Jurassic Park the Ride has finally reopened from its refurbishment, and we have an in-depth overview. Additionally in this update, we have a crazy amount of other Universal Studios Hollywood things to discuss, such as the walls of Springfield coming down, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter construction, the Furious 7 promotion, Studio Tour construction, and more!
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Let’s start off with what isn’t opening ’til 2016. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter! Each and every single visit, significant progress has been made. Look at these buildings and their fine detail. 
What’s that?! A sneak peek?! YUP! Take a look at how massive this new area will be. 
Far away, the tall construction, is the huge Hogwarts castle that they’ve been working on for quite some time now. 
But, it’s definitely taking shape! Notice the slanted metal frame that they’re adding on the bottom of the castle. Looking at the isolation materials being installed for the walls, we might see ourselves looking at pictures of a rock exterior of the castle within a couple of weeks/months!
Let’s move next door of the Wizarding World… to a small castle.. Shrek 4D!
Moving plants and trees from inside Wizarding World to the new Shrek line… outside of WW. Very cool way of doing so. 
Look it’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter! Oh and what you see in front of it, that’s the new Shrek 4D line.
With a very cool new sign!
The line is full of plants and green, and looks amazing to be honest. Way better than all these other lines the ride had (and it has had quite a few!).
Let’s move to the Studio Tour. They are currently refurbishing the Who-Ville sets. 
Right next to the Who-Ville sets, the Psycho house has completed its refurbishment, and Mama Bates is back in her rocking chair! 
Fast and Furious: Supercharged is opening to the public on June 25th! Here’s some construction! Notice some more Wizarding World construction in the back! 
Speaking of Fast and Furious, the Furious 7 promotion has started at the park! With Madame Tussaud’s wax-figure of Vin at the Universal Plaza! (Just so it’s clear, I have no clue who this lady is, I was taking a picture, I was doing so quite obviously, and she decided to walk in and pose. Well, here’s your fame random lady 😀 )
In fact Universal is hosting a movie marathon for Furious 7 (and more Furious films of course) this April.
Speaking of CityWalk, Tommy’s is gone, and will be replaced with something different in the near future. 
Let’s talk props real quick! I might have been blind to it the entire time, but there’s this cool movie picture vehicle in little France! 
The NBCUniversal Experience has added original outfits of the Studio Tour guides for the 50th anniversary of the Studio Tour! 
Springfield time! The midway to the Simpsons Ride is closed off, which is most of Springfield.
Nonetheless, notice the great detail going into Springfield!
Now here on the other hand, the walls have been removed, and some pretty awesome Springfield-ness is being showed to the public! (Notice that the nuclear power plant will have fog coming out of it). 
This Chicken Shack place was already training staff, and I saw multiple people from management walk out with a meal! 
These buildings are also unwrapped;
Here’s a dining area next to the donut place in Springfield! 
Let’s finally get to the part I wanted to actually provide a couple of days back, but Universal didn’t get the ride open in time… Here’s the refurbished Jurassic Park the Ride!
My guess is, I’ll start at the beginning of the ride! The first lift and stairs are repainted. The lift-hill is now gray, just like the big lift. 
Back in the first lagoon of the ride. The ‘Gentle Giants’ are both working again. This smaller one spraying water. Though still moving insanely robotic, and totally unlike the original, it’s moving. 
The skin has been updated to both, and the larger dino in the first lagoon moves smoother, and makes more movements with its neck than it has for a while. 
Yay! Fake flowers on Jurassic Park for the win!
Moving on, the dino on top of the rock worked once today (that being when I rode it), the other few times I went on it today it didn’t move an inch. Though it’s new skin really pops and is a lot greener than the previous sun-faded skin. 
Sorry for the bad picture, but this dino is definitely the best working one. It didn’t get a skin-update, which it should have. Its skin’s cracked at several places. Compared to the updated dinos at the Florida version however, the skins on all Hollywood’s dinos looks under-maintained. 
The tail was working very well! Going high up in the sky again. 
I was really hoping that miraculously they had the following dino jump out of the water again, like it did years back. It doesn’t. Nonetheless, looks perfectly fine. 
The little electrical cord that used to spark didn’t work all of the 2014 season, and has now been taken away for good. No more sparks. 
So… they refurbish… they take another couple of days to add to the refurbishment.. and still they don’t get the falling car working… Upsetting. Especially since the audio for it is playing. 
They also repainted the big lift. Though it’s the same color as before, it’s repainted! When you get to the top of the big lift, and have the small indoor drop, the park added a suspense-soundtrack from the movie right before the T-Rex’s head moves down at riders.
And exciting news for the ‘nerds’ among us… the Barbasol can has returned! 
After this original movie-referencing prop was taken out during the May 2014 refurbishment, it was placed back recently during the March 2015 refurbishment! 
In case you didn’t read our last Jurassic Park Update, the splash-down lagoon has been repainted to look more murky, so has the track. And to end this long update… we’ll do it with a mild splash… Jurassic Park is back open! 
I created a video of Jurassic Park- The Ride’s splashdown;
Thanks for checking out this Universal Studios Hollywood Update! Make sure to check out the Six Flags Magic Mountain Update from this weekend, here. And the Twisted Colossus Construction Update from this weekend, here!
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Comment your thoughts below!
Yes! I was really hoping for the return of the barbasol can, such a nice subtle nod to the movie, and one that i was always proud to spot.
We too are happy it returned. Jurassic Park – The Ride is one of those rides that has such detailed theming, that the Barbasol can was a crucial part of the ride.