What other better way to chill out and cool off in the Dubai desert heat than a day out at a water park by the beachside and Persian sea? The Wild Wadi Water Park is situated along the beach side Jumeirah, Dubai, next to the Burj Al Arab and the Jumeirah Beach Hotel. The water park is operated by Jumeirah International, a Dubai-based hotelier.
All day tickets to the park will set you back 200 AED which is about $50, do remember to pack some sunblock as it can get rather burning here in Dubai, unless if you want a sunburn to remember. You will be issued a wrist strap upon entry which serves as your personal cash-free wallet which you use for your locker access as well as tap and go cashless payments for food purchases and the park’s gift shop. You can top up any refundable amount starting into your strap anytime at your discretion.
The place is decked out with variety of tube rides which encircles the whole park, including two flowriders and a lazy river. Various tube slides encircles the perimeter of the park which makes up the master blaster tube ride.
The wadi wadi master blaster tube slides are best described as water roller coasters, which can even defy gravity at some points. In this ride, the riders have a choice of single or a double ring tubes, which are propelled upwards with the help of high powered jets, even up the steepest of tube slopes. Many other tube slides make up the master blaster, these rides being the Flood River Flyer, Wadi Leap, White Water Wadi, Falaj Fury, Wadi Twister and Wadi Basher. Each ride segment ends in a splash pool where you can choose to carry on on the next slide or stop halfway but exiting the pool. Carrying on the next slides subsequently brings you to more splash pools, bringing you throughout the park. YOu have a choice of various diversions to chose throughout the tube ride, making each trip up the master blaster a different one.
The park is not very big in size, but is rather tight and compact given the confines of the main Jumeirah road and the Persian gulf beach line which is is built into. The iconic Al Arab 7 star “sail” hotel overlooks the whole park.
Wild Wadi wadi Waterpark, Dubai
The park is laid out with a central walkway from the entrance serving all the major rides along it’s path with several sub-diversions leading to all the respective rides on it’s flanks- which you can exit to. Getting around the park is quite a no-brainer thanks to it small size. Moreover, much of the paved concrete pavements are painted with a rubber-like paint which not only keeps it waterproof but prevents slippages when wet too. These hard pavements are thankfully, also kept cool courtesy of an ingenious integrated sidewalk active sprinkler system, so you don’t burn your feet under the egg-frying hot surface which is typical of most concrete pavement in the desert weather here. Other areas such as steps to the upper areas of the park are covered with rubber mats, very well thought through.
Native to any water park is the waterworks playground, complete with it’s own trademark chiming water bucket which overflows it’s load every 5 minutes or so. It’s always a hit for us big kids who never seem to grow up, much to the dismay of the staff there, as the playground was actually reserved for actual kids, not there were any around for us to piss off, but nonetheless a place for lots of mindless fun with your inner child.
Lifejackets are available free of cost, for protection for the guests as claimed by the park. These bright red vests are of a universal size which in my opinion will be quite ill-fitting, let be a sight to look at if anyone were to try them on. Not that I see a need for them, but the park recommends using them on the wave pool and non-swimmers alike. Then there are of course the lazy floaters in the active wave pool. The breakers bay is the largest wave pool in the Middle East complete with it’s own synthetic beach decked with deck chairs and goes from a waddle to 5 meters deep at the end of the wave pool. Safety is pretty well covered in the park, with at least 2 active lifeguards on duty per attraction.
Camera photography just like in any Dubai tourist attraction is permitted, but what no other better way to experience a pictures on a waterpark than with a waterproof camera? The park’s gift shop do stock and assortment of underwater photography gear, particularly disposable underwater cameras. On top of the usual water park store stuff such as swim wear and shower toiletries. There are even several staff on duty with underwater cameras throughout the park who will take your picture and have you tagged on them so you can view and purchase them from the park’s gift shop.
One of the main attractions in the park will have it be their high speed drop slide, called the Jumeirah Sceirah, it’s a single lane speed slide topping speeds of 80kmph. The slide too reside on the highest point of the park, giving you a great overview of the Downtown Dubai on the east as well as the park, the Al Arab and Jumeirah beachline on the western side. It’s surprising that a water park of this caliber only have one high intensity water ride, which was quite a disappointment, there are no half pipes, looping tunnels, zip-lines, giant funnels, black hole tunnels or even airtime slides.
As a consolation, they do have quite an awesome Flowrider, two in fact, one large open air competition surfer and a straight medium one tucked in the shade.
Here, the experienced and virgin boarders alike can all have a go at the flowrider, often with hilarious results. The staff will give every guest attempting the attraction a quick run down on the basics as well as leading you on the tricks to perform on the ride, with an occasional stunt or two if they see you up for it.
The learning curve of the flowrider is easy to medium, depending on how you are quick to grasp the feel of the board and balance. if you’ve never tried it before be prepared to undergo a few flops before getting the hang of it. Thereafter you will be more confident to try different surfing positions, flips, 360s, balances and stunts alike. Anyway you can always head back in for another try after another after a flop, just be sure not to hog the machine for too long as the queues can do get rather long as times!
The key to being on the flow rider is to be completely relaxed and use your body weight to lean into the force of the water, almost like skydiving or at least those vertical wind tunnels where you can regulate the flow of fluid around you to control your descend and in this case, your yaw. The flow rider in the body/knee boarding configuration is no different either, just go light on the flow and lean in with the flow and motion.
A visit to the park will be good for 4 hours or so, unless you intend to spend your whole day on the lazy river, beach front or tanning on the wave pool decks, otherwise you will be pretty very much out of attractions by then. Overall the wadi is a nice park with friendly staff to boot, it will be perfect if the place is bigger with more rides.
That’s concludes my trip to the middle east. Do check out my photo galleries for more updates and sights of my middle east trip, after all, a picture is worth a thousands words and more than what I can write here at a go. Cheers and take care!
- Dubai city sights Part 1 (Dubai city photo album)
- Dubai city sights, creek and souks Part 2
- The Dubai mall, aquarium and zoo (Dubai mall photo album)
- Up the Burj Khalifa (Photo sights up the Burj Khalifa)
- Dubai historical sites and Dhow River cruise (Historical site and Dhow cruise album)
- Dubai Desert Safari (Safari photo album)
- Adu Dhabi (Adu Dhahi photo album)
- Yas island (Yas island photo album)
- Jumeirah, Wadi wadi waterpark (Wadi wadi Photo album)
