Walt Disney thought big when he decided to build his second theme park in Florida. Although he died in 1966 before he could see his vision through to completion, his successors still managed to turn Walt Disney World into the most popular theme park resort on the planet. Indeed, Walt Disney World established the very concept of a destination resort, in which guests could stay and play in on-site hotels once the theme park day was over.
Naturally, others have since tried to copy the formula. Disney itself has built resorts in Tokyo, Paris and Hong Kong, as well as expanding the original Disneyland into a multi-day attraction. Universal has managed to establish its own resort right in Disney’s backyard in Orlando, while European resorts such as PortAventura and Europa Park have also found a healthy audience.
None of those other resorts, even the Disney ones, remotely rival the expansive Walt Disney World, which covers 25,000 acres and boasts four theme parks, two water parks, a vast retail and entertainment district and dozens of hotels. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t tried.
Let’s take a look at 3 mega-resorts that hoped to establish themselves on a scale to match (or even exceed) Walt Disney World, and what became of them.
3. Dubailand (Dubai)
The almost-impossibly ambitious Dubailand became synonymous with the debt-fuelled construction boom in Dubai in the mid-2000s, and many theme park fans will rue the fact that it wasn’t able to fulfil those lofty ambitions.
Some 45 “mega projects” were planned for Dubailand, which would sprawl across more than 68,000 acres of the Arabian Desert – making it double the size of Walt Disney World. In total, it was expected that more than $60 billion would be spent making this vision a reality – most of it borrowed from over-enthusiastic banks, of course.
As announced in October 2003, Dubailand was to be divided into six zones: Attractions and Experience World, Sports and Outdoor World, Eco-Tourism World, Themed Leisure and Vacation World, Retail and Entertainment World, and Downtown. While there were many interesting elements in the other five lands (including the world’s largest shopping mall, the Mall of Arabia and a Universal CityWalk in Downtown), it was Attractions and Experience World that really grabbed the headlines. This would feature the largest collection of theme parks in the world – and almost every big name in the industry was involved, with the notable exception of Disney.
The first theme park to open was intended to be F1-X, which was to be themed around Formula One. The park was to boast a Formula One Museum, various grand prix-themed rides and simulators, along with a hotel. The entire park would be themed around a Formula One paddock, with several F1 teams involved in its design. Three bespoke roller coasters would recreate the experience of driving an F1 car.
Nearby, Universal Studios Dubailand would bring the magic of the movies to the desert. The park was set to be based on the rough template of Universal Studios Florida, but would include a host of unique attractions. This would have included a King Kong-themed roller coaster that would race around a jungle setting, a massive recreation of Jurassic Park and the world’s first ride to be themed around Ghostbusters. There would also be clones of rides from other Universal theme parks, such as a version of the Revenge of the Mummy roller coaster.
Another huge US chain, Six Flags, was set to be expand into the international market with a theme park at Dubailand – predictably named Six Flags Dubailand. This was not to be your average, run-of-the-mill Six Flags park, filled with off-the-shelf thrill rides and cloned roller coasters. No, this was to be a Six Flags park on steroids – a heavily-themed wonderland packed with every type of ride imaginable.
Disney would be involved – in a way. Marvel, which was later acquired by Disney, would license its characters for use in the spectacular Marvel Superheroes Theme Park. We covered the proposed attractions in-depth in this article, and they included a mega-budget dark ride based on Spider-Man, a RoboCoaster ride themed around Iron Man and an incredible roller coaster with an “underwater” drop.
Along with Universal, two other major studios signed on for the Dubailand project. Among them was Warner Bros., with a host of the firm’s movies and DC Comics characters set to form the basis of attractions at Warner Bros. Movie World. Elsewhere, animated characters would provide the inspiration for many of the rides and shows at DreamWorks Studio Theme Park. Merlin Entertainments would also be part of the setup, with a Dubailand version of its popular LEGOLAND theme parks.
There would be original theme parks, not based on existing brands, among the line-up, too. Legends of Dubailand, for example, would be the world’s largest indoor theme park, boasts three sub-parks (Legends of Arabia, Legends of Nature and Legends of the World).
