- May 26, 2010
- 5,811
- 16,152
Here we are! Time for a rundown of my observations and experiences from Universal's Grad Bash.
-Busses arrived and were loaded in via what I presume to be cast member parking. Got to see some (for me) unusual angles of Islands of Adventure, particularly Potter/Lost Continent. We were distributed wristbands that were color coded to where we were supposed to exit at the end of the night - the three exit points were (I believe) Incredible Hulk, Fear Factor Live, and Studios entrance (not 100% on that last one, someone correct me.) We were supposed to exit at Hulk - nifty.
-We passed through several backstage office areas (and a past a sign that referenced the direction Amity was in, pout) before reaching a security checkpoint. We got off the bus and found ourselves in a place I was quite familiar with - the entrance to one of the HHN soundstage houses (The Thing, Hades, Frankenstein, etc.). The Mardi Gras gator float was parked next to the door, which was a nice touch. I guess the pre-party was Mardi Gras themed. Inside the needlessly massive soundstage was a row of metal detectors - again, nothing unusual to the HHN fan. Passed through with any trouble and was given a map.
-Funny thing is, the map still advertised DJ Khaled as one of the headliners at 9:45. I had already known that Khaled would not be performing (and hadn't the last weekend, either), but I doubt anyone else did. No communication was sent to class advisors (I was the one who broke the news to our school) and nothing was communicated to us at the event. Very poor show if you ask me - you had to actually show up to the stage to learn the performer was DJ Nasty (who?) Anyway, mini rant done...
-We basically walked the reverse of The Thing house queue to re-enter the park proper. Along the way carts hawked Grad Bash Souvenir Cups for $5, which offered free refills. The design was ugly and the materials didn't seem particularly long-lasting, so I passed, as did everyone else in my party.
-There was a Coca Cola Karaoke thing set up in front of the library. It didn't look particularly remarkable the crowd seemed board so we passed it on by.
-And it was here we entered the "Mardi Gras Studio Pre-Party." Basically, they sectioned off a sliver of the New York/Production Central area for the Grad Students to wait until the park closed and was cleared. Metal gates were set up to separate park guests from Grad Bash guests, sectioning off from the Library down to Rockit. As such, Twister was available to us. (Did anyone care?)
-Set up on the music plaza lawn was a buffet that featured mediocre burgers, hot dogs, mac n cheese, and the like. It was serviceable but nothing special. There were no tables of any kind so most just sat on the astroturf. An also mediocre/poorly trained DJ "mixed" songs on a Virtual DJ-equipped Macbook to the side of the stage.
-There were quite a few Mardi Gras stiltwalkers milling about throwing beads, which was nice. Woody and Winnie Woodpecker were out posing for photos in all-out graduate attire - this I loved!
-After eating we realized it was only 5:30... the park didn't technically open until 7, though I had heard whispers that Rockit and Mummy would open for the pre-party guests as soon as the park was cleared (and the park closed at 6). In the meantime, I did Twister for the first time in a while. It was impossible to hear the preshow due to no one shutting the hell up. The main show looked good and got appropriate responses, but man is this attraction redundant.
-Chilled at the bench right next to the Twister exit doors so we could be in the AC a little while, very convenient.
-Around 6:15 we wandered over to the fence nearest Rockit and waited - a crowd formed fairly quickly around us, realizing what was happening. At about 6:30 they removed the fence and started slowly dispatching us towards the ride... for some reason, they would literally only let 15 or so people go at a time, dispatching every couple minutes, which led to my (very large) party to be temporarily separated. (We waited for them).
-Thankfully the first time we hopped on the ride was a walk-on. Had a solid ride rocking to Intergalactic... realizing the line still wasn't awful, we hopped in again (only one or two switchbacks in the room of horror was filled). We moved at a steady pace, with periodic stops... once we got to the top of the station, we saw why. Man, people are REALLY stupid! Those familiar with the ride's operation knows that guests have to be efficient and quick getting into vehicles and being secured. But I swear, people were walking SO slowly (especially chaperones!) and some simply refused to remove their restraint, leaving exasperated team members to do it for them. This led to the conveyor belt being stopped countless times. It was a mess, and not on the fault of the team members. Regardless, after about 15 minutes we got on the ride again and I had fun with Stronger...
-...and then the trouble started. We got as far as the maintenance bay leg of the track and stopped, as the vehicles had backed up. I realized literally no one was boarding... then a frustrated (but very friendly) team member signaled to me via gestures that someone had vomited on the conveyor belt. For Christ's sake! We waited about 10 or 15 minutes for it to be cleaned up... no idea how extensive it was or what the implications were. The team members were VERY apologetic about the situation, and gave us free one-time use express passes for our trouble. (Remember that, it comes into play later.) We were very delighted, as 10 minutes waiting on a roller coaster was certainly better than waiting 2 hours for a ride later on!
