Meanwhile at USH this weekend...

[Californian Elitist]

Speaking of Universal, kudos to them for getting John Williams (my favorite film composer) and the Los Angeles Philharmonic to perform for the grand opening of the WWoHP at USH. The show as whole had some of the best, if not the best projection/digital mapping and tech I've seen (in a video, at least).

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

That was certainly a better performance than the Orlando Pops at their grand opening, but that isn't saying much.

I just looked at the wait times for USH and they have very little that appeals to me. Where's the E.T. ride??

 

[Californian Elitist]

That was certainly a better performance than the Orlando Pops at their grand opening, but that isn't saying much.

I just looked at the wait times for USH and they have very little that appeals to me. Where's the E.T. ride??

E.T. went bye-bye years ago.

The star attraction of the park is the studio tour. There's nothing else like it at any of the other Universal parks.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

There used to be a tram tour at Universal Studios Florida!

 

[Californian Elitist]

There used to be a tram tour at Universal Studios Florida!

Hollywood's is the original and has the most history! That backlot is over a century old, literally, and tours first became available in 1915. Many classic films have been shot on Universal's lot, including some Disney films. You really can't get that anywhere else.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

You know I respect your opinion, but Universal Studios Florida back in the day was clearly the superior park, even though Hollywood had the superior tram tour with the OG Bates Motel and house, animatronic Kong and that flash flood that almost killed Miles in Earthquake. But in its heyday, USF had the E.T. Adventure, the Star Trek Adventure, Kongfrontation, Jaws, Ghostbusters Spooktacular, the Star Trek Adventure, Earthquake: The Big One, Back to the Future...The Ride, The Blues Brothers Revue, the Star Trek Adventure, Alfred Hitchcock: The Art of Making Movies, The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera and the Star Trek Adventure.

 

[Californian Elitist]

You know I respect your opinion, but Universal Studios Florida back in the day was clearly the superior park, even though Hollywood had the superior tram tour with the OG Bates Motel and house, animatronic Kong and that flash flood that almost killed Miles in Earthquake. But in its heyday, USF had the E.T. Adventure, the Star Trek Adventure, Kongfrontation, Jaws, Ghostbusters Spooktacular, the Star Trek Adventure, Earthquake: The Big One, Back to the Future...The Ride, The Blues Brothers Revue, the Star Trek Adventure, Alfred Hitchcock: The Art of Making Movies, The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera and the Star Trek Adventure.

I respect yours, too, but I'll take the history over all of those attractions.

If you're ever up for a visit to USH, let me know and I'd be happy to go with you.

 

[dweezil78]

Sorry -- started this thread and have been away ever since! Ok getting down to business here. Lots of good comments. Here's what I have to say in no particular order...

• Even by Los Angeles standards, today was NOT a rainy day. I don't think we even got a drop of rain since the wee hours of the morning here in the SFV. Even the forecast didn't look bad. It was a damp(ish) overcast day, there's been way worse.
  
  
• True -- Potter's been in technical rehearsals for a month or so now (I never saw the wait get past 40 min the day I went) and many have already experienced it, but I still know a ton of people who had no idea about this and even if they did, were unclear on wth a 'technical rehearsal' really was and even still didn't want to take a chance and have it not be open when they got to the park.
  
  
• UNI put a lot of $$$ into marketing around the 4/7 launch and no doubt were expecting big #'s this weekend. There were signs to help with traffic on the 101 and the park was open until 11PM even tonight to accommodate what I'm sure they thought would be massive crowds.
  
  
• The fact that the whole park was dead isn't really an excuse IMO. If Harry Potter brought the people in, the rest of the park would have benefited as well.

Do I think WWoHP is a bust and people don't care? Of course not. I'm sure the summer crowds will eat it up eventually. But the push for a big first weekend was definitely a colossal disappointment no matter how you look at it. Don't forget... this is Hollywood, first weekends are mega important to the people in this industry, even if it is a theme park we're talking about.

Not that I think they were ever really worried, but anyone at Disney who even was remotely concerned had to be relieved after seeing what went down at USH this weekend. Even with all the changes and improvements to the park (me personally, I think it's a cluttered claustrophobic mess now), DLR still had strong busy season crowds on a rainy weekend while USH was as empty as any off-season week day.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

Up here in the Bay Area no one I know was talking about it, which is interesting only because DL's 60th announcements seemed to generate quite a bit of buzz both in media coverage and casual conversation here.

 

[dweezil78]

You know I respect your opinion, but Universal Studios Florida back in the day was clearly the superior park, even though Hollywood had the superior tram tour with the OG Bates Motel and house, animatronic Kong and that flash flood that almost killed Miles in Earthquake. But in its heyday, USF had the E.T. Adventure, the Star Trek Adventure, Kongfrontation, Jaws, Ghostbusters Spooktacular, the Star Trek Adventure, Earthquake: The Big One, Back to the Future...The Ride, The Blues Brothers Revue, the Star Trek Adventure, Alfred Hitchcock: The Art of Making Movies, The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera and the Star Trek Adventure.

I think it's pretty tough to do an Apples to Apples comparison of the two parks. Nothing in Florida really compares to the tram tour and I always thought it was a bit of a cop out that three of USF's main attractions were just extended versions of bits from the tour. Earthquake was pretty much an identical clone with a corny pre-show and Jaws was just a re-skinned Jungle Cruise. Kongfrontation, on the other hand, definitely kicked up the Kong several notches and was a favorite of mine.

