The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

February of last year was definitely a memorable moment in Egyptian history. However, it seems that not everyone recollects what happened, either because it’s been almost a year and a half since then or because they didn’t hear the news to begin with. What is this major piece of news you may ask? Well, it’s about the opening of a Disney Land right here in Egypt!

Early last year, several news sources, including Egypt Independent, Egyptian Streets, Egypt Today, and Nile FM shared the exciting news that a new joint US-Saudi Arabian investment project for a 3.3 billion-dollar Disneyland-style theme park was in the making. The then Governor of Marsa Matrouh, Alaa Abu Zeid, had signed an investment contract with the Entertainment World Company to establish the soon-to-be landmark on an area of 5,080 acres in the beautiful Sidi Heneish area in Al-Alamein. This update was validated by a post on the official Facebook page of New_Alameen on the 1st of November, 2018.

The park is said to include an open zoo, an aqua park, medical and sports cities, an educational city, and hotels. Lisa Marie Stephen, Managing Director of Entertainment World in the Middle East and Africa, had said that the theme park was one of the Entertainment World Company’s largest investments globally, adding that the project would be implemented over the course of nine to ten years over several stages, with a scheduled duration of two years for the first stage.  

The latest update that we received was by Egypt Today about 8 months ago, stating that Egypt’s Disney Land was among the largest projects executed by Saudi businessmen, in partnership with US investors, according to the Head of the Saudi-Egyptian Business Council, Abdullah bin Mahfouz, who had been discussing upcoming Saudi investments following the visit by Prince Mohammed bin Salman last year. 

Attendees of the signing ceremony between the governor and Stephen had included Investment and International Cooperation Minister, Sahar Nasr, Local Development Minister Abu Bakr al-Gendy, and Chairperson of the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones, Mona Zobaa.

All of this is great and lovely, especially regarding the expected generation of 40,000 jobs. But it begs the question, when will this all commence? No mention of the start date has been released so far, and people wanna start enjoying the Disney experience! It would be great if further updates were shared.