After the tour I took at Six Flags Magic Mountain for The New Revolution (which will be posted later today), I headed to Universal Studios Hollywood to take a look at the newly opened retail center in front of the park, as well as the newly refurbished Jurassic Park- The Ride. In this (quite short) update we’ll be focusing on these two, with a complete look at some of the upgraded Dinosaurs!
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Let’s start with the gigantic Starbucks that has opened to the public! 
It’s huge, but I can imagine some real big crowds in here this summer! 
The Starbucks has an indoor connection to the new Universal Studios Store, which is humongous itself as well. It looks beautiful with the new center of the store. 
In the back of the store there’s the 4th Harry Potter gift store outside of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. 
Where the same items can be purchased as the other 3 locations. (That being the one on CityWalk, the one on the Lower Lot, and the one directly in front of this one 😉 )
All stores though, I must add, do look very cool and ‘potter-y’ from the inside. 
Across from this new complex (of which you can find more pictures here), is the new Hollywood Grille. New structural bows have been added around the patio, where we should see a lot of green as well. The building is still undergoing a repaint. 
But now… let’s venture… to a time before man… JURASSIC PARK- The Ride. Which reopened right before I arrived, late that afternoon. 
The lagoon has a very interesting new color… they tried adding some blue to the water, but it doesn’t transition well into the green… so though it does make the water in the lagoon look cool. It is a tad odd. 
All of the track and magnetic breaks have been taken out and replaced/refurbished. There’s not a very noticeable change, but understandably this change was made, as with potter crowds and extended operating hours… there will be a bunch more boats rushing through here than previous years. The rock work, as you may see, has received a major upgrade too, with a complete repaint. 
The part of the show building stretching out over the bottom of the drop was in a pretty bad state before the refurbishment, they seem to have replaced that now. In addition to some repaints all over the place. The lift-hill for example has the same color as the splashdown track now. 
Let’s move on to the ride experience itself… with some fresh-skin Dinosaurs!
The dinosaurs look more like Universal Studios Orlando’s dinosaurs now, with more colorful skins. These animatronics are still quite shaky and old, but these new skins were definitely a much needed upgrade. 
These little dinos have not received new skins. Unlike most others. 
The rock work on board the ride has received a major face-lift as well. With more color added with the repaint. Overall making the ride way more realistic. 
The stegosaurus on top of the newly painted rock work in the next scene has received an entirely new skin with a tad different colors too. Very noticeable is the fact that with the upgraded skin you can no longer see the basic structure of the animatronic. 
My favorite (for some odd reason this stegosaurus has been my favorite ever since I got on the ride for the first time. Not favorite scene in the ride, just love this dinosaur, it’s weird), has also been upgraded, with its eyes working even better now! Oh, and of course the fresh green on the skin looks neat as well. 
I’m not a huge fan of the new skin on this animatronic, its very brown (not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it looks very light). I preferred the previous color. 
The falling jeep is… well, not falling… I really hope they get that fixed/going some time. It really was one of my (and many with me) favorite scenes on the ride. EDIT: Just in, the Jeep is working now (second day of operations since the reopening). 
The two spitters have been upgraded as well, looking very cool. I attempted to take some pictures inside the show building, but they turned out pretty horrible… so I’ll just tell you about the upgrades inside. One of the velociraptors (the first one) is currently out for refurbishment still, the second works fine. They gave the T-Rex in the final scene an amazing upgrade! It’s way smoother, its eyes blink when it’s coming at you, and the new skin is wonderful too. Very awesome that they gave that an upgrade as well. (As it was still one of the best animatronics on the ride). 
Thank you for checking out this quick Universal Studios Hollywood Update! Here’s a very large New Revolution Tour report, as Six Flags Magic Mountain was so kind to provide me with a personal tour! I also advice you check out our hit-update of Six Flags Magic Mountain at full capacity last weekend!
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