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Universal Orlando Resort (USO, IOA) Discussion Thread

p. 624 - New Epic Universe details, including Isle of Berk!

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THIS is the time I want to visit Universal, Orlando! Everything looks great, especially those balloons.

 

And getting to experience Mannheim Steamroller LIVE.....

 

Great report from the park.

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I've never visited Universal on either coast over Christmas--looks like fun (especially the parade and balloons). I didn't like the Jim Carrey Grinch flick, but I do like the idea of Grinchmas.

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Nintendo attractions are now confirmed for all three Universal resorts

 

 

http://blog.universalorlando.com/whats-new/nintendo-universal-parks/

 

Last year, I let you know about a new partnership between Universal Parks & Resorts and Nintendo. Today, I am going to update you on this historic collaboration – and share a glimpse at the creative vision behind it.

 

Imagine the fun of stepping into a larger-than-life Nintendo adventure. Gigantic Piranha Plants spring to life. Question blocks, power-ups and more surround you. And Mario and all his friends are there to pull you into a brand-new world.

 

You’ll enter an entire realm filled with iconic Nintendo excitement, gameplay, heroes and villains. And it’s coming to three Universal theme parks around the globe.

 

  • Nintendo-themed areas are coming to Universal Studios Japan, Universal Orlando Resort and Universal Studios Hollywood.
  • These will be expansive, immersive and interactive. They’ll be highly themed and authentic environments filled with multiple attractions, shops and restaurants.
    You’ll feel as if you’re playing inside your favorite games – in real life.
  • There will be something for everyone—regardless of their age or gaming experience level.
  • Planning and creative work on these areas is well underway; they will open separately over the next several years.

Shigeru Miyamoto, of Nintendo, and Mark Woodbury, President of Universal Creative, recently sat down to talk about the two teams working together. Along with reviewing potential designs for the land, they also discussed what fans can look forward to experiencing as these exciting plans come to life.

 

The goal of everyone on this project is clear: to bring the characters, action and adventure of Nintendo video games to life within Universal theme parks. And to do so in new and innovative ways that capture what makes them so special.

 

All of the adventure, fun and whimsy you experience through a screen will now be all around you – in breathtakingly authentic ways.

 

Each Universal theme park will announce details of its specific Nintendo areas. The first such announcement will come soon.

 

A lot of people are saying this is possibly replacing kids zone but I think it makes more sense using its full potential with the acquisitions they have made with dreamworks and I believe they now have rights to older attractions again( correct me if I'm wrong) they can use all these rights to make attractions for a third theme park since universal has recently acquired 415 acres of land. This way we get a brand new park and they can have so many endless attractions for Nintendo, have a dreamworks land possibly move Shrek over to that side and it be nice to get new and improved versions of Jaws and Back to the Future.

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Universal's been filing for some new patents, and two of them may be recognizable to Nintendo fans:

 

 

Drift racers: A two-rider, car-based amusement racing attraction with the ability to simulate drifting sensations. Two passengers, who could be in time/points competition with another car, will have control over some aspect of their ride vehicle: The driver would have a steering wheel and an acceleration and brake pedal to control the turning/drifting of the vehicle and speed; the rear passenger would have a control interface with buttons that could control the vehicle or bounce the ride vehicle, provide a boost to the vehicle during the race or affect the performance of another ride vehicle on the track, said the patent. For any Nintendo fan, that description brings to mind the video game company's popular Mario Kart game series. In one version of the series, called Mario Kart: Double Dash, each car had two racers — including a driver and a rear passenger — who controlled the use of items during the race that could impact their car or others in the race.

 

 

Boom coaster: This is a unique arm that would attach to a ride vehicle to help enhance rides that appear to be on a track system, but are actually controlled by a separate arm. For example, the arm could be C-shaped connected to a secondary hidden track underneath the track guests see. As a result, rides that have story element breaks in the track — say like an upcoming jump from one track to another — could cause suspense. "Because the passenger may believe that the simulated ride surface controls a path of the passenger vehicle, the passenger may fear or anticipate that the passenger vehicle may crash or otherwise incur damage as a result of the elevated gap," said the patent. This has many fans thinking it could also be related to Nintendo via the Donkey Kong Country video game series, which features areas with cars traveling through dangerous mines filled with jumps, dips and turns.

