Fast and Furious Hollywood Drift has officially soft opened to the public as of this week. We can expect an official grand opening date soon but while we wait I wanted to go over why this project is so important for Universal Studios Hollywood no matter if you plan to ride it or not.
Fills A Needed Void
Since Universal Studios Hollywood (USH) is in a very interesting situation, this park can’t have too many outdoor rides. What’s the interesting situation you ask?
Well this theme park is located in the middle of a busy city and has a working movie studio in its backyard. Both of those things contribute to noise complaints when outdoor attractions are built. That is why most of the rides at USH are indoors or partially indoors.
This roller coaster fills a massive void in the park’s ride lineup. The park has dark rides, family rides and even coasters that are far less intense and now the park has a thrilling high intensity coaster that you are more likely to find at nearby theme park Magic Mountain.
With this new addition, Universal now has three coasters with varying intensities. Flight of the Hippogriff is the kiddie coaster, Revenge of the Mummy is the family coaster, and Hollywood Drift is the thrilling coaster. This coaster is also the first in the park with inversions and it is the fastest in Universal’s portfolio at 72mph.
Adds Another Ride To The Park
Due to its small size at around 49 acres and bisected by a hillside, Universal is limited on rides with only 12. This will mark the park’s 13th attraction and will round out the park to be more of a full day experience.
It also adds balance to the type of attractions offered. The last addition was Super Nintendo World and Mario Kart which was a family addition and now we have an addition for the thrill seekers which again comes after the Magic Mountain market.
Crucial For The Upcoming Hotel
Even though it too is mired in delays, the hotel at the front of the park is still upcoming. Universal will want to make the park as attractive as possible to encourage people they need to spend multiple days there and book a room at the resort.
This attraction is also an icon, something you can see from all over the park and the San Fernando Valley, which means Universal can up the price of those theme park facing rooms.
It’s A Quality Addition
USH has been around for over 60 years at this point and has had a ton of different owners. During that time some owners were not so good so the attraction quality that was added to the park was subpar to the say the least.
When Comcast took ownership back in late 2000’s they really infused a ton of cash and investment into the parks globally bringing quality additions nearly every year! Since the Comcast take over about half of USH’s ride lineup is full of quality new additions while the other half is pre or early Comcast stuff that is maybe not the greatest.
This coaster is a high quality addition in terms of ride type and is continuing the amazing additions the park has received in the past decade from the Hogsmeade to Super Nintendo World and much more!
Makes The Park Feel Bigger
As previously mentioned the park is separated into the Upper and Lower lots connected by a set of escalators that take guests up and down the hill. This has always made the park feel very small, even smaller than it actually is, because the Lower Lot in particular is very cramped and you can’t see to much on the Upper Lot from the Lower Lot.
With this new coaster being so big that it starts on the Upper Lot and traverses down behind Jurassic World on the Lower Lot and then back up to the Upper Lot it visually connects the two lots much more than any other addition. You can see this coaster no matter where you are on the Upper or Lower lots and thus it makes the park feel like one big park even though it still is the same 49 acres as it was previously.
Conclusion
Even though large intense coasters freak me out, I am extremely excited for this addition not only because it’s super cool and adds kinetic energy all over the place but because of the reasons I stated above and what this means for future additions to the resort!
This is just the start of many great things to come to this park to expand its acreage and make it an actual multi day experience to justify that upcoming hotel!
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