Gazza
Giga Poster
So, I've been wanting to visit USS ever since it opened, but was waiting for Transformers to open.
Well it did in December, and a combination of a gap between the end of my Internship and the commencement of masters at the end of this month, and the opportunity to do all the airfares for $1100 was too good to refuse. I decided to go home via Perth because its one major Australian city I am yet to visit (Never even set foot in the state of Western Australia), plus I've only got 2 more fixed coasters in Australia to ride, and Adventure World in Perth has one of them.
Day 1
The flight over is an easy 8h or so....Much more bearable than flights to LA or to the UK. A good 5 h was taken up by finally watching the final 2 Potter movies (No, I hadn't seen them yet!)
Time difference is only 2 hours, and the flight left after lunch, so it felt like a pretty cruisy afternoon more than anything.
Touched down at Changi in the early evening....Great Airport, very modern, and very efficient! Put it this way, the immigration hall doesn't even have switchbacks, because there are so many lanes and you get through in around a minute.
The run into the Singapore CBD was pretty straightfoward too. I got myself an Ez-Link (Which is like an Oyster Card)
A branch of the MRT is under the airport, trains leave every 6 minutes, and it is a quick cross platform interchange at Tanah Merah to a NW line train to City Hall, and another cross platform interchange to the NS line to get to Dhoby Ghaut.
For the non transport nerds/those outside of London etc, a cross platform interchange is when different train lines pull up on opposite sides of the same platform. So instead of having to climb stairs and go along walkways to change trains, what happens is that both trains pull up in parralel, doors open on both, and you walk about 5m, seamlessly, across the platform. A few seconds later, doors close and both trains depart. The whole MRT system is spotless and very quick and efficient.
From Dhoby Ghaut it was not too far to my accomodation. The place was YHA/HI affiliated, so not too expensive. Had a private room with ensuite, but no TV. Not that I cared too much, the place had Breakfast and WiFi and was very clean, so I was set. It's also right in the heart of the island, and close to Orchard Rd.
On the walk there, there was a McDonalds, and I was hungry, so I did my usual thing of stopping in to try the localised menu item, which was the rather good chicken teppanyaki burger with pepper grill sauce, Iced Milo seems to be a big thing in Singapore, which I had many of over there (A chocolate/malt/barley and milk drink you can get in Aus/NZ, the pacific and SE Asia)
After dropping my bags I did a bit more exploring around the immediate vicinity. Even at 8-9 at night the place is full of people. There is very little crime in the city, so you can really enjoy it. The climate is pretty much the same as Brisbane summer time...Mid 20s and 80% humidity, so I was finding it pretty pleasant, even if others from colder climates mightn't. Little india was a short walk away and was all lit up for some sort of festival and the streets were lined with plenty of food shops. In the other direction was Plaza Singapura...The density of the country means it is loaded with huge shopping centers at close intervals. Ended up grabbing a few necessities at the Carrefour and wandering around a bit. Before I knew it it was 10pm (12am Brisbane time) so I headed for bed.
Day 2
Today was all about heading to Universal Singapore on Sentosa Island. It's about a 15 mins on the MRT NW Line to Harbourfront. This was pretty cool because it's a newer line, so the trains are driverless and you can ride up the front if you wish:
You get spewed out into the Vivo City shopping center, and from there you have a few options for getting across to the Island. There's a monorail, or you can go to a neighbouring building, ride to the 10th floor, and take the cable car across. There's also the Sentosa Boardwalk, which is a series of covered moving walkways and urban spaces across to the island. It's an easy 10-15 min walk across to the Island, Just follow the signs in Vivo City to get out there.
I had some time to kill before ticket booths opened, so I explored the Resorts World development, which kinda is like Citywalk (But owned by Genting, not Universal), has a few restaurants, cafes, hotels, concept stores and a maritime museum. Here's the whole lot from a distance:
http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos- ... 4623_n.jpg
The maritime museum is the red thing that looks like an upturned boat. The cable car can be seen too, but I rode that another day.
And of course, I did the usual thing of taking a bad selfie in front of the Universal globe:
But hey, at least I got Australia in!
Opening time rolled around and the crowds of Malaysians started to gather (Malaysians are to USS what Brits/Brazilians are to Orlando, except they are much better behaved and all own SLR cameras.