-Our original plan was to hit Mummy after Rockit - but the time was now 7:10 and the parks had opened. We figured it'd be best to go to Islands now, while the crowds over there were light, and use the Express on Mummy later. As the unofficial school tour guide most stuck with me and we proceeded through the crossover zone, that followed the path of Winter's Night queue (except veering right past the Rockit tracks, instead of left). The path had lots of bright lights, team members, and pop music playing, but also passed what seemed to be a cluster of dumpsters that gave off an absolutely foul smell. The crossover ended at the Seuss gates.
-We moved quickly to Potter - and were pleased to see very few people there yet. Ollivander's was a walk-on, for a measure of comparison (and yes it was open). Forbidden Journey was listed at a 15 minute wait but was actually a walk-on. Ride was solid, but the dragon lacked fire (apparently it was working later that night). Hidden dementor was still lit, but not moving.
-We also hit Hippogriff since it was a walk-on... provides a lovely view of Hogsmeade, during which I noticed the mist emerging from the chimneys. Cool detail I'd never noticed before!
-Time for Dragon Challenge... the queue configuration was weird, and we were directed to skip the Goblet of Fire room (-shrug-). The line backed up to the former skeleton room rotunda... so about a 5 minute wait to get to the "Choose Thy Fate" chamber. Everyone I was with were casual park goers who referred to the coasters still as Fire and Ice, and were disheartened to learn that they no longer dueled. They had team members assigning guests to rows which was nice... but Dragons desperately needs a singles line. Sooooo many empty seats. The coaster itself was fun (did Ice- I mean the Hungarian Horntail) as always, but the no dueling was weird.
-Grabbed some butter beer (which is still ridiculously popular and drawing waits). Potter was being mobbed, and we opted not to wait again for the Chinese Fireball, or whatever. Instead, we proceeded into Jurassic Park...
-By now it was dark, and man the lighting around the park is impressive. BOTH arches had BOTH torches working, which was awesome! The atmosphere was great... with the exception of the music. In the common areas of the park they played pop, electronic, hip hop and even some dubstep instead of the usual park tracks... while I"m a fan of the music and felt it worked pretty effectively at the lighter-themed Studio, it felt weird hearing Lady Gaga and Skrillex songs in Jurassic Park.
-Jurassic Park River Adventure was a walk-on... we were loving the short waits after being warned of 2 hour lines for every ride!
-The ride itself however... worse than last time. Seriously, much much worse. The lighting for the ride at night is really cool, especially for the opening bit... but there's freaking spotlights on the Ultrasaur that doesn't move and is plainly sitting there for a good 8 seconds before it does something. It looks absolutely AWFUL. Furthermore, lighting oddly illuminated one of the Psitts but not the other... which WAS moving this time, but was shrouded in darkness...
-The Stegos were worse. Both have almost no color left on their skins. Baby Stego appears to have lost even more of her "energy" (i.e. animation) and mostly just turns her head back and forth slowly. Momma Stego literally has a broken neck - it's oddly contorted to the left towards the riders and is entangled in the foliage. This looked like trash and should not have been allowed to be seen by guests.
-The Hadrosaurs were still good, though the second one needs to be illuminated... right now it emerges in mostly darkness. The moving bushes and sparks were working great, compies were compies...
-Raptor box dropped, but the audio is STILL out of sync and the box drops too early. I reported this exact problem almost a month ago. How is this still not fixed!?
-Raptors were much worse than last time. Even with the assistance of night vision, they were almost impossible to see as they weren't properly illuminated... and what I could see wasn't good, they were barely moving. Why do Hollywoods look so much better/film-accurate while ours look like rubber messes?
-The spitters/other random Carnivore were fine.
-T-Rex scene was disappointing after my last amazing ride. The fog was back to its minimal levels, meaning you could see Tiffany not moving before she starts her animation cycle. Is it THAT hard to keep a plethora of fog pumped into the scene!? Should be one of the simpler effects in the ride... And if it's not there the finale loses a lot of its momentum.
-I noticed a massive "Grad Bash/Congrats Class of 2012" message was projected onto the JPRA building. Very cool!
-We got decently wet, but it dried off surprisingly fast. Despite some requests to do it, our group opted out of Dudley Do-Right... we decided we'd go all "YOLO" and do it at the very end, before exiting at the Hulk.
-In passing through Toon Lagoon we came across a "dance zone." This was kind of embarrassing... they had some good lighting and rigging set up, and another mediocre DJ playing via macbook, but there was no one dancing aside from a small group of friends from another school awkwardly moshing to "We Found Love." We shrugged and kept moving, and I was reminded how lovely Toon Lagoon looked at nice. Popeye was closed since no one in their right-mind would ride that at this point.