 

Source: Orlando Business Journal

 

What do we think? I'm loving the interactivity in the drift racers patent. The boom coaster is a little bit more passive but if they're really looking to recreate the mine cart sections from the Donkey Kong Country games (which are so much fun, especially the one in Tropical Freeze where the cart turns into a boat that goes through a sawmill), that system would be the way to do it.

 

Sidenote: Anyone remember the "Cantilevered Coaster" concept from like, a million years ago?

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The drift racers intrigues me in terms of its capacity levels. 2 people/vehicle in a race against another 2 people/vehicle. And just how many will be in this "race?"

 

They also can't have a train on the boom coaster because they would lose much of the shock factor of the "jumps." I'm thinking 4 across, two rows, back row elevated at most. But yes, it does sound similar to the cantilevered concept.

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These are very cool concepts. I would totally ride a drifting Radiator Springs Racers themed to Mario Kart. The mine cart thing looks like it could be in a Forbidden Journey type dark ride, and that could be very cool. The mine cart levels in DKC were very fun and very memorable. If they do this as well as they did Harry Potter and Simpsons, I'll be very happy.

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Might Vekoma perchance have something to do with that Boom Coaster concept?

I think Universal will more likely work with Intamin or Premier Rides rather than Vekoma. Even the newest Flight of the Hippogriff at Hollywood is a custom Mack and not the Vekoma stock version. I guess Battlestar Galactica was their first and last try working with the dutch company.

 

There is also a third patent for a badass suspended dark-ride contraption:

 

15400466_1258154117561723_4139669007146718980_n.png?oh=a116e0f26a040ace461730708092fd07&oe=58E9781F

 

(It reminds me a lot of my own suspended, stand-up and interactive robocoaster idea, hehe)

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Just found this announcement...

 

Universal has announced that its Superstar Parade will be gaining two new floats in just a few days featuring characters from The Secret Life of Pets, which was just released on DVD. These new floats will feature Leonard, Gidget, Chloe, and more talking and interacting with parade viewers.

The-Secret-Life-of-Pets-Joins-Universals-Superstar-Parade-1170x731-600x375.jpg.d77acd074ec86956c79c5fbea1776b62.jpg

It looks great! (o;

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  • 2 weeks later...

Recently went to Universal Studios last Friday Dec. 30th, I figured I'd post a quick trip review. It was just my wife and I, it was her first time to Universal in like 15 years but I have been to both parks a couple times recently. My wife is a huge harry potter fan and since we only had one day in Orlando we decided to buy the park to park pass and make Harry Potter the top priority of our visit. We got to the park at 10:00AM, it was a pretty cold day but given the time of the year it was still very crowded. We started by going straight to Diagon Alley, we easily spent the first couple hours of the day just checking out the different stores and areas of Diagon Alley, the level of detail is incredible, and we really enjoyed the mini Ollivanders wand show. Escape from Gringotts was closed all morning but as soon as we got out of Ollivanders we noticed they had just opened it, so we were fortunate to get a short wait of about 45 minutes (It was a 150 minute wait the rest of the day). We really enjoyed the ride and then grabbed lunch at the Leaky Cauldron, the food was great, especially the butterbeer and pumpkin juice! We waited about an hour for the Hogwarts Express and then made our way to Hogsmeade. The train ride is really neat, and the cars are just like they are in the movies, I think it was a great idea to connecting the two parks in this way, and judging by the lines they are making a lot of $$$ from Park to Park tickets. We did not enjoy Hogsmeade as much as Diagon Alley, it was just too congested and the locker situation for Dragon Challenge and Forbidden Journey was a complete mess. Not only do you have hundreds of lockers in a tiny space, they were full most of the time, and so you would have a ton of people crowding around the lockers waiting for one to open up. You can tell that when designing Hogsmeade they did not ever expect these levels of crowds, hopefully they can expand the area soon and redesign the locker areas, we did not run into any of these issues in Diagon Alley. We then went to check out the renovated Incredible Hulk, loved the new ride entrance sign and station. It is one of my favorite rides in the park, and it feels much smoother now and the launch was amazing as always. After that we checked out the new King Kong ride, the theme of the queue/ride was very well done, and overall the ride was fun. The huge vehicles and screens on both sides make it different from the other 3-D Screen rides at Universal. We made our way back to the Hogwarts Express and then ran to Escape from Gringotts for one last ride with no wait right before park close. Overall we had a great day, I wish we could have made it to more of the non-Potter rides, but we made it to as much as possible with how crowded it was. Hopefully will be back soon!