Now this is where I'm going to apologise in advance. I've only got iPhone pics to begin with, as I haven't begun to upload pics from my camera anywhere. That's where all the money shots of the rides are etc...Took around 500 pics. I have only a few pics of the park taken on my phone.
Just before opening they bring out Kung Fu Panda and Woody Woodpecker to parade around the gates and wave and pump up the crowds. The gates opened at 9:50 (
) so I headed straight for....
Transformers: Ultimate 3D Battle.
It has SRQ, but I did the main one to see more of the theming elements that you miss in the SRQ, like the allspark shard and a few cabinets of stuff.
But you still get the storyline properly either way.
Neck and neck with Harry Potter as the worlds best theme park attraction. Just really well polished and put together, and immersive from start to finish. If you are tossing up wether to visit USS, go for this one!
Because its new, I'll put it in Spoiler tags. Basically the story of the ride is that you are volunteers of NEST, a partnership between Human and Autobots to protect the allspark from the Decepticons (Autobots: Good, Deceptions: Bad, Allspark: A shard of material able to bring machines to life with its touch)
I kept moving around to:
Battlestar Galactica Cylon
Despite the best efforts of this ride to imitate a B&M, it ain't one, and I doubt any prospective park would pick this model over the B&M inverted coaster unless it was wayyyy cheaper. The new rubber harness design is comfortable and eliminates headbanging, but the ride still doesn't track smoothly enough, and has some definite shaking, including some pretty strong shocks as you drop into the vertical loop. Some things never change. Still, its very reridable, so this isn't a dealbreaker, but rather a lost opportunity for Vekoma to "be good". The dueling moments aren't as close as th old Dueling Dragons...more just a nice visual (And you get to experience the dueling effect better on the Human side....anyways...)
The queue is themed to be like a Cylon base, with a cool double mirrored/one way glass type thing, where it was basically a section of wall with glass on it, and it looked like there were long rows of cylon robots behind it, dissapearing to infinity. The interior section of the queue was typical alien spacecraft stuff, but the walls as you approached the station were a bit like nemesis at alton, where it had flesh type stuff growing over metal and hoses.
You head out of the station, launch upwards quite quickly, get slowed a little bit, go over the top, down a drop and into the cobra roll, the track then races alongside the Human track, around a very high up helix (great views), down and into a cobra roll. This leads into another helix, and a large drop into a trench with fog, where you hit top speed and go around a loop. You come up again, around a turn, and into a zero g roll, which doesn't actually deserve to be called one. Its more like a barrel roll the train ambles through, with no real weightlessness. One last helix leads to the brakes.
I enjoyed 5 min queues both days for this one, so I got many rides in.
Pressing on, I went around to Canopy Flyers fearing low capacity. It was still walkon at this point. Be sure to ask about single riders, because they have cards they give out to let you do this.
I rode 3 (not all at once) front and back n stuff. Fun little ride, with nice views, and it goes over the top of tree canopies as the name suggests, but it is over pretty quickly, but at least the best part, a tight helix is right at the end and that's where it really swings. There were cute bits of theming, like chunks of amber with mosquitos embedded inside in the rock walls in the queue.
After that I turned around to get on....
Revenge of the Mummy
-Pretty soild like the Orlando version, but I still don't think its a "worlds greatest" like many say, but still very good by all means.
The story is a bit different...You are aparently looking for 'the book of the living' to destroy Imhotep, rather than the Orlando one, where its a movie set and "The curse is real".
The downside of this is that the scene where you had the false unload station is replaced with Imhothep appearing with 'the book' and still damning you to death. Still fire on the ceiling etc, but none of the breaking glass, which I liked.
Otherwhise, its largely identical to Orlando, except the animatroincs are cheaper and more jerky. Cant argue with 5 min queue times. SRQ is again availab.e
The ride is set in an actual temple, and they have done a good job at theming the side of the building, such that the side facing Jurrasic Park matches that area, and the side facing Sci Fi city matches that area.
The bottom floor spends ages ziggzaging around tombs and wooden fences..ahem buttressing, with the odd crate, giant vase, block, mummy coffin etc forming an obstacle for the queue to get around...The waiting areas are massive at this park...Bigger than many Disney attractions even, would hate to see it on a busy day.
