Play-and-Stay Blog

Here at the Play and Stay® blog we’ve covered some pretty big stuff. Dubailand for example, or the dangerously exciting Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Usually, these super-duper theme parks are planned for far-off lands, places you probably couldn’t pop over to for the weekend. Grand Scala is going to change all that. The planned new leisure complex will cover 4,900 acres, contain 32 historically themed casinos and 5 theme parks as well as golf courses, horse racing tracks, villas, apartments, shopping centers (noticed nearly everything is plural yet?) hotels and a water park.

Grand Scala is planning to be located in Spain, Aragon to be precise. There is not a great deal in Aragon at the moment, it’s 200 miles east of Madrid and it seems to be popular with tourists on walking holidays, not exactly a white-knuckle location. If plans go ahead and manage to stick to schedule we can expect a first phase opening in 2010. This will transform the previously sleepy desert region into Europe’s “most important” leisure and tourism destination.

There is not an awful lot in terms of details just yet, we can tell you that three of the five theme parks have been confirmed. Spyland, a park themed around the history of secret agents, Aquantica, a historically themed waterpark and Space Port, a space and futuristic technology themed park. The remaining two parks are still a mystery, even to us. Perhaps some of the big players are looking to get involved as they have in Dubailand, or perhaps Grand Scala have just not decided themes yet.

Whatever materialises in the other two parks it’s sure to be on a massive scale, Grand Scala covers over 4900 acres and will feature 32 separate historically themed hotels and casinos. These attractions will be laid out on a “time roadmap” and so far we can expect neolithic, Celtic, ancient Egyptian and space-age areas, each with its own mini-museum.

This ambitious project is going to cost roughly £8 billion. Given the current sorry state of the property market around the world, I remain unconvinced that this very exciting but expensive project will go ahead in the stated timeframe.

Cynicism aside, if this leisure wonderland goes ahead it will be the single most impressive entertainment complex in Europe, it will dwarf Eurodisney. Perhaps the most exciting part is not the complex itself. Disney’s reaction to a competitor so close to it’s european park, a mere three hour flight from London, may well spark an exciting competition between the two resorts. Fingers crossed ladies and gents, I want a european Animal Kingdom.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 2:41 pm and is filed under Theme Parks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.