To a city starved of amusement parks, comes ''India's answer to Disneyland''. Promoted by Jitendra and Anil Kapoor, this place has been currently ''soft launched''. Hence, this review really applies to the preview version on show now.
Situated in Bangalore, beyond the Yelahanka Air Force Station, about 8 kilometres before the proposed international airport in Devanahalli, the place is quite far away from the city. If you live in the South like me, you would need to do more than thirty kilometres one way! That is sort of understandable, considering that you need an enormous piece of land to setup a theme park of this magnitude. This one sits on 34 acres and plans to grow up to 200.
The park is divided into multiple zones. The World Tour zone contains relatively smaller replicas of the Wonders of the World, like the Eiffel Tower and Leaning Tower of Pisa. It has interesting information related to each of these. This section should be popular and useful to kids. For the little ones, there is more in the form of Toon City and Children's Village zones. The former is focussed on cartoon characters while the latter has rides specifically meant for children; a few are open to adults too. Tech Zone is for adults; it is possibly named so since it will house a high-tech gaming arcade in the future. There is a Lagoon Area, which houses a replica of the Statue of Liberty and also a musical fountain programme in the evening. A virtual NASA space station is also in the works. Additionally, you can do things like horse-riding around the area.
Other things that aren't yet fully functional are shops selling gift articles, jewels, magic aids, etc. You can even get an Sammy's Dreamland T-shirt here. Out of more than 60 rides that are planned, only 17 are said to be operational right now. Though they are good, the thin crowd and slightly disinterested staff indicate that these are indeed early times.
Food, as is customary in amusement parks, is priced about 2-4 times the normal price. You can't go out in between once you've got into the park, other than in case of emergencies; even then, you can't find any eatery in the middle of nowhere. Thankfully, the food tastes good atleast. Out of the four restaurants planned -- Jewel Palace, The Library, Pizzario and Diner, only the last two seem operational now. The setup looks good; the first two are particularly impressive.
For 249 bucks per adult and 199 per kid, the younger set seem to get better value for money. But anyway, amusement parks are aimed more at them and providing an enjoyable time for the whole family. For taking in a camera, you need to shell out some more though. Though currently, you get coupons for food and shopping worth 100 rupees for each ticket, it's better to wait for half or one year till the whole thing is setup better.
Most of these rides are probably as good as or better than what you will find anywhere else in India. While Sammy's Dreamland shows good promise to become one of the top fun destinations of the country, ''India's answer to Disneyland'' will not be a fitting one.
Hope to write a review again later and award one more star for the rating.
For information, check out https://sammysdreamland.com.
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