I had the chance a few weeks ago to visit Universal Studios Hollywood a few weeks ago on a very rainy/cold day

 

Regardless the park was packed - and with reservations required for SNW via the app on the same day. Reserverations were available to book til around 1pm.

 

 

Under first impressions - the land is tiny - the areas you can access on foot (not including the mario ride building), its the same size as behind Coney Island to the picnic area of Luna Park Sydney.

Sightlines are an issue

 

The characters don't work in the rain - and either do the signs telling everyone that the characters don't work in the rain.

 

 

Even with reservations required - and only one entry per day - the wait was.. long. 

 

I did single rider which ended up being a 3hr wait for 2 rides. The problem with single rider is you get the boarding instructions, but miss the preshow - which includes instructions on how to play the AR/game section of the ride. 

 

When you finish the preshow (or reach that point in the single rider queue) you get a visor/hat thing which the AR device, which is attached to the ride vehicle attaches to via magnets. 

The ride is a sensory overload - the practical sets / effects would be enough but the AR adds so much more - but its super confusing on the first rides. 

 

Going back to the land - and it just felt like a collection of differnet lines..

lines for the wristband activations were like 20-40 mins long, everything inside the land was booked out

 

Once the rain cleared, The characters finally made an apperance. 

 

and the way of controlling their voice was very conspicuous -

Really surpirsed that, in the same park that has Donkey - this isn't done via cameras.

 

Overall - its a nice park, underwhelming, overpacked - and the actual capacity of the one ride in there is kinda poor. Worth going - once. 

1 hour ago, Dean Barnett said:

Overall - its a nice park, underwhelming, overpacked - and the actual capacity of the one ride in there is kinda poor. Worth going - once. 

Unfortunately, the Hollywood version is smaller than the Japan/Epic Universe ones, which have the Mario Kart ride and Yoshi's Adventure as well as the Donkey Kong expansion coming soon. IIRC the Singapore version will be based off Hollywood's version.

The theming looks great though, great job by Pico Play (They made the Japan version, not sure about the Hollywood one). The new WoO land concept art at Movie World kind of reminds me of SNW TBH, makes sense as I am pretty sure its going to be by Pico as well.

Edited March 23, 20232 yr by TBoy

Is the voice person a plain clothes worker like Push?

I'll be doing a VIP tour in a week or so, so if I find anything interesting I'll relay.

On 24/3/2023 at 9:17 PM, jjuttp said:

Is the voice person a plain clothes worker like Push?

Plain clothes but very obvious 

very obvious because you're looking for it, or very obvious and everyone including kids would notice.

They were standing right at the exit of the photo op

 

(Note for movie world - the interaction with the characters was free!)

 

7 minutes ago, Dean Barnett said:

(Note for movie world - the interaction with the characters was free!)

 

When did MW start charging you to say hello to a character?

4 minutes ago, New display name said:

When did MW start charging you to say hello to a character?

Isn't that for a MW photo?

That was to enter the roped off area with characters, with a photo included. 

 

Anyway this is off topic. 

The whole experience seems incredibly claustrophobic, much like the rest of USH. Hoping when Epic Universe opens they utilise the room and the land they’ve chosen effectively.

That said, it looks like they’re adding additional floors to the experience in Orlando, so time will tell.

The amount of people everywhere in Super Nintendo world definitely makes it less appealing to me. Kinda takes away from the immersion of the area. But the theming looks to be amazing. Maybe the area needs a maximum capacity rule ? I can see that making people just as angry as long wait times though 

Edited March 28, 20232 yr by REGIE

8 hours ago, REGIE said:

Maybe the area needs a maximum capacity rule ?

The only way that they could do that is have sessions where they kick everyone out at the end. Not very practical. The way they’re doing it now is probably the best - but yeah way overcrowded for now. 

Yeah you’re right. It’s just naturally really popular right now. In 5 years or so the crowds should be more reasonable 

On 25/03/2023 at 7:56 PM, webslave said:

I'll be doing a VIP tour in a week or so, so if I find anything interesting I'll relay.

I've just gotten back from a trip where we did the VIP tour also (Hope you got Donna, she's an incredible host). Will be putting my thoughts on everything down in separate threads once i've caught up on things at home - but suffice to say, i'll never do USH again without going VIP.

There were so many VIP groups for my visit.. would have seen over 15 - where as I only saw around 5 at USO.