Dubai’s Aventura nature and adventure park offers something for every member of the family


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Couples who need to reconnect can now forgo marriage counsellors and head straight to Dubai’s Mushrif Park.

Mushrif’s outdoor adventure park, Aventura, has just reopened for its second season, with some interesting new additions. Core activities include tree-surfing, rope-climbing, log-balancing and zip-lining among the park’s 5,000-square-metre natural ghaf forest. The zip lines are split into six circuits – based on the age of participants and difficulty level – and the biggest is 160 metres long and 10 metres high.

Also new this year is the Aventura Foundation, which will host a series of events targeting various members of the family, including a yoga adventure day on Friday, and winter holiday camps. “As part of the foundation, we are also doing a couples programme, where experts in psychometric analysis will help couples understand each other and themselves better,” says Lina Malas, co-founder of Aventura.

The couples programme is scheduled to take place on December 8 and 9 from 1pm to 9pm, and couples are encouraged to complete a survey before they arrive. “There will be a one-on-one with the experts to interpret their report, and they will enjoy these two days getting to know each other better amid nature,” says Malas.

Also new for this season is a cafe, which offers “healthy and fun” food. “It will be like your grandma is spoiling you with milkshakes, salads, fruit drinks and burgers, but with great quality and ingredients,” Malas explains.

A play area will be added in a few weeks for children between the ages of 3 and 5. Hadi Fakhoury, co-founder of Aventura explains: “This will be an area that will support young kids doing activities that have the same sensibility as the park, including climbing walls. It will be a small space that will enable parents to drop their little ones off and do their thing.”

Hadi explains how the entire Aventura set-up is focused on fitness – both physical and mental. “The park has no doubt got the physical aspect, but it exercises everything – a bit of strength, balance, courage, there’s an element of risk taking, and it’s all reflected in our circuits. Both kids and adults have challenging obstacles and they elevate to the next level. It’s all about learning, which is a core area in team building as well.”

Aventura Park is offering free sessions on Mondays between 8am and 11am, as part of the Dubai Fitness Challenge. A 10 per cent discount for people taking part in the challenge is also offered. Three-hour tickets for the circuit cost from Dh60

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