Tuesday 1 July 2014

USS Update 1 July 2014

There has been a few surprises throughout the past month, from slight adjustments to on-ride special effects to introduction of new souvenir outlets. However, the most dramatic surprise is that we can now be absolutely sure of what the 2014 New Ride of USS will be.



While the park will not allow visitors to take any clear shots of the construction work, it is possible to see everything from the ride Canopy Flyer. In fact, when I took the ride a couple days back, I could see large steel columns similar in diameter to those at Battlestar Galactica, and a few pieces of green coloured roller coaster track hanging on the supports (there were also 1-2 pieces on the ground). The track cross section looked identical to those found on Vekoma's Suspended Family Coasters, though it is too early to guess any layouts.

The trench that has been described by other bloggers like Luke and Dejiki in the previous months is actually the loading area for the new roller coaster.

Since the tracks are specifically painted green, my best guess is that the ride will be outdoors (most dark roller coasters will have black or very dark coloured track). Given the limited land, I doubt that the track will be more than 400m long, so it will be similar in scope to Enchanted Airways. I do hope this ride will have some surprises (eg. spinning cars, motion simulator movements, even 3D scenes like Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts) otherwise it will be too similar to Canopy Flyer.

 From this angle, we can see the support columns of the loading platform area of the new ride.

Some scaffolding can also be seen from this angle. All track pieces laid so far are at ground level so no track can be seen yet
Suspended Family Coaster. Image courtesy of Vekoma

Talking about roller coasters, both myself and a few of my park buddies felt that Revenge of the Mummy has somehow got a little faster this month. For myself, this is evident as the "Floating Airtime" after the first launch is suddenly replaced by a more dramatic "Ejector Airtime" from 22 June onwards. A buddy of mine commented that the second half after the fire scene felt shorter than before. The 2 of us have clocked over 50 rides of Revenge of the Mummy in total so we are quite sensitive to every minor adjustment in the ride.

Another thing, I really hope that the safety video of Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure can make explicit mention for riders to put their legs on the floor at all times (and announce it loudly and clearly in the queue). I rode it 2 times this month and both times I met people who will lift their legs up then the ride operator had to keep on screaming "Put your legs down", spoiling the ride experience.

There is a new commercial at the New York leading to Sci-Fi area, for Panasonic. The interesting thing is that Panasonic is the official sponsor for Battlestar Galactica ride, so is the park trying to give us some hints about the return of the ride? Just to update, there seems to be no visible progress since the scaffolding was erected on Battlestar Galactica a month ago.


Some works to the flooring under Battlestar Galactica. Not sure if it is related to the current ride works.

If you are looking for Transformers Toys, USS has upped the ante for you by adding new shopping aisle outside the main shop Transformers Supply Vault.



Just outside USS, the new Trick Eye museum is experiencing long queues. Even though this photo was taken on the last day of school holidays, the queue to enter was still almost an hour. However, there were only 5 people at the ticketing counter when we walked past.


World Cup fixtures can also be found at the entrance of Maritime Experential Museum. I just think it is quite a weird place to put and it will have received more attention if it had been placed near the betting area.


Joke of the Month:

Stegosaurus eats leaves
Tyrannosaurus Rex eats flesh
What does Popcornosaraus eat?


Answer:


Money!.
Alright just kidding, but I am actually quite surprised that USS Actually sells turkey legs. In fact, I never seemed to see anyone buying and eating it (considering how popular it is at the Disney parks)