The ride starts off with a dark ride in a tomb, with cool stuff like writing appearing magically across a wall. You reach a treasure room guarded by Imhotep, which erutps in flames and mummy zombies pop up either side of the track. You rush to escape under a large dropping stone door, going down a little drop to get under....Eventually you reach a dead end, bump into a wall, cracking it (hard brake!), and causing thousands of scarab beetles to being swarming over the wall (All done with projectors) You reverse away to escape down a small drop, spin around on a turntable to face forwards again, where Imhotep tells you to "prepare to surrender your souls". At this moment, you launch uphill, through a cloud of green smoke and into a dark coaster section, with sweeping banked turns and small airtime hills, with the best pop being right at the top of the launch before the downhill curve. The carboard cutouts are more subudued, with the paint on the edges fading to black and no neon lights like the Hollywood version, so they work better and actually look like floating figures. Eventually you reach another room...Imhotep appears again, threatens you, the roof erupts in flames, and you then get launched down a drop into a pit full of red fog, and through one final coaster section.
After that you hit the final brake run before the station. Somehow Imhotep has been put back in a Mummy coffin, so we're all good!
I saw that JP River Adventure was building up a bit, but you have to pay $4 for an hour rental of the lockers there (Unlike Mummy/BSG, which have free ones), so I just spited them and used the lockers at Mummy. This ride is stupidly wet, like the rapids at SFMM. Ponchos don't help. Don't take a camera. Don't take a phone. Don't wear shoes that soak up water.
My first experience with the Hafema version of this ride type. The boats do let a lot of water in and spin a lot, which is good if thats your thing. There were perhaps not quite enough waves....A couple, but i do like rocking and rolling the whole time. The loading area is a bit of a clusterf***...you enter and exit on the same side, and the boats move along an aluminium conveyer belt that you walk on, so everyone is kinda trying to get on whilst others get off.
Found it funny too that the boats are made of "rubbish bin plastic" rather than fibreglass like most rapids boats.
Anyways, you go off the end of the conveyer belt down some rollers and splash into a gentle river and go through a couple of dino habitats. Up ahead the river becomes more treacherous, and you see washed away fences, an upturned raft and a flooded out guards post with water pouring out of broken windows and bits of furniture bobbing in the water. Things keep getting worse and you get washed down a canyon past some raptors, eventually reaching a water intake for the JP hydroelectric plant. The tunnel is pretty plain actually....literally black walls with the odd warning sign about dangerous water currents. It is in here that you get unavoidably wet in the first instance, passing under a fast flowing leaking pipe. Eventually you wash into a 'vertical hydrovato'r. You hear a voice..."Help me, I'm up here!"....you soon discover the T-Rex is up there too, snapping at you as you come up the vertical lift. Only some guests will get a good view due to the circular nature of the boat. I didn't get to see her teeth, rather it's neck and chin underside.
At the top, the doors open and you go down a drop about as big as the one on the Flume at Alton, hit the water, and get SATURATED by the wave. It's a gentle trip back to the station, with a couple of fountains adding insult to injury.
Had skipped it earlier, but went back to get on Battlestar Galactica Human
This is like a Human base where they are stationed to fight the Cylons. On the bottom floor the main feature you'll see is a repica Human battle spacecraft. The rest of the queue has futuristic airforce type theming...Think cages with flight suits, pinboards with photos of pilots giving the thumbs up, TV screens with video transmissions from your commander stressing the importance of the mission etc, and wartime throwback posters encouraging humans to enlist and fight the Cylons, enlist to fix viper fighter spacecraft etc. The ride safey vid is done like a 1940s wartime education video, with shaky images and pastel colours, and graphical styles of the time, telling you how to board the 'spacecraft'.
Again, you launch upwards, over the hill, down a large drop under the cobra roll and then 'orbit' up around the cobra roll. You run paralel to Cylon for a bit, before doing a helix in the other direction, flying by. The rest of the ride is more helixes and so forth, encountering the Cylon track from time to time. Right near the end the Cylon track swoops right above your head quite closely. It feels like an adult roller skater basically, and sounds and shakes like one too (Literally!) Good well paced ride, but again needs to be smoother. This one is marginally more popular than Cylon, but still short queues the whole time.
Pressed on to finally see the other side of the park.