-Upon reaching Spider-Man we were very happy to see it had a posted 35 minute wait... which turned out to be only 20. Very, very satisfying. The ride itself was great, and everyone in my party loved the upgrade (and those who had never been before loved the ride immensely). At the loading station there was a sandwich board that stated that night sight goggles were being tracked and that they MUST be returned at the end of the ride... interestingly, while there was a team member (and 2 security officers!) stationed at the glasses return bin, he did not place the glasses in the bin gently himself as I've seen done... we just tossed them in. Change in policy or a fluke?
-Forgot to mention, still no fog effect when Hydroman gets electrocuted. One of my favorite practical effect moments in Spider-Man... is this gone for good or just poor maintenance?
-So now we proceeded to Hulk, which had a posted 40 minute wait (looked longer, and the line was in the switchbacks outside the building). We decided we'd use our Express Passes here, as we wanted to get back in plenty of time for the Pitbull concert. We approached the guy handling Express and said we had our one-time use passes to use... and he said "Sorry, but there is no Express, it's Grad Bash." (For those of you unaware, the Express queues are used at Grad Bash but are typically available only to chaperones.) I kept my cool and calmly explained that we were given these Express passes due to Rockit breaking down. I also pointed out that the pass said it was good for any ride, INCLUDING Forbidden Journey and Rockit (blasphemy!). He told us sorry again, and that he wouldn't honor anything because "there is no Express, and we could've gotten those passes anywhere." (These passes were printed on a receipt style of paper, had an individual bar code, and an expiration date of May 31st.) I was annoyed, but asked if I could speak to a supervisor or the team leader. He then told me "Look, you guys can get in line or you can leave with security." At that, the rest of my group was FURIOUS (not knowing how to handle these situations) and I told them it wasn't worth it and to just back away. Naturally, we were all pissed that 1) our passes weren't honored and 2) we were treated like scumbags.
-Well, as luck would have it, one of our chaperones happened to be sitting at the bench near the exit waiting for another chaperone. We went and explained to her what happened, and she went and got a general manager. He listened to us intently and went over and talked to the d-bag line guy to see what the deal was. It was about 5 minutes until he returned - he seemed ready to tell us we were out of luck, when suddenly the team leader for Hulk appeared out of nowhere. He asked us to explain what happened, which I did in detail, emphasizing we received the pass during Grad Bash. He said they were not told about Rockit breaking down but would nevertheless honor our passes (especially when I noted during the explaining that he could call the Rockit team and they'd confirm there was a breakdown with passes distributed). He also apologized profusely to how the other team member acted and said that "threatening to call security was not okay." He led us right into the Express queue... and wouldn't you know it, the d-bag line guy saw us and flipped... and then saw the team leader leading us in and froze, turned around and continued doing his job. Classic...
-Well, we got our damn ride after all that and had a nice time. c:
-To continue that rant a little, how ridiculous is that situation? No one in our party at any time spoke to the team member in a rude or threatening matter, and not only does he insinuate we counterfeited the express passes (seriously?) but threatened to call security? Horrible guest service, and I guarantee that wouldn't have happened had this been during normal park operations... but because it's Grad Bash, they assume everyone is a POS up-to-no-good teenager. Furthermore, had our chaperone not been present, I'd wager the manager wouldn't have ever called the team leader to come down. That attitude was prevalent in some team members throughout the event, and it was really unprofessional and rude to the teenagers who were just trying to have a good time with their friends. I will be writing a formal letter to Universal about that. If anything, they need to better communicate to team members that one-time-use Express passes can and will be distributed if rides break down.
-Anyway! We had a bit of time left so we stopped by Doctor Doom. I love, love, love the stand by queue for this ride! That, and the lighting effects in the ride chamber were stellar... the flickering and later black out right before launch, followed by a slow flicker-fade back on as we descended in? Awesome.
-It was time to go to the Pitbull concert, so we moved towards Seuss. Another "Congrats Class of 2012/Grad Bash" projection was up at Confisco's Grill. Nice touch
-I noticed that Green Eggs & Ham was open (go figure!) I didn't stop by, so I don't know what they were serving. Incidentally, Cat in the Hat was actually closed... this was surprising, I would've assumed they'd have opened it (after all, the rest of the Seuss rides were open...)
-There was another dance zone in the "Oh the Stories You'll Hear!" dead-end near One Fish Two Fish. This one actually had a crowd, no doubt to the closed-off/condensed nature of the surroundings... the Toon Lagoon one was just way too open for it to be any good. We only passed it, but appeared to be quite the grindfest.
-We arrived to witness the tail end of DJ Nasty's "set," which consisted of him pressing "play" on some hip hop song, using a FlippinDouble effect twice, and then advertising his Twitter feed. Very lame, I wish they could've gotten a better DJ (dunno if Khaled would've been any better, for the record.)
-The crowd for Pitbull was enormous but we managed to push very far in - we were maybe in about the 7th row (roughly, it was a massive mob of people.) The crowd was highly unruly... narrowly avoided two fights after being deliberately shoved. What the hell, guys?