Sahara Kingdom, meanwhile, would cover some 113 acres and would combine virtual and physical rides with a state-of-the-art gaming zone, an IMAX theater, live shows and four hotels. Cities including Saaba, Babylon, Palmyra, Petra Ubar and the City of Thieves would be recreated.
Alongside the theme parks, there were to be dozens of hotels, six water parks, zoos and marine parks, extensive sports facilities and a snowdome. The Great Dubai Wheel would offer a nice aerial view of the giant resort.
If the project had started a little earlier, it’s just possible that it might be up-and-running today with several theme parks on offer. However, the global debt crisis struck in 2008, and Dubailand became its poster-child victim. Construction work had already begun on Universal Studios Dubailand and F1-X, but ground to a halt, leaving one of Universal’s signature archway entrances leading into an empty desert.
Elements of the plans have been revived, including construction of a LEGOLAND theme park. But it’s very unlikely that we’ll ever see Dubailand built in anything like its original guise.
2. Wonderworld (Corby, England)
There can be few less likely settings for a rival to Walt Disney World than humble Corby, a former steel town in Northamptonshire, England. However, that didn’t stop serious planning taking place for a massive theme park resort that was designed to become the UK’s number one attraction, and to rival the Florida resort in terms of attendance.
It was the early 1980s, and Corby had been in a slump since the closure of a British Steel plant in 1980 at the cost of 20,000 jobs. Two men, Gerald Baptist and Ian Quicke, felt they had a concept that would turn around the town’s fortunes. They wanted to buil an enormous, Epcot-style educational theme park dubbed Wonderworld – one that would create a completely new tourism and leisure industry in Corby.
The local council were quick to jump on-board with the plan. 1,000 acres of derelict open cast land owned by the British Steel Corporation were set aside, ready to be transformed into a park that would “out-Disney Disney”. The first phase was projected to cost a huge £143 million, with the park opening in 1985. Within a decade of the park opening, its backers expected to have spent some £376 million in total.
Group Five were keen to stress that Wonderworld would “not be an amusement park”. Instead, it would encourage “maximum participation” by visitors, in a “British version of Disneyland” that would be “unusual in Britain, if not the world”. Minister of State for Industry Norman Lamont was on hand to unveil the plans at the Design Centre in London on September 7, 1982, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had “commended to the country” this “ambitious, imaginative and high-risk” project.
Derek Walker, the chief architect for the new town of Milton Keynes, was brought in to design the resort. At the heart of Wonderworld was to be an enormous, 450-metre-long glass dome “the size of five football pitches”, reminiscent of the Crystal Palace that housed the Great Exhibition of 1851. This would host areas dedicated to land, safety, the “Lost Village”, air and space, communications, the body and the world. As at Epcot, sponsors would be sought to help fund these exhibits and lend them credibility.
Image via Dan-Dare.org
Celebrities such as Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam, astrologer Patrick Moore and Botanist David Bellamy were brought into the design attractions. Deals were also struck to bring in licensed character such as Dan Dare, while renowned science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke had designed much of the air and space-themed land.
Outdoor activities would be concentrated on the outskirts of the sprawling site. This would include an 18-hole golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus, as well as a 10,000-seater sports stadium boasting restaurants and facilities for tuition by leading sports personalities. A huge concert arena, capable of seating 30,000 people, would be designed to resemble a Martian “tripod” fighting machine from War of the Worlds.
Negotiations were held with British Rail around installing a new railway station close to the park, with special trains in Wonderworld livery bringing in visitors from London’s St Pancras. The possibility of British Rail taking over the operation of an on-site monorail system was also discussed, and there were even plans to develop a nearby airstrip.
Wonderworld was expected to be such a big draw that it would pull in guests for entire holidays rather than just day-visits. To accommodate this, 1,000 lodges would be constructed, along with as many as seven hotels. It was predicted that it would attract 4 million visitors per year initially, but that this could rise to as many as 13 million – Walt Disney World levels – eventually.
The first attractions were scheduled to open by the middle of 1985, but investors were not convinced. By 1985, the opening window had been pushed back to early 1988. When 1988 actually rolled around, the date had been shunted to 1992 “to coincide with the opening of the Channel Tunnel”.