Enchanted Airways
Typically rollerskater, but sounds a bit smoother and quieter when it runs. Lap bars are individual and quite narrow so your legs get pressed together. The queue has plenty of funny Shrek universe details, and the ride layout has various animatronics of well known characters helping out with the aviation operation, like Grandmother wolf waving landing lights and Pinnochio manning a guards booth, and the 3 blind mice in the control tower.
I got lunch at Glorias, and got a chicken cutlet bento with an iced milo. Didn't touch the Agar jelly.
The chicken cutlet was particularly nice.
Nearby was Madagascar: A crate Adventure
Pretty cutsey queue line, with a maze of bamboo switchbacks, irregular shade sail roofs, decorated with colourful island lights (some of them pufferfish)
I havent seen Madagascar, but basically your boat goes through the hull of a huge ship which forms the facade of the ride, and on the other side you discover the animals have been marooned on the island. Through here you go through a very nice jungle environment with the various characters in a few gag situations. One of my favourites was a couple of monkeys..."If you see anyone, throw poo at them!", cue the water droplet effects.
At one point, to escape (some crocs I think?) the boat runs on a fast conveyer belt.
You eventually encounter King Julien, the Lemur, who complains that the Foosa are always ruining their parties by ripping their heads off etc. At this point, you get the feeling they were short on money because the whole section is CGI on screens rather than animatronics.
So after that you go into Foosa territory along with all the other shipwrecked animals to try and stop them.
This last section goes back to being all 'animaltroinics' though, and you pass through a volcano, where you see the animals taking on the foosas, who are defeated by a stick of TNT provided by the penguins and carelessly thrown by King JulienA pretty colourful and energetic ride, which i guess the kiddies love. Was alright, but I only rode it once, and I'm struggling to remember all of it, so I guess it perhaps didn't leave a lasting impression.
Back in the NYC section is Lights, Camera, Action
Special effects show akin to Backdraft and Twister, but its all automated, so works more like the effects seen in a dark ride...Pretty fogood. In particular, this is one ride queue where it looks like the park was built 20 years ago...Rusted, bubbling paint, crumbing concrete edges etc.
I'll actually adress that point now. The park is well detailed and themed, but local construction labour resources, and local climate (Causing rapid corrosion and staining of concrete) means that some bits weren't built as well as they should have been.
It's a bit like what Ben was saying about World Joyland with splattered paint and spilled concrete just left from construction. It's not as bad as that, but it is noticeable, and also sometimes stuff like plant equipment wasn't hidden from view properly:
Or conduits that are supposed to be under a slab, but the upper layer of concrete has chipped away.
Just worrying on such a young park. I think the worst looking bit was probably the area immediately around Battlestar, with cheap fencing etc:
Dunno, maybe because I've done a few defects inspections on buildings prior to handover I notice this sort of stuff.
But back to this attraction!
The queue for the ride is just under a big roof behind the NY facades, with various large movie posters suspended from the ceiling.
The queue is split in 3, and enters the first room in parallel, at 3 tiered levels. The first room has Speilberg going on about the wonders of movie effects and the history of sound stages. You then watch a short clip of various well known movie effects (Eg the takeoff in Apollo 13, Frankenstein coming to life in the original film, the flying bikes in ET, The Delorean in BTTF jumping through time and so on.
The next room is configured the same way, inside a New York boat shed, and you are about to film the scene of a Category 5 cyclone.
Very well put together, with the backdrop of city skyline and harbour actually being a projection screen set a fair way back, giving proper depth.
You'll see the water catch fire, boats fall off their ceiling hooks and splash into the water, window panels get blown away, wind, rain, waves on the water, debris crashing through the ceiling, boat chemical cabinets catch fire and heaps more. The Grand finale is a ship crashing through the boathouse doors, and coming a fair way in! The floor drops at the end like on Twister at USF.
For the rest of the day It was a lot of re-riding, thanks to short queues, crowds that don't necessarily do a lot of riding, and SRQ. I was kinda deliberately avoiding Water World (But I gave in and watched in the next day)
I did go and see Shrek 4D, which we had at Movie World...Really just exactly on par with ours, but the preshow room is bigger, and the impressive castle exterior.
The park has a parade at 6, but i killled some time prior by seeing Monsters of Rock in Pantages Hollywood Theatre.