-Once Pitbull got started though nobody cared - it was just smart phones out and dancing. He's an excellent performer and was up there for over an hour. Lots of energy and response from the crowd... including a lot of grinding (some of the girls got a little too into it, methinks). Crowd control through the whole thing was very solid, but it got unbearably hot during the concert... apparently for Pitbull too, who used a washcloth several times to wipe the sweat off his bald head!
-Once the concert ended we went to Mummy, which had an awesome 10 minute wait. The ride was "fine" for how it's been performing lately... Imhotep I/Reggie look like trash, you could see the warrior mummies before they popped up (almost no mist), fire effects/falling wall were looking good, Imhotep head projection very faded and unconvincing, etc. etc. usual complaints. People still love it to death though, and I understand why - the coaster portion, if short, is still smooth as silk and very exhilarating.
-We bypassed Disaster (couldn't see that being very fun with a bunch of obnoxious teens) and passed through the darkness that was Jaws. At night it's so much more obvious that there's a row of apartments sitting right there with all of the lights. Potter 2.0 can't come soon enough...
-We hit up Men in Black, which finally had the tracks synced up. The preshow and elevator doors were propped open, so you could just pass through... this was a move I agree with, to be honest, even though it kills the show. Quite frankly (and unfortunately), 90% of teens do not care about the story, they just want to get on the ride and shoot aliens and spin. Is that worth temporarily sacrificing the show's integrity? Maybe not, but it's not like you'd be able to properly enjoy the preshows anyway with all the obnoxiously loud talking. The ride itself was fun and I've completely mastered the training leg of the ride, amassing 150K before the zappers are shut down. Had a mediocre run for the rest of it though, as I couldn't seem to connect with any window aliens. Ended with around 600K... still befuddled my friends
Only issue I noticed was that the audio for the main ambush alien seemed to be off or almost completely turned down.
-With only about an hour left, we bolted to ET... which, similar to Mummy, had its preshow doors propped open. I'll skip the usual rant about how awful the humans look in the forest - we all know it needs a nice update. The rest of the ride actually looks pretty good... the mushroom alien especially has benefitted from his refurbishment, and has a full range of motion. ET's first friend could use some help, I think - he can't seem to get himself to be fully upright. There was a bit more animation in the main Green Planet room, but I still feel like something is missing. Is this just me or is there a focal figure missing? Water room looked and sounded great. Goodbye ET was worse than before - you can't understand what he's saying, mouth doesn't move, barely any other animation. Just terribly awkward. I do love the mist effect they use now to "return" you to the forest...
-We had to basically go from one end of the resort to the other, and it now being 1:15, we didn't have a tremendous amount of time. We bolted, passing the Mel's dance zone along the way... same problem as the Toon Lagoon location, the area is way too open, you won't convince anyone to dance there no matter how good the DJing is (and it wasn't good.) We did make it to Dudley with about 25 minutes to spare... and of course were the only insane ones there. We actually rode twice - we decided to tempt fate when we didn't get that wet the first time (wasn't such a great idea.) My observations on that...
-First scene looked good, no complaints... however, in the first mine scene, Nell and Snidley were straight up MISSING. The mine cart was there, unmoving, with wires hanging out... no audio here. The lighting cues were there though, and it came across as very awkward and bad show. What the hell, Universal?
-The canoe scene looks great, though. And they finally fixed the sightline issue with Snidley and his boulder - before you could see Snidley's metal framing, it appears now that's been somehow obscured. The rock effect worked one time, not the other.
-The cave scene looked particularly bright and nice, but the scene still doesn't really connect at all with what it's trying to accomplish.
-Train scene was alright. Nell was moving more than I remember, but there were no audio cues from her or Snidley. In fact, there was no music or narration for this leg of the ride. Horse and Nell's father looked recently refurbished, though - no cracks or anything and were moving well.
-No audio from the Dudley stuck in the pipe... and in the saw mill the Dudley and Snidley fighting over the lever don't appear to move anymore. Again, WTF?
-No narration during the lift. The drinking horse/stuck Dudley looked good. The guns at the shoot out were much more animated than last time which was great, but I still have no idea what's going on in that scene. (Well, I get it, but no one else does.)
-In general, the lighting on the ride at night is gorgeous (even if none of the bleeping effects work as they should).
-A friend who only visits occasionally made a very honest comment to me. She rhetorically asked "why none of these rides make sense unless you know the source material or pay really close attention in the queue." I didn't really know what to tell her - for many of these rides, she's very right, for better or worse.
-After emerging from Dudley we must've literally been the last ones in this area of the park - it had just hit 2. We walked through an eerily empty Toon Lagoon to the Incredible Hulk, where were directed backstage to the buses, passing the Carnage Warehouse along the way (neat). The bus pickup zones were very well organized, nice job to Uni on that.
