The Walt Disney Company And Miral Announce Plans For Disney Theme Park And Resort On Yas Island, Abu Dhabi

The Walt Disney Company and Miral, Abu Dhabi’s leading creator of immersive destinations and experiences, announced an agreement to create a landmark Disney theme park resort in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The waterfront resort will be located on Yas Island, a world-class destination for entertainment and leisure, connecting travelers from the Middle East and Africa, India, Asia, Europe, and beyond. This seventh Disney theme park resort will combine Disney’s iconic stories, characters and attractions with Abu Dhabi’s vibrant culture, stunning shorelines, and breathtaking architecture.

“Abu Dhabi is a place where heritage meets innovation, where we preserve our past while designing the future,” His Excellency Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman at Miral, said. “The collaboration between Abu Dhabi and Disney demonstrates the remarkable results of combining visionary leadership and creative excellence. What we are creating with Disney in Abu Dhabi is a whole new world of imagination — an experience that will inspire generations across the region and the world, creating magical moments and memories that families will treasure forever. Through the development of unique attractions and experiences, Abu Dhabi continues to be a destination of choice for the world.”

The new resort will be fully developed and built by Miral. Disney and its legendary Imagineers will lead creative design and operational oversight to provide a world-class experience. Miral, which has developed a number of family entertainment destinations on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi in collaboration with American and European brands, will operate the resort.

“This is a thrilling moment for our company as we announce plans to build an exciting Disney theme park resort in Abu Dhabi, whose culture is rich with an appreciation of the arts and creativity,” said Robert A. Iger, Chief Executive Officer, The Walt Disney Company. “As our seventh theme park destination, it will rise from this land in spectacular fashion, blending contemporary architecture with cutting edge technology to offer guests deeply immersive entertainment experiences in unique and modern ways. Disneyland Abu Dhabi will be authentically Disney and distinctly Emirati – an oasis of extraordinary Disney entertainment at this crossroads of the world that will bring to life our timeless characters and stories in many new ways and will become a source of joy and inspiration for the people of this vast region to enjoy for generations to come.”

The UAE is located within a four-hour flight of one-third of the world’s population, making it a significant gateway for tourism. The UAE is home to the largest global airline hub in the world, with 120 million passengers traveling through Abu Dhabi and Dubai each year.

“This groundbreaking resort destination represents a new frontier in theme park development,” said Josh D’Amaro, Chairman, Disney Experiences. “Our resort in Abu Dhabi will be the most advanced and interactive destination in our portfolio. The location of our park is incredibly unique – anchored by a beautiful waterfront – which will allow us to tell our stories in completely new ways. This project will reach guests in a whole new part of the world, welcoming more families to experience Disney than ever before. Ultimately, it will be a celebration of what’s possible when creativity and progress come together.”

“Bringing a Disney theme park resort to Yas Island marks a historic milestone in our journey to further advance the island’s position as a global destination for exceptional entertainment and leisure,” said Mohamed Abdalla Al Zaabi, Group CEO, Miral. “Together, we are creating a place of boundless innovation, where the vision of our leadership continues to inspire the world.” The development of unique experiences will support sustained economic growth in Abu Dhabi and beyond.

Upon completion, the new theme park resort will offer signature Disney entertainment, themed accommodations, unique dining and retail experiences, and storytelling in a way that celebrates both the heritage of Disney and the futuristic and cultural essence of Abu Dhabi.

United Arab Emirates Struggles To Recover After Heaviest Recorded Rainfall Ever Its Desert Nation

The United Arab Emirates tried to wring itself out Thursday after the heaviest recorded rainfall ever to hit the desert nation, with its main airport allowing more flights even as floodwater still covered portions of major highways and communities.

Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel, allowed global carriers on Thursday morning to again fly into Terminal 1 at the airfield. And long-haul carrier Emirates, crucial to East-West travel, began allowing local passengers to arrive at Terminal 3, their base of operations.

However, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths said in an interview with The Associated Press that the airfield needed at least another 24 hours to resume operations close to its usual schedule. Meanwhile, one desert community in Dubai saw floodwaters continue to rise Thursday to as much as 1 meter (3 feet) as civil defense officials struggled to pump out the water.

