Six Flags Qiddiya | Saudi Arabia | Theme Park

[Geeky Pastimes]

It's not even just physical factors, but psyhcological too. Admittedly, I've only heard it from one local, but apparently, in these climates, it's not really anybody's idea of fun to spend a day outdoors if it can be helped. Spending the evening outdoors, sure, but the daylight itself is considered too hot for outdoor activities to be comfortable. Hence why most leisure centres tend to be indoors, full of shade, or generally only start to see life at sundown. And of course, you get there by driving in an air-conditioned car from door to door. I wonder how the outdoor-ness of the park will play into its perception by locals, which will have to make up most of the attendance for the park to make it economically.

Couldn't they just have opening hours in the evening? Like open 5pm-midnight?

 

[Hixee]

Couldn't they just have opening hours in the evening? Like open 5pm-midnight?

It would help, but in the summer months it really doesn't make much difference. The night lows can regularly stay north of 30°C (it was never lower than 40°C for the first month or so I was in Abu Dhabi), and whilst that is much better than the mid-high 40s you get during the day (and you don't have the sun hammering you too), the humidity climbs a lot in the evening and in my experience it felt just as crippling as during the day. There's truly no respite from it outside of air conditioning.

This will be a park to visit in the winter, for sure.

 

[Geeky Pastimes]

It would help, but in the summer months it really doesn't make much difference. The night lows can regularly stay north of 30°C (it was never lower than 40°C for the first month or so I was in Abu Dhabi), and whilst that is much better than the mid-high 40s you get during the day (and you don't have the sun hammering you too), the humidity climbs a lot in the evening and in my experience it felt just as crippling as during the day. There's truly no respite from it outside of air conditioning.

This will be a park to visit in the winter, for sure.

Oh really? That wasn't our experience at all, we were there in June and once the sun went down it was fine to walk around (we walked around Yas Island and the Waterfront area and it was fine - I don't think I found the humidity on Yas as bad as it was in Dubai for some reason.

Whatever they're doing I'm sure they've considered it and will have plans, from the concept art it's kind of hard to tell what's outside and what might be covered walkways/indoor attractions etc. The company doing it have done a really good job with all the other parks there in terms of managing the heat (except for when we got stuck on the Flying Aces brake run in that scorching shed).