Description: Wild Wadi is a themed water park on Jumeirah Beach in Dubai. We had a day there on our recent trip and enjoyed it more than we thought we would and I'd recommend a visit if you are in the area. It is competing against the more famous Atlantis Water Park on The Palm, but when you compare prices and value for money, Wild Wadi is probably better. My hard to please niece and nephew have been to both and said that Wild Wadi is far superior - so there you go!
===Location and Getting There===
Getting there is fairly easy. It is located right next to the Jumeirah Beach Hotel (sometimes called The Wave) and if you are staying at this hotel, you can get direct access from the grounds (and it is free to enter!). Other wise get the skytrain to Mall of the Emirates and then either walk or get a taxi along the mile or so straight road from there to the park's entrance. We walked and it took us about 25 minutes, walking at a pretty leisurely pace.
===Getting In===
It isn't cheap to enter - but nothing is in Dubai, so comparably the price is about normal. Even so, you can expect to part with about £40 per person for a day pass. If you want to go in the afternoon, you can save about £5 on that price if go in two hours before closing. We found the way they did the entry fee to be really odd. From what we could see on the sign outside, it was going to be £40 each for entry and then a further £10 for a locker. What actually happened was that we paid £40 and then got £10 credit per person to use on lockers or food. If you don't use the credit, you get back at the end of the day. I couldn't for the life of me understand why they didn't advertise this because it is quite a good thing. We got a locker (despite me balking at the £10 cost!) and then got the other £10 back.
You get a wristband as your entry ticket and the credit that you have is stored on this wristband, which is very handy since they are waterproof. if you do buy anything, you just swipe it as you would a touchless credit card. You also have the option of adding extra credit onto it when you go into the park if you think you might need it for souvenirs and food. You also swipe it again on the way back to get your credit back.
===The Rides===
There are lots of rides in the park requiring different levels of competency. But the main selling factor is the series of slides that take you around the park without having to walk a step called the Master Blasters. They are pretty funky because they take you up hill and down. Beware though, you might have to hang on to your swimming costume when you are going uphill because it doesn't half send you off with a blast! You go around the travel slides in a rubber ring either for one person or two and then at each junction, you have the option of hopping off down the ride or continuing to the next one. It is a really fun way of getting around and beats climbing up and down stairs. The rides that come off this system are the more tame ones, so you don't have to worry about ending up on a death defying ride by accident!
The thrill seeker's rides are separate to this system and include some real white knuckle ones. Tantrum Alley is a ride for up to four people. You sit on an inflatable and then are push down a pretty hefty dip into a sort of big barrel that you fly up and down the sides of. The thrill of the ride depends on whether you are going backwards or forwards when you go into the barrel. To be honest I can't decide whether it's better to see what is coming or not! Burj Surj is downhill ride for up to five people that goes pretty fast and empties you out into a bowl which you spin round in before dropping into the pool below. It's a bit tamer than the first one but good fun all the same. Jumeirah Sceirah is an almost vertical drop slide that is ridiculously fast. They also have a lazy river which is where you end up if you go around the Master Blaster system I mentioned before.
There is a wave pool that wasn't actually open when we visited because they were repairing it, which is a shame because it would have been nice to have somewhere to relax a bit between rides as there is nowhere else aside from this - there are no general pool areas. Near to this is a children's area with water buckets and small slides, but this was also closed. If you are visiting with younger children, I'd recommend asking what is closed before you enter because if either of these is closed, there's not much else for smaller children. Having said that, they are good at telling you what is closed on a particular day - we were told twice before we paid for our ticket, by two different people that the areas were closed.
Aside from all of this there is a couple of surfing type rides that they are very proud of. We didn't actually go on them because, as far as I am aware, you have to pay extra for them. They did look quite good though.
===Other Stuff===
There are lots of places you can spend your money throughout the park as you would imagine. There are restaurants where you can get a meal, like burgers, fries, pizzas and so on. There are also lots of places in between where you can get a snack to tide you over! They have ice creams, sweets, bagels, donuts and sweetcorn stalls. The food isn't particularly cheap, but you would get a meal for your £10 with a drink and snack included.
There is a gift shop on the way out. It has all the usual overpriced tat that you can take home as a souvenir of your stay. It also has all your essentials that you may have forgotten - towels, swim wear and lotions for example. I'd recommend remembering everything though because it'll cost you a fortune here!
There are sun beds scattered around the park and plenty of them, so you can have a nice sit down. i noticed that a lot of people tended to use them as stop off points and left their stuff there whilst they were on rides. I wouldn't recommend leaving things unattended, but the whole park seemed very safe and there were lots of staff everywhere.
The park is open different hours throughout the year, depending on the season. Generally it is open from around the 10am mark until six or seven in the evening. You can get up to date details on the website - https://www.jumeirah.com/en/hotels-resorts/dubai/wild-wadi/. You can also book tickets online here if you want.
===Worth A Trip?===
i would say yes. As you might have gathered, I don't think it is is particularly cheap. But like I said nothing in these parts is and it is quite a fun day out, especially if the weather is nice.
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