Ferrari World Abu Dhabi

Overview

Admission to Ferrari World on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, an indoor park built around a single carmaker. The scale of the building is the first thing to understand about it, and the reason the whole place exists in the form it does.

The roof is the point

The park sits under one continuous red roof covering an area measured in the hundreds of thousands of square metres — a space frame on a scale not attempted before it was built. Seen from the air it reads as the profile of a grand tourer lying on the sand, and the badge set into it is the largest the marque has ever produced.

That is not decoration for its own sake. Putting everything under one roof is what makes a park viable in this climate at all.

An indoor park is a climate decision

Outdoor rides in Abu Dhabi are unusable for a good part of the year. Building the attractions inside a cooled hall means July works about as well as January, which reverses the usual seasonal logic of theme parks and is worth knowing when planning a summer trip that otherwise has to hide indoors between eleven and four.

The trade is that you lose daylight and sky. This is an interior experience, lit and staged, and it feels like one.

The steepest climb of any coaster

One of the rides here holds the record for the steepest lift incline ever built into a roller coaster, and pairs it with a loop among the tallest of its kind. It is themed on early aviation rather than motorsport, which makes it the odd one out in a park otherwise devoted to road cars.

There is a factory in here

Part of the park is given over to a reproduction of the marque's assembly halls in Italy, alongside a themed version of an Italian town square. It is the closest most visitors will come to the actual factory, which does not take casual visitors in anything like these numbers.

Practical shape

Ticketing is by date, and the day is yours to arrange once inside. The big-name rides build queues from late morning; the exhibits, simulators and family attractions stay comparatively quiet. Height limits apply on the fastest rides and are enforced strictly, so check them against your group before building a plan around one ride.

Yas Island is a purpose-built leisure island with other parks alongside, and getting there takes half an hour or so from central Abu Dhabi. Inside it is air-conditioned throughout and often cold rather than mild, so a layer is more useful than you would expect in this part of the world.