on the riders as it roars on screen in front of them just as they are bombarded by a perfectly-timed blast of air. On another occasion a full-size dragon head suddenly appears along with projections of fire which mystifyingly seem to come out of thin air.

The highlight comes when the track bursts out of the ride building and soars high above the land. It suddenly becomes clear why there’s a full-size forest of fir trees atop the mock mountain as the track weaves through them and does a tour of the full size Viking village below before gliding back into the barn down a spiral staircase.

This is the ride that should have been built at Epic Universe as although it opened at Motiongate in 2017 it still ranks as one of the most immersive and innovative attractions anywhere in the world. Experts agree.

“This is one of the best family coasters I have ever ridden. We did it several times,” says Taylor Bybee of Coaster Studios. He adds that the “Shrek ride was just unbelievable. This was our favorite dark ride in the park. Actually, our favorite dark ride in all of the UAE.”

Bybee is one of the world’s foremost roller coaster experts and an authority on theme parks which makes his assessment of Shrek’s Merry Fairytale all the more significant. “You could easily pick up this ride and drop it into a Universal or Disney park and it would be better than some of the current dark rides at Universal or Disney. Brilliant ride.” He adds that “they spared no expense in this land or the entire DreamWorks building.”

Summarising his experience in a separate post he said that he is “in love with Motiongate. What an incredible park. Fantastic collection of rides with outstanding theming. I cannot recommend this place enough. We were here from open to close and still wanted more time.”

It echoes the experience of Shawn and Charlotte Sanbrooke of Theme Park World Wide who are also part of an elite group. They sit alongside Coaster Studios, Robb Alvey of Theme Park Review and Robert Niles of Theme Park Insider as the world’s top four theme park experts and content creators.

Theme Park World Wide’s assessment of Motiongate is that it “features 7 roller coasters along with a great variety of dark rides and other attractions. The highlight of the park is the stunning indoor Dreamworks themed land.” They add that “the whole Dreamworks area is amazing and it should be a benchmark for what we could see back in the UK” when Universal opens a theme park there. “It’s pristine. It’s really well looked after.”

That’s thanks to Pascal and his team. Their next task is overseeing two weeks of Chinese New Year celebrations which begin today and are appropriately focused on the Kung Fu Panda land in Motiongate. It features a park-wide quest for red ribbons as well as a new show and parade. At the same time, the team will have to start considering this year’s Christmas celebration so if you’re someone who can’t stand the sight of tinsel until after Thanksgiving then spare a thought for them.