Yes, the middle-eastern country Jordan is going to get a Star Trek theme park before you do. Did you think you deserved it for your 1,000 page thesis on why Kirk is better than Picard? Sorry. King Abdullah II has higher claims to fanboy nerddom than you, having had a cameo in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, back when he was just a wee prince. He gets his park first.
The park is estimated to take around $1.5 billion to build, and is scheduled to open by Stardate 2014. Perhaps the most amusing statistic is the number of people they expect this park will need to attract to be profitable: 480,000 people per year. Whereas most theme parks require millions of visitors a year, this park is aiming for low costs and low requirements to become tenable. In keeping with the lifestyle of Star Trek fans (or at least the kind of Star Trek fans that would fly to Jordan for a theme park), this is roughly like saying “I don’t have impossibly high standards for girls I date. Just that they have breasts and preferably no STDs. Of the lethal kind at least. I suppose if it’s one of the ones that’s just itchy, I’d go for it.”*
If you were worried that this site may end up a Disney World-esque cartoonification of Star Trek, and admit it, the nerd in you was panicked, fret not! The site will be a full-on resort, complete with hotels, holodecks theaters, food replicators restaurants, and moneyless outlets of perfect post-capitalist balance where no one lacks any material thing shopping.
*– To all the devoted Star Trek fans out there, I love you. I totally do. You guys are great. Please don’t take my merciless mocking of a stereotype you necessarily associate with for no better reason than liking a particular television series, despite no actual relation to said stereotype too seriously. It’s only because it’s easy to do.
Source: The National
Also of note, Jordan is host to the ancient city of Petra. You may know it from such films as Indiana Jones, and my home made video about my trip there.
http://i.imgur.com/Q6nYC.jpg
I loved all of those movies, though I think your home video was slightly better than Temple of Doom, not quite as good as Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.