“We were looking at the radar thinking, ‘Goodness, if this hits, then it’s going to be cataclysmic,’” Griffiths said of the storm. “And indeed it was.”

The airport ended up needing 22 tankers with vacuum pumps to get water off its grounds. Griffiths acknowledged that taxiways flooded during the rains, though the airport’s runways remained free of water to safely operate. Online videos of a FlyDubai flight landing with its reverse thrust spraying out water caught the world’s attention.

“It looks dramatic, but it actually isn’t that dramatic,” Griffiths said.

Emirates, whose operations had been struggling since the storm Tuesday, had stopped travelers flying out of the UAE from checking into their flights as they tried to move out connecting passengers. Pilots and flight crews also had a hard time reaching the airport given the water on roadways.

But on Thursday, Emirates lifted that order to allow customers into the airport. That saw some 2,000 people come into Terminal 3, again sparking long lines, Griffiths said.

Others who arrived at the airport described hourslong waits to get their baggage, with some just giving up to head home or to whatever hotel would have them.

The UAE, a hereditarily ruled, autocratic nation on the Arabian Peninsula, typically sees little rainfall in its arid desert climate. However, a massive storm forecasters had been warning about for days blew through the country’s seven sheikhdoms.

By the end of Tuesday, more than 142 millimeters (5.59 inches) of rainfall had soaked Dubai over 24 hours. An average year sees 94.7 millimeters (3.73 inches) of rain at Dubai International Airport. Other areas of the country saw even more precipitation.

Meanwhile, intense floods also have struck neighboring Oman in recent days. Authorities on Thursday raised the death toll from those storms to at least 21 killed.

The UAE’s drainage systems quickly became overwhelmed Tuesday, flooding out neighborhoods, business districts and even portions of the 12-lane Sheikh Zayed Road highway running through Dubai.

The state-run WAM news agency called the rain “a historic weather event” that surpassed “anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949.”

In a message to the nation late Wednesday, Emirati leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi, said authorities would “quickly work on studying the condition of infrastructure throughout the UAE and to limit the damage caused.”

On Thursday, people waded through oil-slicked floodwater to reach cars earlier abandoned, checking to see if their engines still ran. Tanker trucks with vacuums began reaching some areas outside of Dubai’s downtown core for the first time as well. Schools remain closed until next week.

Authorities have offered no overall damage or injury information from the floods, which killed at least one person.

However, at least one community saw the effects of the rainfall only get worse Thursday. Mudon, a development by the state-owned Dubai Properties, saw flooding in one neighborhood reach as much as 1 meter. Civil defense workers tried to pump the water out, but it was a struggle as people waded through the floodwater.

Residents of Mudon, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity given the UAE’s strict laws governing speech, described putting together the equivalent of nearly $2,000 to get a tanker to the community Wednesday. They alleged the developers did nothing to help prior to that, even as they called and emailed. They also said a nearby sewage processing facility failed, bringing more water into their homes.

“A lot of people were in denial of how bad it was,” one homeowner said as civil defense officials waded through the water, bringing bottled water on a raft.

Dubai Holding, a state-owned company that has Dubai Properties as an arm, did not respond to questions. It’s part of a wider nexus that U.S. diplomats have called “Dubai Inc.” — all properties overseen by the city-state’s ruling family.

The flooding sparked speculation that the UAE’s aggressive campaign of cloud seeding — flying small planes through clouds dispersing chemicals aimed at getting rain to fall — may have contributed to the deluge. But experts said the storm systems that produced the rain were forecast well in advance and that cloud seeding alone would not have caused such flooding

Scientists also say climate change is responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme storms, droughts, floods and wildfires around the world. Dubai hosted the United Nations’ COP28 climate talks just last year.

Abu Dhabi’s state-linked newspaper The National in an editorial Thursday described the heavy rains as a warning to countries in the wider Persian Gulf region to “climate-proof their futures.”