The Show is MCed by an American in a School Uniform, who brings to life 7 classic Universal monsters (Dracula, Frankenstien, Phantom of the Opera, Warewolf, the Bride, a female Mummy), done by having them appear from behind 7 human sized rectangular screens. They perform a few songs, with dialogue and banter between each song. The coreography, lighing, music and pyro were great, but some of them had screechy singing voices (The Bride in particular)
I know I only named 6, but I have NFI who the pink girl is in this pic: http://www.rwsentosa.com/language/en-US ... oodTheater
Worth a look.
I got an evening meal at Mels. It's not a dine in though, rather more like a regular fast food outlet with a counter. I tried the 'Shiok' Burger, a "Uniquley Singaporean Taste"...Beef, tomato, lettuce, bacon, onion rings, avacado....Yeah doing alright so far, until I realised it had chicken floss on it, which I promptly picked off.
The Hollywood Dream Parade time rolled around. Some cool stuff, like a T rex float, a scorpion king float (A single bloke was in it, sticking out waist up), a few tropical Madagascar ones with heaps of people in animal suits and so forth. Lots of general street actors too, like people in 30s style journalist outfits with old style cameras who would dance along and freeze every now and then to all shoot a photo in sync together.
And now I suddenly have to head off, so I'll continue this TR later.
Well it did in December, and a combination of a gap between the end of my Internship and the commencement of masters at the end of this month, and the opportunity to do all the airfares for $1100 was too good to refuse. I decided to go home via Perth because its one major Australian city I am yet to visit (Never even set foot in the state of Western Australia), plus I've only got 2 more fixed coasters in Australia to ride, and Adventure World in Perth has one of them.
Day 1
The flight over is an easy 8h or so....Much more bearable than flights to LA or to the UK. A good 5 h was taken up by finally watching the final 2 Potter movies (No, I hadn't seen them yet!)
Time difference is only 2 hours, and the flight left after lunch, so it felt like a pretty cruisy afternoon more than anything.
Touched down at Changi in the early evening....Great Airport, very modern, and very efficient! Put it this way, the immigration hall doesn't even have switchbacks, because there are so many lanes and you get through in around a minute.
The run into the Singapore CBD was pretty straightfoward too. I got myself an Ez-Link (Which is like an Oyster Card)
A branch of the MRT is under the airport, trains leave every 6 minutes, and it is a quick cross platform interchange at Tanah Merah to a NW line train to City Hall, and another cross platform interchange to the NS line to get to Dhoby Ghaut.
For the non transport nerds/those outside of London etc, a cross platform interchange is when different train lines pull up on opposite sides of the same platform. So instead of having to climb stairs and go along walkways to change trains, what happens is that both trains pull up in parralel, doors open on both, and you walk about 5m, seamlessly, across the platform. A few seconds later, doors close and both trains depart. The whole MRT system is spotless and very quick and efficient.
From Dhoby Ghaut it was not too far to my accomodation. The place was YHA/HI affiliated, so not too expensive. Had a private room with ensuite, but no TV. Not that I cared too much, the place had Breakfast and WiFi and was very clean, so I was set. It's also right in the heart of the island, and close to Orchard Rd.
On the walk there, there was a McDonalds, and I was hungry, so I did my usual thing of stopping in to try the localised menu item, which was the rather good chicken teppanyaki burger with pepper grill sauce, Iced Milo seems to be a big thing in Singapore, which I had many of over there (A chocolate/malt/barley and milk drink you can get in Aus/NZ, the pacific and SE Asia)
After dropping my bags I did a bit more exploring around the immediate vicinity. Even at 8-9 at night the place is full of people. There is very little crime in the city, so you can really enjoy it. The climate is pretty much the same as Brisbane summer time...Mid 20s and 80% humidity, so I was finding it pretty pleasant, even if others from colder climates mightn't. Little india was a short walk away and was all lit up for some sort of festival and the streets were lined with plenty of food shops. In the other direction was Plaza Singapura...The density of the country means it is loaded with huge shopping centers at close intervals. Ended up grabbing a few necessities at the Carrefour and wandering around a bit. Before I knew it it was 10pm (12am Brisbane time) so I headed for bed.