And there you have it! Feel free to leave your comments/thoughts/insight. I'll have another crazy-lengthy report coming after my Memorial Day trip!
-Busses arrived and were loaded in via what I presume to be cast member parking. Got to see some (for me) unusual angles of Islands of Adventure, particularly Potter/Lost Continent. We were distributed wristbands that were color coded to where we were supposed to exit at the end of the night - the three exit points were (I believe) Incredible Hulk, Fear Factor Live, and Studios entrance (not 100% on that last one, someone correct me.) We were supposed to exit at Hulk - nifty.
-We passed through several backstage office areas (and a past a sign that referenced the direction Amity was in, pout) before reaching a security checkpoint. We got off the bus and found ourselves in a place I was quite familiar with - the entrance to one of the HHN soundstage houses (The Thing, Hades, Frankenstein, etc.). The Mardi Gras gator float was parked next to the door, which was a nice touch. I guess the pre-party was Mardi Gras themed. Inside the needlessly massive soundstage was a row of metal detectors - again, nothing unusual to the HHN fan. Passed through with any trouble and was given a map.
-Funny thing is, the map still advertised DJ Khaled as one of the headliners at 9:45. I had already known that Khaled would not be performing (and hadn't the last weekend, either), but I doubt anyone else did. No communication was sent to class advisors (I was the one who broke the news to our school) and nothing was communicated to us at the event. Very poor show if you ask me - you had to actually show up to the stage to learn the performer was DJ Nasty (who?) Anyway, mini rant done...
-We basically walked the reverse of The Thing house queue to re-enter the park proper. Along the way carts hawked Grad Bash Souvenir Cups for $5, which offered free refills. The design was ugly and the materials didn't seem particularly long-lasting, so I passed, as did everyone else in my party.
-There was a Coca Cola Karaoke thing set up in front of the library. It didn't look particularly remarkable the crowd seemed board so we passed it on by.
-And it was here we entered the "Mardi Gras Studio Pre-Party." Basically, they sectioned off a sliver of the New York/Production Central area for the Grad Students to wait until the park closed and was cleared. Metal gates were set up to separate park guests from Grad Bash guests, sectioning off from the Library down to Rockit. As such, Twister was available to us. (Did anyone care?)
-Set up on the music plaza lawn was a buffet that featured mediocre burgers, hot dogs, mac n cheese, and the like. It was serviceable but nothing special. There were no tables of any kind so most just sat on the astroturf. An also mediocre/poorly trained DJ "mixed" songs on a Virtual DJ-equipped Macbook to the side of the stage.
-There were quite a few Mardi Gras stiltwalkers milling about throwing beads, which was nice. Woody and Winnie Woodpecker were out posing for photos in all-out graduate attire - this I loved!
-After eating we realized it was only 5:30... the park didn't technically open until 7, though I had heard whispers that Rockit and Mummy would open for the pre-party guests as soon as the park was cleared (and the park closed at 6). In the meantime, I did Twister for the first time in a while. It was impossible to hear the preshow due to no one shutting the hell up. The main show looked good and got appropriate responses, but man is this attraction redundant.
-Chilled at the bench right next to the Twister exit doors so we could be in the AC a little while, very convenient.
-Around 6:15 we wandered over to the fence nearest Rockit and waited - a crowd formed fairly quickly around us, realizing what was happening. At about 6:30 they removed the fence and started slowly dispatching us towards the ride... for some reason, they would literally only let 15 or so people go at a time, dispatching every couple minutes, which led to my (very large) party to be temporarily separated. (We waited for them).
-Thankfully the first time we hopped on the ride was a walk-on. Had a solid ride rocking to Intergalactic... realizing the line still wasn't awful, we hopped in again (only one or two switchbacks in the room of horror was filled). We moved at a steady pace, with periodic stops... once we got to the top of the station, we saw why. Man, people are REALLY stupid! Those familiar with the ride's operation knows that guests have to be efficient and quick getting into vehicles and being secured. But I swear, people were walking SO slowly (especially chaperones!) and some simply refused to remove their restraint, leaving exasperated team members to do it for them. This led to the conveyor belt being stopped countless times. It was a mess, and not on the fault of the team members. Regardless, after about 15 minutes we got on the ride again and I had fun with Stronger...
-...and then the trouble started. We got as far as the maintenance bay leg of the track and stopped, as the vehicles had backed up. I realized literally no one was boarding... then a frustrated (but very friendly) team member signaled to me via gestures that someone had vomited on the conveyor belt. For Christ's sake! We waited about 10 or 15 minutes for it to be cleaned up... no idea how extensive it was or what the implications were. The team members were VERY apologetic about the situation, and gave us free one-time use express passes for our trouble. (Remember that, it comes into play later.) We were very delighted, as 10 minutes waiting on a roller coaster was certainly better than waiting 2 hours for a ride later on!
