Universal Studios Hollywood Update — March 1st 2015

This day was a very interesting day at Universal Studios Hollywood. What started off as quite a sunny day, lead to floods. And not the staged type that guests find on the Studio Tour! In this update, we’ll have some Springfield, Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Jurassic Park refurbishment, DIG, and more!

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Let’s start off with the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which will open in 2016. The entrance gate is taking shape, and more detail is being added to it. Looks fantastic already!  The buildings will be incredibly detailed!  The AC shafts that were recently placed are in the process of being coated.  The castle is slowly starting to shape. It will be massive compared to other buildings at Universal Studios Hollywood!

‘Til March 5th, guests can experience DIG Escape the Room! This is located inside the theater next to Minion Mayhem. We decided to check it out!   The inside of this theater by the way, is awesome looking! After we signed our waivers, we got told we’d be filmed while in the room.  We then entered DIG Escape the Room. We were told a little bit of information before heading into the room, and it came down to simply solving the ‘puzzles’ and unlocking codes, to unlock locks, to escape the room. Every group had 25 minutes to do so. We’re not going to give away what happened inside the room exactly, for those wanting to experience it. But we definitely recommend it! It was absolutely great! After solving everything, we got REALLY CLOSE to unlocking the room, we were unlocking the last lock, with 18 seconds left on the clock. The reason we didn’t actually unlock the lock in time, was a translation error… We were so close! (Yes, I was bummed! But we got a free batch, and a picture). The experience was very fun. I’d love to see them bring back more promotion experiences for TV Shows, like this! 

Let’s move to Springfield, which is opening later this month!   Gotta love this Lard Lad Donuts statue! Whatever sort of burgers they’ll offer, I really need to go check it out when they open! Nuclear Power Plant… CHECK! Here are some pictures of Springfield at night. 

Speaking of night… it was a little rainy from about 2-4PM, but around 5’15PM it started pouring so insanely hard, that the midways of Universal Studios Hollywood were flooding, it was bad. Then, around 6PM, the rain got even worse, and the park started to become empty. We made our way down to Transformers The Ride 3D, and we were the only ones riding. Reason; it was raining so badly, the lower lot started to flood. When we exited the ride vehicle, it became clear that this rainfall was intense. The Transformers The Ride 3D building started to flood. The stairs that go up from the exit, out onto the midway, became waterfalls, and everyone was to get out of the building as soon as possible, as the water was spreading to the break-room, the exit platform of the vehicles, etc. It was seriously one of the coolest experiences ever! Then we decided to stay dry for the rest of the nigth at the Revenge of the Mummy, which’s queue started to flood too, so all riders got to use the Gate A entrance.

On the topic of water… and lots of water… WaterWorld has been open again for two weeks. Besides the updated pyrotechnic effects, the only real noticeable change is the new plants that are used as decorations. For those who have seen the movie, these are the small pots with plants located all over the Atoll. 

Talking about refurbishments, two more weeks till Jurassic Park River Adventure will be open again. This refurbishment is another extensive one. With lots and lots of updates being made.  Rocks! Soon back into their original positions. Fancy sign, right there. The breaks on the track after the drop were worked on last week.  When drained it becomes clear how much cleaning up needs to be done after almost a year of running daily.  Some signs are being repainted/replaced.  Never realized how many wheels were below the boats in the station. I find it quite funny how these drive wheels are just laying around. If you look at the track, the track has been repainted with gray.  The first lift-hill is gray too now. Very much like Universal Studios Orlando’s Jurassic Park ride. I’m not sure if this is the new color, or if it’s primer for a new layer of green paint over it. Time will tell, as Jurassic Park will soon reopen again. 

That was it for this weekend’s Universal Studios Hollywood Update! We’ll be back the day of, or the day after, Jurassic Park reopens. JP reopens on March 13th! Thanks for checking out this update! Make sure to check out yesterday’s Twisted Colossus and Scream! Update, by clicking here. Make sure to comment your thoughts on the Jurassic Park color changes, if they are indeed permanent, and on any other USH topic!