 

Escape from Gringotts x 2

Hogwarts Express x 2

Dragon Challenge Chinese Fireball x 1

Dragon Challenge Hungarian Horntail x 1

Forbidden Journey x 1

Incredible Hulk x 1

Skull Island - Reign of Kong x 1

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Thought you guys might be interested in this in case you hadn't seen it. One of the other writers over at Coaster101 did a break down of how the boom coaster works (based on the patent) including some of the physics and CAD simulations. And he does compare it to the "cantilevered" coaster from like a million years ago

 

www.coaster101.com/2017/01/04/boom-coaster-vs-cantilevered-coaster/

 

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There was an update to the worker who was found dead in the Men in Black attraction back in November. He was electrocuted. OSHA is now looking into the accident to try and figure out how and why this happened.

 

Perhaps it was . . .

 

 

Or not.

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The Mardi Gras concert lineup is here!

 

February 4: Trace Adkins

February 11: Ne-Yo

February 18: Collective Soul

February 19: X Ambassadors

February 25: Fifth Harmony

March 4: Kool & the Gang

March 5: Olivia Newton-John

March 11: UB40

March 12: Toby Keith

March 18: Jason Derulo

March 19: Earth, Wind & Fire

March 25: The All-American Rejects

 

I've had this idea in the back of my head to do a President's Day weekend road trip. it probably won't happen, but Collective Soul makes it a little more tempting. I would imagine they wouldn't generate nearly the crowd that some of these other names would (Toby Keith for example) but I've always enjoyed their music.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Below is the review of my experience so far at Universal Orlando Resort. Even though I am still here, I feel like I have visited long enough to share my thoughts and provide a thorough assessment. This is the very first time I have visited the two parks.

 

Context: I am young medical professional who went to Universal Studios Resort in Florida for a 5-day vacation with my husband and two stepchildren, a boy (aged 15) and a girl (aged 9). I have no financial relationships with Universal or Walt Disney to disclose and do not have any friends/family who are affiliated with the companies or parks. I booked everything through the official ‘Universal Vacations’ website. I am currently on Day 3 of our 5 day trip. I have had a love for theme parks AND Harry Potter ever since I was a child. I have been very eager to visit Universal before the Harry Potter themed section was even announced. I am a season pass holder to the Cedar Fair parks (Cedar Point, Carowinds, King's Island, etc) and have driven cross-country just to ride a specific roller coaster. As far as major theme parks, I have been to Disneyland, Disney World, and Universal Studios Hollywood. Most recently, I went on a 6-day trip to Disney World with my family around this time last year. The trip to Disney was around $500 cheaper than my trip to Universal, even though it was a day longer. Hotels that we stayed at were comparable.

 

Review: My trip to Universal Studios Resort in Florida has been the most miserable theme park experience I have ever had. While I'm trying my best to not compare my experience to Disney, I believe the fact that they are direct competitors and have similar costs gives me the right to a fair comparison. This will hopefully assist families who are undecided between Disney and Universal.

 

The good: The Harry Potter themed areas were built with astonishing detail. I was amazed at how well it represented the movies. The areas where you could interact using the wands were neat (at a cost of $50 per interactive wand). The food was delicious and prices were reasonable for a theme park.

 

The express passes were helpful as they got us through most of the lines pretty quickly, although you can't use them for any of the Harry Potter attractions. However, The Mummy and The Hulk were both great roller coasters and were up to par, if not better than the Harry Potter rides.

 

In addition, the water taxi at no cost was a nice convenience to get between the hotel and park.