Day 2
Today was all about heading to Universal Singapore on Sentosa Island. It's about a 15 mins on the MRT NW Line to Harbourfront. This was pretty cool because it's a newer line, so the trains are driverless and you can ride up the front if you wish:
You get spewed out into the Vivo City shopping center, and from there you have a few options for getting across to the Island. There's a monorail, or you can go to a neighbouring building, ride to the 10th floor, and take the cable car across. There's also the Sentosa Boardwalk, which is a series of covered moving walkways and urban spaces across to the island. It's an easy 10-15 min walk across to the Island, Just follow the signs in Vivo City to get out there.
I had some time to kill before ticket booths opened, so I explored the Resorts World development, which kinda is like Citywalk (But owned by Genting, not Universal), has a few restaurants, cafes, hotels, concept stores and a maritime museum. Here's the whole lot from a distance:
http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos- ... 4623_n.jpg
The maritime museum is the red thing that looks like an upturned boat. The cable car can be seen too, but I rode that another day.
And of course, I did the usual thing of taking a bad selfie in front of the Universal globe:
But hey, at least I got Australia in!
Opening time rolled around and the crowds of Malaysians started to gather (Malaysians are to USS what Brits/Brazilians are to Orlando, except they are much better behaved and all own SLR cameras.
Now this is where I'm going to apologise in advance. I've only got iPhone pics to begin with, as I haven't begun to upload pics from my camera anywhere. That's where all the money shots of the rides are etc...Took around 500 pics. I have only a few pics of the park taken on my phone.
Just before opening they bring out Kung Fu Panda and Woody Woodpecker to parade around the gates and wave and pump up the crowds. The gates opened at 9:50 (
) so I headed straight for....Transformers: Ultimate 3D Battle.
It has SRQ, but I did the main one to see more of the theming elements that you miss in the SRQ, like the allspark shard and a few cabinets of stuff.
But you still get the storyline properly either way.
Neck and neck with Harry Potter as the worlds best theme park attraction. Just really well polished and put together, and immersive from start to finish. If you are tossing up wether to visit USS, go for this one!
Because its new, I'll put it in Spoiler tags. Basically the story of the ride is that you are volunteers of NEST, a partnership between Human and Autobots to protect the allspark from the Decepticons (Autobots: Good, Deceptions: Bad, Allspark: A shard of material able to bring machines to life with its touch)
So, the queue takes you through a typical military base themed area, with concrete walls, computers, flashing control panels, red warning lights, buzzing alarms etc. The decepticons are breaking in, and you have to roll out with Evac (A new Autobot) to transport the allspark to safety. The safety vid is quite humours, with some banter between Evac, and a computerised voice...sample dialouge :
Computer: "Goodbye Humans"
Evac: "I think you mean good luck"
Computer: "Goodbye Humans"
You load in and leave the station, a large screen shows a security breach. Evac tells you to be on the look out for trouble, but he is interrupted mid sentence by some (very convincing sounding) machine gun fire.
You go around the corner to the first screen. A truck with a robotic arm attempts to load you with the allspark, but ravage jumps in, grabs it, jumps on the bonnet of the vehicle and snaps at you, before leaping away onto an overhead catwalk.
You turn and head to the next screen. Bumblebee comes itn to assist, grabbing ravage, taking back the allspark, and tossing it to you (all to the tune of "Give it to me baby")
Evac extends his arm to catch it (Funny to imagine your ride vehicle as a setient being), but another decepticon grabs you by the arm trying to take it. Optimus Prime jumps in to assist, tackling the decepticon, giving you a chance to esape.
With a screch of the tyres you move out of the base and into the city streets (screen 3). Optimus gives the order to roll out, and you speed away, avoiding traffic. Its not smooth for long, as you pin backwards to outrun that deception with saws on his hands (name?)
You dodge and weave, eventuall reversing into a subway tunnel. Just as you cross the tracks a train barrels through, decaptiating the head of the decepticon that was just chasing you.
You bust through and find yourself in a sewer. Megatron appears again and tries to attack (screen 4), but he bumps into a water main, breaking it, and spraying his arm (and you) with a bit of water. That gives you a chance to escape. You head around a couple of turns through some tunnels, tyres screching and engine roaring, and the vehicle turning this way and that..."Wrong way...we're trapped".
Eventually you exit the tunnel and find yourself in the pit of a construction site (screen 5). A deception jumps down and brutally knocks away a scaffold, sending poles flying at you. It then launches a missile, which gets right in your face, but files overhead, exploding behind. You feel the hot air of the explosion and see the glow. You spin 180 and see a huge hole blasted in the wall, and you pass through it. What is cool is that the exposed reinforcing mesh glows red hot and then fades at the tips.
