Day 17 – Saturday 30 December

Getting used to these lazy mornings, starting to become a habit.  Today we are off to see Ferrari World attached to the Yas Island Mall which is very big with lots of shops, cafés & restaurants. Ferrari World is a huge complex with a massive red roof that is very distinctive.  Firstly we have lunch at the German Donor Kebab – Melbourne Restaurant – Branch 2 inside the Yas Mall.  A strange name for a food place in Abu Dhabi, no idea what the German or the Melbourne connection is.  The food was good, presented differently than we are used to.

Ferrari World was very busy, a Saturday in school holiday time.  They cater a lot for small kids with amusements, shows & displays.  They have a winter wonderland, lake to go around in a boat, cars to drive around in pretend Italy, dodgem racing cars & more.  It is basically a large amusement park with a Ferrari theme.  We got silver passes that are supposed to get you express queues to the rides that are busy, not always.  Our first experience was a virtual reality where we were strapped into seats with a very large motion picture screen in front & taken on a quick driving experience with Sebastian Vettel.  The seats move up & down, lean sideways & tilt backwards & forwards, with the occasional blast of wind through the hair & some water spray at the appropriate time.  It was a blast, big smiles all round when we finished.  Next was a virtual helicopter ride following a Ferrari driving around.  We were strapped into pods of seats with a massive parabolic screen in front of us.  Massive hydraulic rams lifted all of us up & forward towards the screen about 30 feet above the ground.  Again the movements with nearly totally surround vision, it is an amazing experience, this time with cold air as we went through the snow covered Italian Alps.  We flew over the cities of Venice, Florence & Rome then over Lake Maggiore, it was very clever the way the scenes were stitched together.  Another exhilarating experience.

Jackson & Charles then went on a ride that we chickened out on, a short very fast blast then straight up, hang briefly then drop down & blast back.  The ride lasts around 20 seconds & they move a long way in that short time, they said it was great fun.  This is at the very centre of the complex with the ride going outside into the open air up through the roof.  The other large rollercoaster ride that they wanted to experience was closed for 2 hours of maintenance.

Then a driving simulation game, Jackson & I sat in separate cars with virtual reality headsets & headphones driving Ferrari race cars around a race track.  I got the drop on Jackson at the start but his many hours of gaming experience had taught him lots & he ended up beating me by 23 seconds.  This was an amazing experience, surrounded by vision of whichever way you turned, plus the seat moved, bumped & vibrated with acceleration, braking & track irregularities.  I could have done it all again & again.

Next stop was the room of road Ferraris on display, they do make some nice looking cars.  I think Tereza nearly gave me permission to buy one for her.  But common sense prevailed, they are so low to the ground that at our age we could never get in & worst most probably never get out, the kids wouldn’t be too happy with such an expensive choice of coffin.  As we were leaving we were going through little Italy with cafés & restaurants, the buildings had all the look of Italy & even the snow was falling in parts.  Out through the mandatory gift shop & no, I did not buy one single item.  We stopped in at the chemist to buy some Panadol for Tereza as her knees are sore & we have a lot more walking to do on this holiday.  No Ferrari for her, sadly.

Monica wanted to buy some groceries so we stopped in this enormous store – they certainly make these shopping malls huge, I suppose when it gets so very hot they can do a lot of shopping & entertainment in one place.  Back home we had no need for dinner as the donor kebab was so much.  Except for Austin & Jackson who ate dinner & ice cream afterwards – they are growing boys.  A relaxing time gaming with the boys then bed, another fantastic day.