 

The Bad: The bad experiences started after I booked and before I even left the plane from Ohio. We ordered 5-day park-to-park passes, a 5-night stay at the Loews Portofino Bay Hotel [includes the express passes (i.e. fast passes)], a 3-day photo pass, a 5-day Full Service Dining Plan, and a shuttle from the airport. We bought everything in late November. Unlike Disney where you can make dinner reservations several months in advance through their website, all of Universal's restaurants go through different platforms such as Zomato, OpenTable, etc. and the soonest that I could reserve was a month in advance. This plan includes VERY FEW table service restaurant options and does not include any of the restaurants at their on-site hotels. As soon as I found out the latest I could make dinner reservations was 5 pm at their table-service restaurants within the actual theme parks, I called and switched to the quick service plan. The second thing I noticed prior to leaving was they changed the park closing hours to an hour earlier and added ride closings since I booked. While they do have a disclaimer on their website, the fact that Islands of Adventure closes at 6 pm and Universal Studios Florida at 7 pm when Magic Kingdom at Disney closes from 8-11 pm during this time of the year is absolutely ridiculous. Also Disney informed us of the ride closings while we were booking 5 months prior and didn't change their hours at all prior to our arrival, let alone at the last minute. I brushed these two details off prior to leaving for the trip and gave Universal the benefit of the doubt.

 

After spending three full days between the two parks, all I can say is that the Harry Potter themed sections are the only things that Universal has going for them. Upon arrival to Universal Studios we received 17+ cards, some plastic and some paper, to keep track of between the 4 of us: paper cards for park admission, plastic cards for dining plan, plastic cards for the hotel room, paper cards for express passes, and a paper card for photos. The paper cards for park admission had no identification on them so we had to write our names on the back because they have to correlate with your fingerprint. At Disney, we had 4 waterproof MagicBands that allowed us to do everything without the use of tickets, plastic cards, or even credit cards.

 

We arrived to Universal Studios Florida section at the park and immediately line up for our first ride of our trip, the Despicable Me Minion Mayhem ride. Luckily our fast passes actually came in handy because we only ended up waiting in line for about 10 minutes. However, it broke down about 2 minutes into the ride and we were stuck in the car for about 25 minutes while employees had to walk around and individually unlock each restraint. Not off to a good start. Another similar event occurred on the Spider-Man ride where the screens and sound shut off and we were riding the rest of ride just bouncing along with no effects. This was not an isolated event had many of the indoor rides were broken throughout the day.

 

Go over to Rip Ride Rockit, they immediately point you to a locker to store your cell phones, wallets, and anything else in your pockets. Luckily they are free for the first hour as you have to go through a metal detector to just get on the ride; therefore, it's a requirement to put your belongings in a locker. I understand that there are safety reasons behind their actions, but I think it's slightly overkill to have to stow away your wallet (don't forget to grab your express passes and photo card before you put it in the locker). I've visited dozens and dozens of amusement parks with bigger and more intense roller coasters and have never dealt with something similar except for metal detectors upon entry INTO the park.

 

The logistics behind the photo pass is extremely inconvenient. For the majority of the rides, you have to flip through several pictures until you come across yours. Then instead of adding it straight to your account, you have to go up to the clerk with your picture number shown on the screen and they give you a receipt that has a unique code on it that’ll allow you to add the photo to your album after you log in online. On the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride, I waited in line for 20 minutes as the employee had to stand there and flip through each picture until the person or group saw themselves. A group of four girls in front of me got frustrated and left the line after they couldn't find theirs. A lot more complicated than the magic band that registers what vehicle you are in and then automatically uploads your picture.

 

The actual pictures themselves leave something to be desired as well. The pictures where there should be a cartoon character in our daughter’s hand, there isn’t one; we are all pointing at nothing. We also managed to get pictures of other random people in our photo album with some of our actual pictures missing.

 

After riding two day’s worth of dark (indoor) rides, I came to the conclusion that all the newer ‘thrill’ rides have a similar layout. This is what you should expect from almost all the rides themed after a movie: you get in a car that seats 12 people, you put on 3D glasses, you whip around a corner, watch a 30 second CGI clip, whip around another corner, watch another clip, get sprayed with water, whip around another corner, watch another clip, get hot air blown on you, whip around another corner, watch a clip that makes you feel like you are free-falling, get sprayed with fog, then you arrive back at the station with the Universal employees clapping at you so you feel obligated to clap like the ride was the best thing in the world. That’s all I have to say about the dark rides.

