digimax

At least it isn't too sunny today. Battlestar Galactica was offline in the afternoon yesterday. Not sure what was the exact problem, but it was blistering hot... (overheating?) Some technicians were walking about the launch track.

In case anyone's interested, Battlestar Galactica is now using the original 2010 train for CYLON. It is marked "2" at the first car. Between Early 2011 to Mid 2011, they were using the one marked "1". It's probably just routine rotation. This train is slower and unable to keep up with HUMAN and thus, most of the dueling moments, especially in the second part of the ride, are no longer synchronized. Edit: and oh, Madagascar: A Crate Adventure's lap bars now operate electronically.

GRAND OPENING COVERAGE If anyone's in for a long report about the Grand Opening ceremony and lots of photos, do visit my site: http://dejiki.com/2011/05/grand-opening-of-universal-studios-singapore/

Whoops! LOL.. Grand Opening USS Grand Opening was today. There was lot of fanfare and special programme. - photos and report to follow by tomorrow!

I was at the park yesterday for the grand opening of A Crate Adventure. The park was PACKED because it's the eve of a public holiday here. Most of the rides and shows were operating at full load. 85 minutes wait time! The ride closed briefly after an hour of operations due to technical difficulties but resumed operations shortly. 60 minutes wait time for a junior roller-coaster. The queue is starting from the entrance (they did not connect to the outdoor queue zone because it is now used as a queue for Photo-Op with Shrek characters and the weather is so hot anyway - some could faint in the heat) 75 minutes wait for BSG: Human. Quite a hold up at the entrance because some people seem to misunderstand/ignore the rules of NO BAGS or ANY LOOSE ITEMS or ITEMS IN POCKETS.. Rarely seen Waterworld Amphitheater: that's almost completely filled up!

The original vision of the ride was supposed to be an E ticket, I believe. This ride has similar, or greater capacity as the other E ticket attractions. There were opportunities to use up-to-date technology but the execution in the end was rather.. not up to par. Come to think about it, I am puzzled why I said it's an E ticket now. Perhaps it is a Low-E or High-D level ride. I do agree that it's underwhelming - seems like I've lowered my expectations after being a passholder at the park. Perhaps if the ride opened a year ago (even in its current, reduced state), the general response would've been slightly more positive.

Alright, I've written up a full review here: http://dejiki.com/2011/05/madagascar-a-crate-adventure The park was doing Technical Rehearsals yesterday. There was apparently, a major technical fault yesterday at the loading/unloading platform that caused a long line of boats to be stuck. Wrote about it in the blog post. I might still be visiting the park tomorrow for the grand opening. Some effects were not working on the preview night but was working yesterday, and vice versa.

I like Monsters Inc also. The post earlier said that Screamscape is reporting the drop had to be removed. Can we confirmation on this? I sort of like it BUT I generally love indoor dark rides (whether slow or fast) in general. Yes, the drop was in the original plan. It does not exist anymore. In actual fact, there is supposed to be a SECOND level in the ride building which was scrapped. The reason why it took so long to open was because they had to rebuild. I'm trying to plot out (from memory) a rough ride layout but my guess is that after the "partying" scenes - the part where guests see the "Mt Foosa" plan - is where most of the major redesign work happened.

Madagascar: A Crate Adventure Just came back from Annual Passholder's Preview. I have a POV video uploading right now. *SEE BELOW* Some notables: - Story is heavily based on the first Madagascar film. Essentially, it is a "Madagascar in 7 minutes" ride. - There is no drop, or actual lift "hills". Two mini-hills however, one at loading/unloading, one in the middle (to make the boat move faster or stop it entirely) right before the segment that adds/removes boats to the ride. - As there are no drops, it is not possible to get wet except by those props that spray water. And there are quite a few of those. - Boats are loaded/unloaded in pairs, but there is a gap between each boat. The scenes are all timed to "animate" for individual boats. - The motion of the boat is designed to feel as if it's a floating crate. There's a series of wheels (like 5-6 per side) hidden under the water surface to "bump" the walls along the water channel. Movement is entirely controlled by the water currents. - The boat capacity is capped at 4 adults per row, with 5 rows per vehicle. There appears to be 20 boats (as observed from the numbering, but not sure how many are used at any time). Loading is efficient but unloading isn't, because there is a long lag-time to release the (rather redundant) lap bars. The way loading works: Split the standby-line into 2 queues, then further divide each queue into 5 rows, putting them into a holding area (that's right beside the actual boarding area). - As to why the lap bars take longer time to release.. Well, the entire restraint system is manually locked/unlocked with a wench. Crew members would turn a key at the back of each boats to unlock/lock. So I believe the boats are built really simple with no electronic parts. - The animatronics.. well. seemed rather disappointing, especially after what we've seen from Disney's Little Mermaid ride. There ARE some good ones but generally most of them seemed quite robotic or rather static. The only thing I like about them is there is a lot of detail to them, with fur and texture etc. - Projection screens: There's four HUGE ones and it appears to be digital. Very sharp and vivid. There are smaller ones littered around the ride, all looking great so far. - Fun Pass tier Annual Passholders were given some plastic garlands, a little lanyard card and Madagascar themed notepad. Free refreshments were also served throughout the night. All in all, the event was better planned than Battlestar Galactica. I will never forget the poor little drink stand that was placed outside BSG! POV video:

