Garet Visits Universal Studios Singapore

Last Korean thanksgiving I had a couple of days to travel, after debating Hong Kong or Singapore, I decided upon Singapore since I felt having only 1 day to do Hong Kong disney and ocean park.

I'll be honest although I loved the park as a whole and both I and my girlfriend had a great day I realized as I edited the photos that all the rides I enjoyed at the park were the cloned rides from other parks, although I appreciate Universal making new versions and new rides, most of the unique rides I didn't enjoy that much or preferred the other versions of them.

Transformers was amazing, my girlfriend normally hates rides that move fast or can give motion sickness but this was her favorite ride of the park (and mine), I took quite a few single rider rides on this because after 2 goes I remembered it was two floored and wanted to look for the elevators, I told my girlfriend later about them and she was shocked that it had changed floor. The ride ran seamlessly that she never noticed. I'm very glad some people had described it as spiderman 1.5 though, I think if i'd gone expecting a much different more advanced version I would have hyped it up too much in my head but it was great. I think I preferred spidermans finale when being pulled by the glider to transformers though.

The Mummy was a ride I never got to experience in Orlando so i'm glad I got to experience it here, it was probably the ride I did the most after transformers. However the car ride in the egypt section turned out to be my favorite "unique ride" of singapore.

Jurassic park was a ride I was really looking forward to since I love rapids but I came away a bit disappointed, I think it works better as a boat ride to be honest. Maybe my boat span too much but there didn't seem to be many dinosaurs or as many effects as when I rode the boat version in Japan. It just felt like an ordinary rapid ride with a dinosaur head poking out of a hole in a tunnel, then a spotlight to light up a shadow before you got to the elevators. Maybe it was broken the day I went but the T-Rex barely seemed to move just before the drop, I just think maybe I preferred the boat version since everyone is facing the same way and the boat goes slower you have more time to spot the details and the effects (maybe I just missed some because the raft had rotated or moved too fast.

Madagascar just was really underwhelming, I almost would rather ride it's a small world, the animatronics just really didn't seem to do much and it just seemed dull. Even my girlfriend had no interest in a re-ride and she is a huge fan of the movies.

Battlestar Galactica baffled me, Whereas transformers and the rapids had an hour line, the mummy had a 30 minute line and madagascar 20 minutes this ride was empty. Even running only a single train and having single rider, I had to sit on the train and wait for more people to come. I've been on terrible coasters in lesser known parks that have had a line so it shocked me one of singapores star attractions was so empty. I did both a front ride and back ride of both sides to test it out and honestly I may be in the minority here but I found the ride a little.....dull, which is never a ride I thought i'd use for a launching, dueling rollercoaster with two different types of rollercoaster. The red train had the vest style restraints installed and it held me in place so much that after the launch and drop I spent most of my rides looking out for the blue train and barely noticing the turns or drops that followed. The blue train was more fun and I did enjoy my front ride which was pretty smooth but when I sat in the back left seat, It decided to remind me it was a vekoma slc and my head got quite a banging.

Lights, Camera, Action was ok but I think I preferred Backdraft but I'm just a fan of a lot of fire being used.

After I dubbed Japans universal studios "Greatest hits universal", this one was dubbed "tropical universal"

Po came out and waved to the crowds when the gates opened, I was kind of hoping for Japan style where every member of staff from the cleaners to the managers come out and line the street to wave at everyone before the character at the gate checks his imaginary watch and runs them off to their posts

The actors were very hands-on here, I don't remember them being so hands-on in the other parks I visited but it was awesome I wish more parks could do this, he gripped quite securely and I just feel that if this was back home someone would complain about it, I can't remember the last time a scare-actor touched instead of just shouting (and yes I realize this isn't a scare actor but for the musical show)

A covered dome like Japan although probably essential considering how it would randomly pour it down heavily for a while when we stayed in Singapore.

Since most crowds were heading for transformers we went ahead since our express passes let us in through a less busy gate to get it in first while the rest of the people from the gates were running there.

Despite the express passes my girlfriend made us use the usual line for our first ride to check out the stuff in the lines.

Megatron

Optimus

And Jack Bauers friend

It was a fantastic ride

The costumes are amazing one minute i'm taking a picture of this car then it got up and walked around.....

....see!

Stupid question considering the movies had a transformer with robot balls, but if the basis of the ride is your ride vehicle transforms into this robot with you still on it during the ride, why aren't there 8 seats on this robot? I don't remember him putting us down when we rode.