Image via Northamptonshire Telegraph
Ultimately, financing was never forthcoming, and the project was finally abandoned some fifteen years after it was initially proposed when the council ran out of patience. The only reminder is a scale model, now installed in the Corby Cube, the £47.5m building that opened as part of yet another regeneration scheme for the town in 2010.
1. Universal Studios Escape (Orlando, Florida)
Back in the late 1990s, Universal had ambitious plans for its Orlando resort. After a disastrous opening year, Universal Studios Florida had established itself as a popular destination for visitors to Central Florida. The company’s creative teams – who had never built a major ride before the Florida park opened – could now rival Disney’s Imagineers. Plans were announced for a second theme park, Islands of Adventure, as well as luxury on-site hotels and the CityWalk area. Walt Disney World – in the midst of building its fourth theme park, Disney’s Animal Kingdom – was about to have some serious competition.
Islands of Adventure would open in 1999, with the resort being rebranded as Universal Studios Escape. But Universal didn’t plan to stop there. It acquired 2,000 acres of land from Lockheed Martin close to the Orange County Convention Center, where it planned to install two 18-hole golf courses, 700 time-share units and hotels boasting no fewer than 13,000 rooms. A second CityWalk-style retail area was also part of the plans.
Most intriguingly, though, Universal Creative had also begun working on a third theme park concept for the land. One that, according to reports at the time, would be aimed at children (a market underserved by Universal’s current attractions). Universal was about to take on Disney at its own game, right in its backyard. It wouldn’t stop there, either – there were even proposals for a fourth theme park by 2010, bringing Universal Orlando up to parity with Walt Disney World.
The new theme parks would be located right across the way from the convention center, providing a potentially huge audience. Orange County even ponied up $69 million to buy 230 acres of land from Universal, to enable the center to expand itself.
There were the usual battles between Universal and local residents, who were worried about the the impact the expansion plans would have on traffic and noise levels. Eventually, though, authorities cleared the way for Universal to begin developing the land. As a sop to residents, the theme parks would be built in the middle, and not at the edge of the property as originally intended.
First, though, Universal had a major clear-up operation on its hands. For nearly four decades, the land had been used by Lockheed Martin as a missile-testing site. It was contaminated by toxic waste (some 83 tons of the stuff, including lethal carcinogens), and the bill to prepare it for the expansion would run into tens of millions of dollars. The money raised by selling the portion of land to Orange County was to be used to help fund this effort.
Parkpedia.
In the meantime, Islands of Adventure opened to rave reviews…and sparse attendance. The marketing campaign behind Universal Studios Escape had been a disaster, with many blaming the confusing name for suggesting that Universal Studios Florida was still the only theme park on the site. The resort was hastily renamed to the Universal Orlando Resort, a much clearer moniker that has stood the test of time.
Unfortunately, the clean-up operation on the Lockheed Martin land was not straightforward, and costs soon began to spiral. Not only that, but Universal Orlando’s then part-owner, Vivendi, was struggling financially by 2004. Despite having spent an estimated $40 million on preparing the site, Vivendi instructed Universal’s management to sell it. This they did, to Thomas Enterprises, a developer based in Georgia. Since then, portions of it have been developed, and a host of plans have been put forward (but not pursued) for other sections.
The fortunes of the struggling Universal Orlando Resort were transformed by two major events: the opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in 2010, and its acquisition by cable giant Comcast. Its new owner has committed to spending big money on the Universal Orlando Resort every year, as well as adding thousands of hotel rooms.
Rumors are once again circulating about a third theme park. The reality, though, is that unless something major changes, Universal Orlando probably doesn’t have room for a third, full-sized theme park. Maybe a boutique park, or a small water park. But a full-blown theme park, complete with additional parking? It would require incredibly innovative use of Universal’s land, and may simply be impossible.
Does that completely rule out a third gate forever? No. But Universal may have to look at alternative options – such as acquiring land elsewhere, and creating a two-center resort (three, counting Wet ‘n’ Wild). In the meantime, its efforts are likely to be focusing on reworking and enhancing its existing parks, which still have plenty of scope for improvement.