On the flipside, two of USH's biggest attractions of the last 20 years (Jurassic Park and T2:3D) didn't even open until 1996 and 1998 respectively -- so pre-96, there wasn't a whole lot to do after the tram tour. Mid 90s USF was definitely a full-day park with a lot to do and was easily the better of the two studio parks in Orlando. Also add to that, USF had some pretty great show-based attractions and the layout of the park overall allowed for guests to pack in a much longer day with a lot more to see overall.

If we're talking pre-96, I'd probably have to give the edge to USF but the competition definitely heats up by the mid/late 90s!

Also, Mummy in USH is terrible (everything from the queue to the 10 second long ride) and I miss ET every time I go near it. We are severely lacking a classic dark ride like ET out here!!!

 

[Ryan120420]

Universal did everything to prevent what happened in Orlando here in Hollywood. Also didn't help that it was raining the entire weekend and some local news stations were saying that the entire weekend was sold out.

I think Theme Park Insider summed it up perfectly:

http://www.themeparkinsider.com/flume/201604/5026/


Just wait until all the Annual and Season Passes are unblocked and schools are out. The place is going to be a madhouse.

 

[RandomPrincess]

There used to be a tram tour at Universal Studios Florida!

It's not the same trust me. The Studio Tram Tour in Hollywood is amazing!

 

[Travel Junkie]

Unless this Harry Potter ride has some obscenely high rider capacity, something like 3,000 or more per hour, there's no explanation for a 15 minute wait on opening weekend other than a very slow theme park.

FJ does have an extremely high ride capacity. It sits around 2,800 per hour as it is a continuous loader like an omnimover.

That being said, I was checking the wait times this weekend as well and it seemed a little strange USH was as slow as it was. I think it will pick up once school lets out. My guess is that everyone that really wanted to see Potter already went to Orlando and so there is no real rush to see it the first week.

I also think that Uni may have overplayed their hand a bit. The price has gone up around $20 for a 1 day ticket in a matter on months and the AP's have skyrocketed. You used to be able to get in for the whole year for a one day ticket price with the buy a day get a year free promotion. We complain about Disney raising prices every year, but for the most part they do it in small increments. Universal raised them at a much steeper rate and may have scared off some people, especially those who already have seen Potter.

 

[Californian Elitist]

I forgot about the AP blackout dates.

I'll take a 10 minute wait for FJ versus a four hour wait, like the other day. Also, no one should have to worry about Disney. Disneyland has its audience and USH has theirs. I'm just really happy for USH, as this is the biggest expansion in the park's history. I see no point in trying to belittle that (not saying people here are).

 

[Phroobar]

You know I respect your opinion, but Universal Studios Florida back in the day was clearly the superior park... and the Star Trek Adventure.

USH had the Star Trek Adventure back in the early 80s too. My dad got choose to be a Klingon in the show. USH always rotated through shows like that. They would pick people from the audience to be actors in the show. They would video tape it and sell the copy of the show to everyone that was in it.

http://www.thestudiotour.com/ush/attractions/startrekadventure.shtml

 

[Californian Elitist]

Also, Mummy in USH is terrible (everything from the queue to the 10 second long ride) and I miss ET every time I go near it. We are severely lacking a classic dark ride like ET out here!!!

Mummy is supposedly on its way out. I'm hearing possibly JP as well.

 

[BubbaQuest]

Going to be interesting how Uni handles this going forward. Saturday online tickets were sold out in advance. I'm not sure how many they held at the gate. But lets assume Uni was near capacity, at least for tickets sales, on Saturday.

Is a 10 minute FJ queue a good thing or a bad thing in a near capacity park?

 

[Epcotfan21]

Anyone know if they ever figured out what was causing more people to complain of being/feeling sick after riding the Hollywood version of the Forbidden Journey ride? I know they said the ride was an exact copy of the Florida version, but they couldn't figure out why more individuals/employees were feeling sick afterwards.

 

[dweezil78]

Going to be interesting how Uni handles this going forward. Saturday online tickets were sold out in advance. I'm not sure how many they held at the gate. But lets assume Uni was near capacity, at least for tickets sales, on Saturday.

Is a 10 minute FJ queue a good thing or a bad thing in a near capacity park?

Short wait is always a good thing IMO -- but I wouldn't read too much into the near capacity/ticket sellout thing. The park was definitely nowhere near capacity judging by the wait times overall. Transformers regularly hits over an hour and FJ was around 40 minutes the Sunday I was there for technical rehearsals in mid-March.

 

[dweezil78]

I also think that Uni may have overplayed their hand a bit. The price has gone up around $20 for a 1 day ticket in a matter on months and the AP's have skyrocketed. You used to be able to get in for the whole year for a one day ticket price with the buy a day get a year free promotion. We complain about Disney raising prices every year, but for the most part they do it in small increments. Universal raised them at a much steeper rate and may have scared off some people, especially those who already have seen Potter.

Universal definitely went overboard on the pricing. No block-out date APs went from something reasonable like $179 to $589 in one swoop. That's madness! I know we give Disney a lot of flack for their high prices, but I think the value is still there for the most part. I don't know that I'd say the same for USH at the current price. Sure there's a fair amount of stuff to do and like there, but it's never a place where I'm itching to go back the next day like Disneyland. Just the thought of going downstairs to JP, Mummy, Transformers always feels like a chore to me.

I think the bigger issue is that locals have for years thought of it as the 'Buy a Day, Get a Year' park and it's going to take a while for them to shake that perception, even with the addition of Potter which is great, but already old news to a lot of people visiting the park who have already experienced it in Florida where it's part of something bigger and much more impressive.