“The scale of this task is more daunting than it appears even at first glance, because such changes involve changing the urban environment of a region that for as long as it has been inhabited, has experienced little but heat and sand,” the newspaper said

BY JON GAMBRELL

Abrahamic Family House In The United Arab Emirates Houses A Church, Synagogue And Mosque

On the shores of the Persian Gulf, a new complex houses a Catholic church, a Jewish synagogue and an Islamic mosque in the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

The Abrahamic Family House offers a concrete, marble and oak manifestation of the UAE’s publicized push toward tolerance after hosting Pope Francis in 2019 and later diplomatically recognizing Israel in 2020. Worshippers have already prayed and communed at the site on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island, while the general public will be allowed in next month.

However, the UAE still criminalizes proselytizing outside of the Islamic faith. Security also remains a concern as well for Jewish worshippers in this new outpost on the Arabian Peninsula, whether from Israel’s regional enemy Iran or from those angered by Israel pursuing settlements on land Palestinians seek for their future state, although they had no interest in the territories when Jordan held them 1948-1967.

The UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms, announced plans for the Abrahamic Family House in 2019 during the country’s “Year of Tolerance.” Designed by the British-Ghanian architect Sir David Adjaye, the site includes the three houses of worship and a center connecting them for future events.

The site itself stands out as a stark, white-marble place of worship in a capital more known for its oil industry, ongoing arms fair, glass towers and beachfront hotels. The three houses of worship — the St. Francis of Assisi Church, the Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue and the Imam al-Tayeb Mosque — stand at triangle points, each a structure of about 30 cubic meters (1,060 cubic feet).

Triangular fountains lay set inside parts of the grounds, providing a bubbling background against the sound of construction taking place elsewhere on an island that is already home to the domed Louvre Abu Dhabi, a museum opened under an agreement with France. Behind the site, the massive falcon wings of the under-construction Zayed National Museum rise overhead as workers climbed through its scaffolding on Tuesday.

While each house of worship is the same size, all appear different on the inside. In the church, eastward windows with morning light frame a marble altar and lectern with a crucifix above it. Oaken pews sit inside for the faithful under suspended wooden columns hanging from the ceiling.

The synagogue has similar pews, with the Ten Commandments inscribed in Hebrew at the front. A room for the Torah is located behind the front. Bronze netting hangs from the ceiling, playing with the light from the windows and a skylight above.

The mosque has shelves for the Quran and also outside, for the faithful to remove their shoes, hidden behind Islamic geometric designs. Gray carpeting covers the floor, with two microphones under and one above on the minbar, the platform where the imam stands for Friday prayers. Moveable walls separate the men’s and women’s sections.

Officials gave no figure for the cost of construction of the site, though the materials alone likely cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Still, proselytizing outside of the Islamic faith remains illegal in the UAE and Islam is enshrined as the official religion in the country’s constitution, with government websites even offering online applications to convert. Conversion from Islam to another religion, however, is illegal, as is witchcraft and sorcery, the U.S. State Department has warned.

Blasphemy and apostasy laws also carry a possible death sentence — though no such execution is known to have been carried out since the UAE became a nation in 1971. Despite facing restrictions, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus and others in the UAE have never faced the violence that has targeted their communities in Syria and Iraq during the rise of the Islamic State group and other militants.

Security appears to be a major concern for the site. Though hidden as much as possible, metal detectors screen those coming into the facility. Security cameras can be seen at every major corner, both inside and outside the houses of worship. On Tuesday, black-suited private security guards also ran mirrors around vehicles to check their undercarriages for explosives — a measure rarely seen in the Emirates.

Hard-line media in Iran have previously described the UAE as a “legitimate” target, given its recognition of Israel.

By JON GAMBRELL

How Dubai Is Paying The Price For Letting In Tourists

(CNN) — Take a passing glance at Dubai, and you may think life is back to normal. In recent weeks, the bustling city has been a sparkling attraction for tourists, especially from Europe, trying to escape the brutal winter and strict coronavirus lockdowns.

But as tens of thousands of visitors flocked there during its peak year-end season, the virus inevitably caught up with the city despite precautions aimed at limiting its spread. Cases began to rise, nearly quadrupling since November.

Even as Covid-19 gained a stronger foothold, the images out of Dubai -- particularly from the Instagram feeds of influencers or celebrities -- painted an image of a wide-open winter sun paradise.