-Our original plan was to hit Mummy after Rockit - but the time was now 7:10 and the parks had opened. We figured it'd be best to go to Islands now, while the crowds over there were light, and use the Express on Mummy later. As the unofficial school tour guide most stuck with me and we proceeded through the crossover zone, that followed the path of Winter's Night queue (except veering right past the Rockit tracks, instead of left). The path had lots of bright lights, team members, and pop music playing, but also passed what seemed to be a cluster of dumpsters that gave off an absolutely foul smell. The crossover ended at the Seuss gates.
-We moved quickly to Potter - and were pleased to see very few people there yet. Ollivander's was a walk-on, for a measure of comparison (and yes it was open). Forbidden Journey was listed at a 15 minute wait but was actually a walk-on. Ride was solid, but the dragon lacked fire (apparently it was working later that night). Hidden dementor was still lit, but not moving.
-We also hit Hippogriff since it was a walk-on... provides a lovely view of Hogsmeade, during which I noticed the mist emerging from the chimneys. Cool detail I'd never noticed before!
-Time for Dragon Challenge... the queue configuration was weird, and we were directed to skip the Goblet of Fire room (-shrug-). The line backed up to the former skeleton room rotunda... so about a 5 minute wait to get to the "Choose Thy Fate" chamber. Everyone I was with were casual park goers who referred to the coasters still as Fire and Ice, and were disheartened to learn that they no longer dueled. They had team members assigning guests to rows which was nice... but Dragons desperately needs a singles line. Sooooo many empty seats. The coaster itself was fun (did Ice- I mean the Hungarian Horntail) as always, but the no dueling was weird.
-Grabbed some butter beer (which is still ridiculously popular and drawing waits). Potter was being mobbed, and we opted not to wait again for the Chinese Fireball, or whatever. Instead, we proceeded into Jurassic Park...
-By now it was dark, and man the lighting around the park is impressive. BOTH arches had BOTH torches working, which was awesome! The atmosphere was great... with the exception of the music. In the common areas of the park they played pop, electronic, hip hop and even some dubstep instead of the usual park tracks... while I"m a fan of the music and felt it worked pretty effectively at the lighter-themed Studio, it felt weird hearing Lady Gaga and Skrillex songs in Jurassic Park.
-Jurassic Park River Adventure was a walk-on... we were loving the short waits after being warned of 2 hour lines for every ride!
-The ride itself however... worse than last time. Seriously, much much worse. The lighting for the ride at night is really cool, especially for the opening bit... but there's freaking spotlights on the Ultrasaur that doesn't move and is plainly sitting there for a good 8 seconds before it does something. It looks absolutely AWFUL. Furthermore, lighting oddly illuminated one of the Psitts but not the other... which WAS moving this time, but was shrouded in darkness...
-The Stegos were worse. Both have almost no color left on their skins. Baby Stego appears to have lost even more of her "energy" (i.e. animation) and mostly just turns her head back and forth slowly. Momma Stego literally has a broken neck - it's oddly contorted to the left towards the riders and is entangled in the foliage. This looked like trash and should not have been allowed to be seen by guests.
-The Hadrosaurs were still good, though the second one needs to be illuminated... right now it emerges in mostly darkness. The moving bushes and sparks were working great, compies were compies...
-Raptor box dropped, but the audio is STILL out of sync and the box drops too early. I reported this exact problem almost a month ago. How is this still not fixed!?
-Raptors were much worse than last time. Even with the assistance of night vision, they were almost impossible to see as they weren't properly illuminated... and what I could see wasn't good, they were barely moving. Why do Hollywoods look so much better/film-accurate while ours look like rubber messes?
-The spitters/other random Carnivore were fine.
-T-Rex scene was disappointing after my last amazing ride. The fog was back to its minimal levels, meaning you could see Tiffany not moving before she starts her animation cycle. Is it THAT hard to keep a plethora of fog pumped into the scene!? Should be one of the simpler effects in the ride... And if it's not there the finale loses a lot of its momentum.
-I noticed a massive "Grad Bash/Congrats Class of 2012" message was projected onto the JPRA building. Very cool!
-We got decently wet, but it dried off surprisingly fast. Despite some requests to do it, our group opted out of Dudley Do-Right... we decided we'd go all "YOLO" and do it at the very end, before exiting at the Hulk.
-In passing through Toon Lagoon we came across a "dance zone." This was kind of embarrassing... they had some good lighting and rigging set up, and another mediocre DJ playing via macbook, but there was no one dancing aside from a small group of friends from another school awkwardly moshing to "We Found Love." We shrugged and kept moving, and I was reminded how lovely Toon Lagoon looked at nice. Popeye was closed since no one in their right-mind would ride that at this point.