Photo of the Madagascar boat and water channel. Right behind is the exit path (gotta walk up and down to get out)

The canvases have been removed for most parts of the queue area:

Madagascar: A Crate Adventure will have its Annual Passholders' Preview Night on 13th May 2011. Here's the mailer that was sent to passholders:

Rather interesting info about the Madagascar ride from Screamscape: A sizable wave? Did they accidentally build a second JPRA in the park and not realize until it was too late?

I was at the park yesterday for a few hours but it was really too crowded to stay! Seems the latest promotion (20% off ticket prices when purchased with Mastercard) and possibly the situation in Japan has pulled in tourists from all over. Wait-times for popular rides such as Jurrasic Park Rapids and Battlestar Galactica hover over 105 mins. Even the high capacity Revenge of the Mummy had a long wait of around 70 minutes. Alas, the second loading/unloading platform is still not utilized and there's at least 4 empty cars parked there. So here's some photos: The Globe is now completely sealed up and er, there's huge posters of the Orlando globe for visitors to take photos with. There's a curious grey door that i'd want to investigate soon. Rick O'Connell has arrived at Ancient Egypt, along with some other generic Egyptian characters (not photographed) which are not from The Mummy franchise. Madagascar has the new information sign installed. Close up below:

GRAND OPENING: 28 MAY 2011 finally! after 14 months of soft opening! (and finally! they've decided not to make major announcements 3 days before things happen!)

Some scaffolding work has been installed at the Universal Globe and the area around it has been boarded up. Seems early to say but it appears to be the wayyy overdue repair work! FYI the Globe has not been spinning since October 2010! Here's a photo snapped by my friend, Darryl M:

Keeping my fingers crossed for that, but it seems like the Grand Opening may occur in Early/Mid-2012 at the rate things are going. They're still doing foundation work at the west zone, and there might still be a short soft opening for that zone's facilities.

A week ago, on 18th March 2011, marks the 1-year milestone for Universal Studios Singapore. Interestingly there are no plans to move on from this soft opening, and I think this is perhaps the longest theme park 'soft-opening phase' i've ever heard of! Here's the programme slip comparing 2010 (left) and 2011 (right). I collected the 2010 slip during my first visit on 22nd March last year, but it's more or less the same as the 18th March, with some different timings. From 12 March till 20 March, the park was open from 10am ~ 9pm due to school holidays in Singapore. Apart from some changes and tweaks for certain attractions, the park's offerings are still the same with BSG back up and running. Frankly, I've gotten tired of waiting for Madagascar (supposed to be open by June 2010) and Transformers (supposed to be open by Spring 2011 - but i'd suspect they are going to wait for USH's to catch up and build it along with, to cut costs) and Stage 28 (missing in action with no news, although stated in park map as operating??)