 

As expected based on everything else, the dining plan stipulations are ludicrous as well. The dining plan information page online specifically states that you are able to use your beverage credits to purchase drinks from food carts and quick service restaurants. Apparently that doesn’t hold true to everything: I went to purchase a bottle of pumpkin juice and lemonade from a food cart in Hogsmeade but was told that I couldn’t use a beverage credit to purchase the ‘bottled’ drinks due to franchising rights, even though we were allowed to get 'Gillywater' which contained the same trademarked information. Instead, we were directed to get the same exact drink within the Hog’s Head (after a 15 minute wait in line) as a beverage credit can be used if served in a Harry Potter cup. This makes zero sense. Furthermore, as I was exiting the park with my cup of pumpkin juice, I was hastily told by the employee that I wasn’t allowed to leave with the drink so I had to chug what I could and throw away the rest.

 

Since the park unfortunately closed so early, we thought we would be able to spend more time at the hotel pool in the evenings. I noticed that there wasn’t anybody using the pool that we had a view of from our room. I called the hotel operator and asked if the pools were open at our hotel. I was told ‘Yes’ and then hung up on when as I was responding with a follow-up question. When we walked down to the 'beach pool' which is the largest and most kid-friendly pool at our hotel (includes water slides), the sign on the gate said it was closed due to 'inclement weather'. I asked the front desk why it was closed and she said they were doing annual maintenance from January 8 to February 15. I inquired why we were never informed about this and she stated that we should have received a letter in our welcome package but since we booked through Universal Vacations instead of the actual Loews website, we didn’t get the letter.

 

Conclusion: Overall, we have experienced everything Universal has to offer, the good and the bad, within a matter of 3 days. As you can see, the bad has far outweighed anything good during our trip so far. I will leave this park $5,000 short with a handful of positive memories. Not even my absolute love for Harry Potter will ever give me a desire to return to these two parks. I will be going to Walt Disney World from now on and recommend my family and friends to do the same.

 

I'd love to get feedback from others about similar or differing experiences!

 

Thank you for taking the time to read!

 

--- William

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Wow. Thanks for taking the time to write that. Some very interesting points, many of which I agree with, notably...

 

Go over to Rip Ride Rockit, they immediately point you to a fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo to store your cell phones, wallets, and anything else in your pockets. Luckily they are free for the first hour as you have to go through a metal detector to just get on the ride; therefore, it's a requirement to put your belongings in a fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo. I understand that there are safety reasons behind their actions, but I think it's slightly overkill to have to stow away your wallet (don't forget to grab your express passes and photo card before you put it in the fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo). I've visited dozens and dozens of amusement parks with bigger and more intense roller coasters and have never dealt with something similar except for metal detectors upon entry INTO the park.

 

I simply refuse to ride any coaster where I have to put ALL of my stuff into a locker and walk through a metal detector. I don't care what the excuse is, I won't do it.

 

After riding two day’s worth of dark (indoor) rides, I came to the conclusion that all the newer ‘thrill’ rides have a similar layout. This is what you should expect from almost all the rides themed after a movie: you get in a car that seats 12 people, you put on 3D glasses, you whip around a corner, watch a 30 second CGI clip, whip around another corner, watch another clip, get sprayed with water, whip around another corner, watch another clip, get hot air blown on you, whip around another corner, watch a clip that makes you feel like you are free-falling, get sprayed with fog, then you arrive back at the station with the Universal employees clapping at you so you feel obligated to clap like the ride was the best thing in the world.

I agree with EVERYTHING in this paragraph. I am *not* a fan of media based rides at all, and I feel like this is pretty much all Universal has offered lately. I feel that, maybe other than Spider-Man, these other attractions are a "one and done" for me. I had such high hopes for Gringott's but after the initial drop, you just fall into another Transformers-like ride, and I feel as though that ride system has so much more capability to it.

 

And I think the last sentence in your paragraph is funny as hell!

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^I agree. Spider-Man, Mummy, and MIB are still the best rides at the Universal Resort (although I was surprised that I liked Transformers). The newer Universal attractions involve sitting, bouncing around, and watching movies.

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