-Upon reaching Spider-Man we were very happy to see it had a posted 35 minute wait... which turned out to be only 20. Very, very satisfying. The ride itself was great, and everyone in my party loved the upgrade (and those who had never been before loved the ride immensely). At the loading station there was a sandwich board that stated that night sight goggles were being tracked and that they MUST be returned at the end of the ride... interestingly, while there was a team member (and 2 security officers!) stationed at the glasses return bin, he did not place the glasses in the bin gently himself as I've seen done... we just tossed them in. Change in policy or a fluke?
-Forgot to mention, still no fog effect when Hydroman gets electrocuted. One of my favorite practical effect moments in Spider-Man... is this gone for good or just poor maintenance?
-So now we proceeded to Hulk, which had a posted 40 minute wait (looked longer, and the line was in the switchbacks outside the building). We decided we'd use our Express Passes here, as we wanted to get back in plenty of time for the Pitbull concert. We approached the guy handling Express and said we had our one-time use passes to use... and he said "Sorry, but there is no Express, it's Grad Bash." (For those of you unaware, the Express queues are used at Grad Bash but are typically available only to chaperones.) I kept my cool and calmly explained that we were given these Express passes due to Rockit breaking down. I also pointed out that the pass said it was good for any ride, INCLUDING Forbidden Journey and Rockit (blasphemy!). He told us sorry again, and that he wouldn't honor anything because "there is no Express, and we could've gotten those passes anywhere." (These passes were printed on a receipt style of paper, had an individual bar code, and an expiration date of May 31st.) I was annoyed, but asked if I could speak to a supervisor or the team leader. He then told me "Look, you guys can get in line or you can leave with security." At that, the rest of my group was FURIOUS (not knowing how to handle these situations) and I told them it wasn't worth it and to just back away. Naturally, we were all pissed that 1) our passes weren't honored and 2) we were treated like scumbags.
-Well, as luck would have it, one of our chaperones happened to be sitting at the bench near the exit waiting for another chaperone. We went and explained to her what happened, and she went and got a general manager. He listened to us intently and went over and talked to the d-bag line guy to see what the deal was. It was about 5 minutes until he returned - he seemed ready to tell us we were out of luck, when suddenly the team leader for Hulk appeared out of nowhere. He asked us to explain what happened, which I did in detail, emphasizing we received the pass during Grad Bash. He said they were not told about Rockit breaking down but would nevertheless honor our passes (especially when I noted during the explaining that he could call the Rockit team and they'd confirm there was a breakdown with passes distributed). He also apologized profusely to how the other team member acted and said that "threatening to call security was not okay." He led us right into the Express queue... and wouldn't you know it, the d-bag line guy saw us and flipped... and then saw the team leader leading us in and froze, turned around and continued doing his job. Classic...
-Well, we got our damn ride after all that and had a nice time. c:
-To continue that rant a little, how ridiculous is that situation? No one in our party at any time spoke to the team member in a rude or threatening matter, and not only does he insinuate we counterfeited the express passes (seriously?) but threatened to call security? Horrible guest service, and I guarantee that wouldn't have happened had this been during normal park operations... but because it's Grad Bash, they assume everyone is a POS up-to-no-good teenager. Furthermore, had our chaperone not been present, I'd wager the manager wouldn't have ever called the team leader to come down. That attitude was prevalent in some team members throughout the event, and it was really unprofessional and rude to the teenagers who were just trying to have a good time with their friends. I will be writing a formal letter to Universal about that. If anything, they need to better communicate to team members that one-time-use Express passes can and will be distributed if rides break down.
-Anyway! We had a bit of time left so we stopped by Doctor Doom. I love, love, love the stand by queue for this ride! That, and the lighting effects in the ride chamber were stellar... the flickering and later black out right before launch, followed by a slow flicker-fade back on as we descended in? Awesome.
-It was time to go to the Pitbull concert, so we moved towards Seuss. Another "Congrats Class of 2012/Grad Bash" projection was up at Confisco's Grill. Nice touch
-I noticed that Green Eggs & Ham was open (go figure!) I didn't stop by, so I don't know what they were serving. Incidentally, Cat in the Hat was actually closed... this was surprising, I would've assumed they'd have opened it (after all, the rest of the Seuss rides were open...)
-There was another dance zone in the "Oh the Stories You'll Hear!" dead-end near One Fish Two Fish. This one actually had a crowd, no doubt to the closed-off/condensed nature of the surroundings... the Toon Lagoon one was just way too open for it to be any good. We only passed it, but appeared to be quite the grindfest.
-We arrived to witness the tail end of DJ Nasty's "set," which consisted of him pressing "play" on some hip hop song, using a FlippinDouble effect twice, and then advertising his Twitter feed. Very lame, I wish they could've gotten a better DJ (dunno if Khaled would've been any better, for the record.)
-The crowd for Pitbull was enormous but we managed to push very far in - we were maybe in about the 7th row (roughly, it was a massive mob of people.) The crowd was highly unruly... narrowly avoided two fights after being deliberately shoved. What the hell, guys?
