Our first stop was Yas Waterworld. Yas is a relatively new water park next to Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi (I think it opened last February) and while it has gotten rave reviews, it also has a reputation of being very popular with long lines. So we've held off until we thought some of the newness had worn off. We were also eager to compare it to the Dubai Waterparks (Atlantis and Wild Wadi).
We hoped that getting there early in the week might help with the crowds. Regan's friend Yu-kyung joined us a well. I really didn't get many photos since I was wet most of the time, too, but we had a great time and I was so proud of the girls for all trying something a bit out of their comfort zone. The park has a wonderful kids' zone - four separate areas roughly separated by steepness and splashiness so that even the littlest ones (like Anna) had a fun place to play that wasn't too splashy. The littlest area hd a tiny little slide that was just perfect for Anna. She probably went down that thing 50 times (I would have had a photo of Anna but as soon as I went to get my camera, a little boy had an accident on the slide and they had to shut it down for a while....). The 2nd area had about 10 or more bigger slides. Anna was so brave and went down several of them with either Jake or me. Brave girl!
There is also a roller coaster there (called the Bandit Bomber) where you dangle from below the tracks. Meredith couldn't wait to try it. With Jake, Regan bravely gave it a whirl with Meredith and Yu-kyung's encouragement. They loved it!
Another brave venture we made was to ride a six-person inner tube ride called Falcon's Falaj. I took the four big girls (everyone minus Anna) up, up, up the giant stairway to get to the top of a giant falcon's nest near the tippy top of the waterpark. Regan is afraid of heights and she was about to have a panic attack! We had great views of the even more adventurous rides that we weren't going to do (the free fall slides, etc.!). We made it to the front of the line and climbed aboard the six-person inner tube. I talked the girls into trying this - Yu-kyung had done it before and said it was fun and I thought, "How scary could this ride be - it's a giant soft inner tube with no seat belt???" Well, it was much scarier and steeper than we thought - four giants drops that were steep enough to feel like free falls. We all squealed in actual fear! I really felt for Jane as she is not a fan of scary things - she was right across from me in the inner tube (I was facing backwards and couldn't see any of the upcoming drops), but she was at the top and had a bird's eye view of the long falls! She made it but did NOT want to do it again!
After that ride, the other girls convinced Jane that the roller coaster was not nearly as scary as the Falcon's Falaj so off we went to the roller coaster. Brave Jane rode it and loved it! So off they went to ride it again while I went to change places with Jake again at the kiddie area.
A few more roller coaster rides, trips down the slow and fast lazy rivers, bobbing in the wave pool and many more slides in the younger kids' area and we called it a day after seven hours. We still didn't get to try all the things Jake and I thought we would (bigger slides that we think the girls are ready for) so we have something to look forward to when we visit again.
All in all, a fun and adventurous day!
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| Meredith, Regan, Yu-kyung and Jane marching right in |
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| Meredith pretend surfing |
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| Jane |
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| Yu-kyung and Regan |
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| Yu kyung coming down one of the kiddie slides on the right |
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| Anna getting tired! |
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| Still smiling at the end of the day (except for Anna who was too tired to get into the picture!) |
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