We decided to sample the transformer drinks since you got to keep the cups.

Onwards to our next area

This sign sadly came out darker than I had planned

MY EYES!!!! I cannot unsee this.

Although the sign said no cameras I saw a lot of people riding with cameras, when I got on I was just told no flash so most pictures came out a little strange.

This ride is really boring unless your a huge fan of half naked hippos using animals or other foliage to cover themselves up.

I'm sure I saw this animatronic twice in the ride, maybe he's supposed to be narrating but I lost interest about 5 minutes into the ride.

I forgot to take pictures of this ride so I ran back to get it at night.

Part 2:

Loved this ride, since 0 loose articles could go on the ride this is the only picture I took

Loved the theming of the ride

Views from the Egyptian area

I'll be heading here next

My favorite unique ride

Thankfully unlike Japan the waterworld fastpass was stamped on my ticket so it was impossible this time for me to not be able to find where to get a fast pass ticket, my girlfriend had never seen it so it gave me an excuse to go get the photos I missed when I last saw it

Gangnam style still exists in the waterworld future

I missed this shot last time I saw the show

Welcome to shrek land

Shreks house

Sadly not a real bathroom

Hey a disney castle

insert bigger than disney castle joke here

This wasn't really that interesting to me but my girlfriend really seemed to enjoy talking to a computer animation

I think i've just got so used to Eddie Murphys voice it seemed really weird hearing someone attempting to do an Eddie Murphy voice.

The rollercoaster for some reason was missing the baby dragons that should sit on top of the head.

It was a fun little ride.

Bye-bye shrek land

and on to the new york section

Part 3

A fun ride

It had some water

fire

and a big boat, I rode it once but it wasn't something I was interested in riding

I'd intended to hit battlestar next but the rapids had been down frequently earlier in the day, when I saw it was back running I ran to get a ride on it

I didn't know they'd been building the park for that long!

This animatronic was great snarling and snapping at anyone that got too near

the cast member really sold it.

I think the drop was more fun to watch than to ride, the building doesn't make a big impact like the baot versions do

sploosh

coming down the drop

A fun ride that had one of the longest lines in the park (we had passes)

We ended up backwards facing, I was quite suprised my girlfriend rode this she hates heights and even wasn't too fond of the dragon coaster

A nice family flat ride

and a themed climbing wall

I saved the big roller-coasters for last

Final Part

for a dueling coaster, this really wasn't overly exciting

the blue version was better, I really wish I could have rode the red version before the vest style restraints were installed

Despite waiting 5 minutes in the station between rides it was still leaving with empty seats

I was starting to lose the light at this point but I wanted to get every angle

Sunset was coming

Before leaving the park I ran back to get a few shots of the merry go round

my seat of choice was angry old lady with handbag

Goodbye universal

Nice pictures of the park. This park is on my bucket list to visit someday.

Garet - It took me awhile but I finally ended this to the Park Index.

Garet - It took me awhile but I finally ended this to the Park Index.

Good to know, I alway get paranoid with my TR's that I forgot to click it since due to time differences and work I always seem to end up making these posts at 1am when i'm half asleep and then end up clicking it too many times... Sorry

This is definitely one of those parks I want to go to one day. I always enjoy seeing photos of this park. It seems very photogenic.

Nice pictures of the park. This park is on my bucket list to visit someday.

I'm really glad I visited when I did, I've just seen rumors that Battlestar could be removed: http://dejiki.com/2013/10/uss-update-oct13/ I'd take it with a grain of salt but thought it was worth sharing.

I'd be very shocked if they removed the ride that really stands out from outside the park and one of their most unique attractions but then again it seemed to be largely ignored by most people in the park when we went, even though transformers right next door had an hour line all day, as I said in the TR even with single rider and 1 train operation the trains sat idling in the stations for a lot of the time waiting for people to fill them up which is not something you'd expect from a star attraction.

Do you know if Battlestar Gallactica is a costly ride to maintain? Does it frequently suffer massive downtime?

we have a dedicated topic regarding universal Singapore.

http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=30716

the rumors about a potential closing might be better discussed there and this kept on topic regarding your photo trip report.

thanks.

we have a dedicated topic regarding universal Singapore.

http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=30716

 

the rumors about a potential closing might be better discussed there and this kept on topic regarding your photo trip report.

 

thanks.

Sorry I reposted it there although I can't remove it here since the x has disappeared, i'm guessing because it's no longer the last post on this thread.