-Once Pitbull got started though nobody cared - it was just smart phones out and dancing. He's an excellent performer and was up there for over an hour. Lots of energy and response from the crowd... including a lot of grinding (some of the girls got a little too into it, methinks). Crowd control through the whole thing was very solid, but it got unbearably hot during the concert... apparently for Pitbull too, who used a washcloth several times to wipe the sweat off his bald head!
-Once the concert ended we went to Mummy, which had an awesome 10 minute wait. The ride was "fine" for how it's been performing lately... Imhotep I/Reggie look like trash, you could see the warrior mummies before they popped up (almost no mist), fire effects/falling wall were looking good, Imhotep head projection very faded and unconvincing, etc. etc. usual complaints. People still love it to death though, and I understand why - the coaster portion, if short, is still smooth as silk and very exhilarating.
-We bypassed Disaster (couldn't see that being very fun with a bunch of obnoxious teens) and passed through the darkness that was Jaws. At night it's so much more obvious that there's a row of apartments sitting right there with all of the lights. Potter 2.0 can't come soon enough...
-We hit up Men in Black, which finally had the tracks synced up. The preshow and elevator doors were propped open, so you could just pass through... this was a move I agree with, to be honest, even though it kills the show. Quite frankly (and unfortunately), 90% of teens do not care about the story, they just want to get on the ride and shoot aliens and spin. Is that worth temporarily sacrificing the show's integrity? Maybe not, but it's not like you'd be able to properly enjoy the preshows anyway with all the obnoxiously loud talking. The ride itself was fun and I've completely mastered the training leg of the ride, amassing 150K before the zappers are shut down. Had a mediocre run for the rest of it though, as I couldn't seem to connect with any window aliens. Ended with around 600K... still befuddled my friends
Only issue I noticed was that the audio for the main ambush alien seemed to be off or almost completely turned down.-With only about an hour left, we bolted to ET... which, similar to Mummy, had its preshow doors propped open. I'll skip the usual rant about how awful the humans look in the forest - we all know it needs a nice update. The rest of the ride actually looks pretty good... the mushroom alien especially has benefitted from his refurbishment, and has a full range of motion. ET's first friend could use some help, I think - he can't seem to get himself to be fully upright. There was a bit more animation in the main Green Planet room, but I still feel like something is missing. Is this just me or is there a focal figure missing? Water room looked and sounded great. Goodbye ET was worse than before - you can't understand what he's saying, mouth doesn't move, barely any other animation. Just terribly awkward. I do love the mist effect they use now to "return" you to the forest...
-We had to basically go from one end of the resort to the other, and it now being 1:15, we didn't have a tremendous amount of time. We bolted, passing the Mel's dance zone along the way... same problem as the Toon Lagoon location, the area is way too open, you won't convince anyone to dance there no matter how good the DJing is (and it wasn't good.) We did make it to Dudley with about 25 minutes to spare... and of course were the only insane ones there. We actually rode twice - we decided to tempt fate when we didn't get that wet the first time (wasn't such a great idea.) My observations on that...
-First scene looked good, no complaints... however, in the first mine scene, Nell and Snidley were straight up MISSING. The mine cart was there, unmoving, with wires hanging out... no audio here. The lighting cues were there though, and it came across as very awkward and bad show. What the hell, Universal?
-The canoe scene looks great, though. And they finally fixed the sightline issue with Snidley and his boulder - before you could see Snidley's metal framing, it appears now that's been somehow obscured. The rock effect worked one time, not the other.
-The cave scene looked particularly bright and nice, but the scene still doesn't really connect at all with what it's trying to accomplish.
-Train scene was alright. Nell was moving more than I remember, but there were no audio cues from her or Snidley. In fact, there was no music or narration for this leg of the ride. Horse and Nell's father looked recently refurbished, though - no cracks or anything and were moving well.
-No audio from the Dudley stuck in the pipe... and in the saw mill the Dudley and Snidley fighting over the lever don't appear to move anymore. Again, WTF?
-No narration during the lift. The drinking horse/stuck Dudley looked good. The guns at the shoot out were much more animated than last time which was great, but I still have no idea what's going on in that scene. (Well, I get it, but no one else does.)
-In general, the lighting on the ride at night is gorgeous (even if none of the bleeping effects work as they should).
-A friend who only visits occasionally made a very honest comment to me. She rhetorically asked "why none of these rides make sense unless you know the source material or pay really close attention in the queue." I didn't really know what to tell her - for many of these rides, she's very right, for better or worse.
-After emerging from Dudley we must've literally been the last ones in this area of the park - it had just hit 2. We walked through an eerily empty Toon Lagoon to the Incredible Hulk, where were directed backstage to the buses, passing the Carnage Warehouse along the way (neat). The bus pickup zones were very well organized, nice job to Uni on that.
And there you have it! Feel free to leave your comments/thoughts/insight. I'll have another crazy-lengthy report coming after my Memorial Day trip!