Mini Trip Report: Battlestar Galactica - Annual Passholders' Night I was at the park last night for the second APs' Night. Apart from ERT (Exclusive Ride Time) from 8pm~11pm, there isn't really a programme for the event. Superstar Passholders got extra perks, such as free refreshments, free on-ride photo (per passholder, I was told) and unlimited Universal Express for that night. As for the "others" like me, the consolation prize was just 2 special postcards, a lanyard card (I supposed they wanted to give lanyards but decided on paper wristbands in the end) and 15% off BSG merchandise. BSG will "officially" reopen tomorrow (21/02) but the truth is: it has been running secretly for full park hours (not intermittently) for the past few days. I had some small talk with other APs, apparently they thought that the park actually organized an "exclusive special sneak preview" and that "the ride is opening up for the first time since last year". Oh well. Although the ride has soft-opened for 2 weeks now, there are still a number of glitches (in fact, I didn't even encounter them during the secret soft-opening) last night. CYLON wasn't able to start until 25 mins past 8pm because the platform gates refused to open (shorted out or something, the lights were all off) - the engineers had to actually open up the gate control console and check all the wires. Later in the night, I was stuck on the ride for another 20 mins or so because the restraints were locked shut and the control room was unable to release them. Then, a crew member brought out this strange looking box with a large cable and had to manually override the locks for each restraint individually, by plugging a cable into a socket at the back of each row.

I've taken both many times! I'd say Cylon, but it depends on personal tastes?? Human gives some great air-time, but only at the start. The second half gets boring after a while. Cylon, on the other hand has many inverted elements. I've not really taken similar types of coaster anywhere, but my favourite part of both rides is the noisy launch and being able to "interact" with the other side for that short moment. Both rides have minimalistic restraint design, which is a plus for rollercoaster fans and sometimes scares off the rest.

It's the facade for the Transformers ride (and rumored future retail/F&B outlet).

Was at the park last night for more BSG. The park had extended hours (10am till 9pm, ride queues close at 8:45pm - this continues until 13th February) with the Lake Hollywood Spectacular show (9:30pm). After around 7:30pm, the park got really.. empty which was startling, but great for photos (and going through rides over and over, often without even leaving at unload.)

I was at the park today (couldn't wait for AP preview nights honestly) and took both rides for a spin.. Well, NOT.. I went on many times actually. How does it work? Although it is clearly stated at the Park gates that BSG is CLOSED... you get to ride both roller-coasters, and it is usually a walk-on, unless you want front-row seats. Both sides may not launch at the same time, but most of the time they do. The "technical rehearsals" have somewhat random schedules - sometimes the ride is open for 1-2 hours, and takes 0.5 to 1 hour breaks in between "rehearsal" sessions. After some inactivity, the ride would start testing without passengers, and usually after a round or two the queue would be open for guests. There is no signboard or anything to show the ride's actual status, although it is easy to tell (if the crew members are standing beside the placard, usually it's closed) Like what kodpeace said, just ask the crew members, they seem quite friendly nowadays. There has been no major changes done on the ride vehicle - it is as "violent", "noisy" or "rocky" as usual. Nor were there noticeable differences with the ride restraints. The queue decor is exactly the same, except a longer ride info video that shows the actual, real-world ride in action (somewhat detracts from the original ride video which was heavily themed, IMO). And oh, they added a HUGE screen at the entrances to warn people what to expect.. As if having the ride happening right above them not putting a message across. The Cylon Vertical Loop pit has a lot less fog - hopefully it is just for the rehearsals phase because there isn't enough for that whole "near-miss" illusion with floor. Interestingly the CYLON ride vehicle doesn't slow down much at the top of the loop anymore. As for Human, the train seems to lose speed at the very top of the launch hill (instead of having the "WHOOSH" a la CYLON) - I don't remember that happening in March 2010. Dueling seems to have improved - I could actually see/feel the "near-miss" now, but the synchronization goes off at the some places. Just want to add something, with BSG reopening and making a lot of noise (literally), the other E-ticket rides in the park (Jurassic Park Rapids, Revenge of The Mummy) seems to be losing their customers!!! lol. Park additions/changes (not sure when it happened, I last visited the park in Early-Jan and these weren't there) Seems like they've installed some new sheltered walkways: Some new live show at Sci-Fi City involving dancing with Starbucks (and some guy, both from BSG universe). Sorry her face was blocked off. Attractive signage for LCA: Maintenance at the Globe (hopefully to fix the rotor, it has been down since October 2010)

How tall is the Transformers ride building? There's stairway access up to 3 stories, but the building is about 4.5 to 5 stories tall. The ride should have 2 levels as the old rumors suggest. BSG Soft-opening for the re-opening of its soft-opening phase (21/02):

Both coasters are now in soft opening - some lucky guests were able to experience the ride yesterday.