Aquaticar opened April 23, 2026, at Aquarabia water park in Qiddiya City, Saudi Arabia, billed by developer Sub Sea Systems as the world’s first underwater theme-park ride. The California-based company built a system where two passengers seal inside a clear-canopied vehicle and physically descend to roughly eight feet below the water’s surface, traveling through a fully constructed underwater environment rather than a simulation.
Dry From the Chest Up, Underwater From the Waist Down
Fresh air continuously fills the canopy while the lower body sits immersed in the surrounding water.
Riders board at a dry loading station, the canopy closes over them, and the car rolls down a gravity-fed slope into the underwater section. The course runs beneath constructed rockwork, giving the attraction the character of a slow-moving dark ride rather than a conventional water slide.
How Bubbles Actually Move the Car
Air hoses embedded in the 450-foot track feed a series of triggers that release bursts of air beneath each passing vehicle.
Some of that released air rises into the canopy to maintain breathable conditions for passengers. The remaining bubbles travel upward and interact with vertical rotors at the rear of the vehicle. Their motion spins the rotors, which drive the rear wheel and push the car forward along the track.
Sub Sea Systems calls the Bubble Engine 100% air-powered, with no conventional onboard electric motor or propeller. Propulsion is generated at track-based air-release points across the full 137-meter circuit, making the track itself the source of the vehicle’s forward motion.
The Story Playing Out Around You
“Legend of the Glowing Guardian” layers reefs, shipwrecks, mythical creatures, lighting, narration, and music across the approximately five-to-six-minute journey.
Optional Bubble Pulse Guns let riders aim spinning ring-shaped bubbles, known as toroidal vortex rings, at targets positioned along the course. The vehicle eventually rises back to the loading area via an ascending conveyor belt.
Safety Specs Behind the Experience
Each vehicle carries a 25-minute onboard air reserve and a push-to-talk speaker for direct staff communication.
The ride system holds TĂśV SĂśD certification, according to Sub Sea Systems and reporting by blooloop. Riders must be at least 48 inches (122 cm) tall, and the attraction is designed to handle up to 300 guests per hour across a fleet of 17 three-wheeled, two-passenger vehicles.
What an Aquarabia Representative Said
Olivia Wyrick, identified by blooloop as Aquarabia’s former senior director of water park operations and aquatics, described the ride’s intent in a reported interview.
“I don’t want to give too much away, because we want people to come and experience it. But it’s a futuristic-looking car that you can get into and completely submerge underwater, so you become fully immersed in this whole underwater experience and story that we’ve created.” Olivia Wyrick, former senior director of water park operations and aquatics, Aquarabia, via blooloop.
Where Aquaticar Fits in Qiddiya’s Ambitions
Aquarabia is one component of Saudi Arabia’s large-scale Qiddiya City entertainment development, and Sub Sea Systems says the ride format can be adapted for other parks.
The company says course layouts are customizable, and the 450-foot standard configuration reflects one arrangement rather than a fixed template. Sub Sea Systems and blooloop describe Aquaticar as the world’s first installation of its kind; no second site has been announced, leaving it a singular operating proof of the Bubble Engine concept as of its April 2026 debut.
