Sheikh Zayed & 6th October · 6th of October City
Magic Planet
The indoor games hall at Mall of Egypt: arcade, rides and bowling, for when it is forty degrees outside.
Magic Planet takes up more than two thousand four hundred square metres in the middle of Mall of Egypt: indoor rides, arcade games, simulators, a climbing wall, a suspended course — the Sky Trail — and bowling lanes. It is a chain family entertainment centre, the same one found in Gulf malls, and it does its job: when it is forty degrees outside or a sandstorm has closed the day, it is somewhere children can run without being watched every second. It is also the natural second half of a morning on the snow, a few steps away in the same building.
The extra bit
Set the budget before you go in, and say it out loud: these places are paid for game by game, and the bill goes by without being seen. And keep it for the afternoon, as the second half of a day on the snow: thirty kilometres from the centre, it is not worth the drive on its own.
Know before you go
Opening hours could not be checked against the official source for this entry: look at the store page or call before crossing town. It is enclosed, loud and without daylight — an hour and a half is enough for small children — and the climbing wall and the suspended course have height or age minimums that some families only discover on arrival. How you pay, by the game, on a top-up card or by package, changes what the outing costs: ask at the counter before letting the children loose. Finally, Mall of Egypt is some thirty kilometres west of central Cairo, with no metro at the door.