For those back home in countries such as the UK, where most people are being told they cannot travel abroad because of the risk to health, these pictures caused consternation, drawing criticism of those enjoying themselves.

For Danish tourist Emma Mathilde, who has frequently visited Dubai over the past few months, the backlash wasn't surprising. "In Europe, everyone is locked at home, it's cold and it's gray," she says. "Dubai is the only place you can travel to, so everyone is going there. It's sunny, you can go out to eat, and that's why people get furious over why they have to stay home when other people are enjoying their lives." With a recent UK travel ban effectively cutting off what had in recent weeks become the world's busiest airplane route, Dubai's openness is clearly facing external challenges -- an issue that's helped prompt a rethink of Covid-19 measures.

That said, the emirate is determined to keep its tourism-reliant economy in business, and officials are unfazed about the recent bad press, confident that levels of compliance with Covid-19 precautions have so far been in keeping with expectations. "We approach things in a very measured fashion, but it's our philosophy that we should work through this pandemic," Helal Saeed Al Marri, director general of Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing, tells CNN.

"If we ask everybody to change their behavior 100%, it's very unlikely to get full compliance. In our case, we've asked people to tweak their behavior, to learn to live in the new normal, and people have embraced that."

Al Marri said the actions of just a few tourists shouldn't tarnish Dubai's reputation. "If you walk in the street in Dubai, people are wearing masks. If someone isn't wearing a mask, it won't be the authorities that tell them to put a mask on, it'll be a passerby, because that's the way we've learned to live within this Covid era."

Last month, the United Arab Emirates saw cases rise by 80,000 to more than 290,000, with more than 4,000 a day being reported, putting hospitals under strain. Blame for the rise, say some experts, shouldn't necessarily be placed at the door of tourists. The city's population is made up of around 85% expatriates, many of whom either visited home in December or attended local Christmas or New Year gatherings as a substitute for canceled trips back to see their families.

Celia Antony, a medical doctor at Aster Clinics in Sharjah, says that the UAE's Covid cases were very low in August, then began increasing in September to October, leveling off in November and early December before rising sharply from the end of the year.

The spike, she says, was an inevitable consequence of the movement of residents. Numbers, she adds, have also risen as a result of increased testing. Ahmed Mohamed Abdelhameed, an internal medicine specialist at the Medcare Women and Children's Hospital in Dubai, says the spike would have been the same whether or not borders had closed. "Most countries now suffer from a spike in the number of cases [and] many of them were very restrictive in opening their port of entrance," he says. "I still believe that the only way to have this situation over is to keep to the infection control measures and to get vaccinated. Closing the doors can only stop people from entering, and not the virus." Tourism Authority Director Al Marri says Dubai has always been prepared to respond to the situation on the ground. Notably, Dubai's lockdown in the early days of the pandemic was one of the world's first and among its toughest.

During the lockdown, residents could not leave home without prior clearance through an app, for a maximum of three hours and only for medical emergencies, food shopping or essential work.

Al Marri says that pragmatism continues to inform Dubai's Covid policies, and new measures will be monitored for effectiveness even as they strive to keep the city's economy moving. "We shut down when we needed to, and since we've opened, we follow the data," he says. "If we see compliance, we don't need to tighten. If we don't see compliance at any part of the economy, we look at this very carefully sector by sector. It's nothing to do with what anybody else tells us."

Once a drop in compliance levels was noticed at the beginning of January, directly attributable to a rise in cases, Al Marri says authorities began to clamp down. As of Tuesday, beach clubs, hotels and malls are limited to 70% capacity and cinemas down to 50%. Bars and pubs have been temporarily shut down, with stricter penalties for rule violators.

This type of reaction according to the threat is something Danish tourist Mathilde says is lacking in Europe. "I think the (UAE) government is handling it great," she says. "It's very different from how we are handling it in Europe where the cases are still high, and the economy is suffering a lot. "In Dubai, I think it's just another way of doing it. It's a balance between listening to humans, taking care of people and taking care of businesses that have to survive during the pandemic." It's a dilemma all too familiar for governments around the world: trying to find a balance between keeping the economy open and keeping people safe.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/dubai-tourism-crackdown-covid-19/index.html

Zeena Saifi, John Defterios and Melanie Swan, CNN