You reach the 6th screen (the hole in the wall leads to a subway station), but all of sudden a powerful rush of air sucks you up and out to street level....Devistator is using his giant vacuum mouth to suck up everything. EVAC takes evasive action and takes cover, speeding away along the streets. You transition to screen 7, where Sideswipe appears and tries to attack, but time slows down (bullet time type effect), evac takes his gun, leaps over, shoots at his head, then lands back on the ground.
You try to speed away, but Devistaor is back, and you, along with several cars get sucked back, towards his mouth. Right as you go through EVAC engages his shields, and you pass straight through devistators mouth and out the otherside.
You aren't free for long though, as a flying decepticon comes in, hooks you with a cable and takes you on a terrfying flight above the streets, including a moment where you fishtail around into the side of an office building, smashing through the window, through tables and chairs, and back out the other side, taking out a concrete column for good measure.
This causes the cable to come loose, and you are hurled onto the top floor of a skyscraper under construction.
EVAC speeds around the floor, trying to find a way out (with some realisic theming like temporary construction lights on cables, and bits of equipment), you come to another screen (#8), where Optimus and Megatron are battling it out, knocking over the tower crane in the process. Megatron urges you to protect the allspark. you turn away, to another screne, where that fighter jet decepticon comes in, shoots down a hovering NEST helicopter, before transforming and flying away.
You turn away to another screen (#9).. Evac asks "We're on our own, What do we do?". At that moment Megatron comes down and says "Beg for mercy". Optimus reappears and the two wrestle each other away.
Evac gets some balls, and says "No more running, he takes off and jumps onto Megatron from behind and says "If he wants the allspark, he can have it!", and proceeds to jam it into his back, causing him to overload.
As this happens everyone falls of the skycscraper...Evac: "Oh no!". This is just like Spiderman, where it feels like you are really falling.
Right as you are about to hit the ground bumblebee catches you. The force of it causes you to fall through the pavement and land in an underground car park.
You turn away from the scene and see crumbled columns and bits of street furniture/cars have fallen down with you.
You reach the final scene, where Optimus bends down and says "Your bravery has saved the planet, well done!".
You head back to the unload station, and above you you can see a full sized Megatron replica has fallen through the roof. As you pass under his red eyes fade into lifelessness.
The unload station is back in NEST headquarters, and you can see ninja stars stuck in the walls and roof and other signs that a battle has been going on whilst you were gone.
Woah, as I said, really well done. Better than Spiderman, and it never really lets up at all.
The ride takes place across two floors due to limited space in Singapore (And Hollywood) The lifting happens on the 3rd screen, and the trip down via a quick decent on the 'Freefall Scene' screen...a bonus because it enhances the falling sensation a bit. Would be awesome if they could make it do a Th13teen style true freefall, but that would be pushing in on this type of ride.
You do have to really look to notice the two lifts,...The GP wont in general, and even I didn't realise till my 3rd ride. But basically there are two of them in mirror image (for capacity reasons), when one goes up, the other goes down. The room is a big half cylinder. The projector is mounted on a pole at the back of the lifting platform, so when you go up, everything moves together. The curve of the walls of the room that the image is projected on means your whole field of vision is taken up. I took a ride where i didn't wear my glasses, and looked at the ceiling etc so I could see how it all worked.
I'd give this a 10/10 for sure.
Computer: "Goodbye Humans"
Evac: "I think you mean good luck"
Computer: "Goodbye Humans"
You load in and leave the station, a large screen shows a security breach. Evac tells you to be on the look out for trouble, but he is interrupted mid sentence by some (very convincing sounding) machine gun fire.
You go around the corner to the first screen. A truck with a robotic arm attempts to load you with the allspark, but ravage jumps in, grabs it, jumps on the bonnet of the vehicle and snaps at you, before leaping away onto an overhead catwalk.
You turn and head to the next screen. Bumblebee comes itn to assist, grabbing ravage, taking back the allspark, and tossing it to you (all to the tune of "Give it to me baby")
Evac extends his arm to catch it (Funny to imagine your ride vehicle as a setient being), but another decepticon grabs you by the arm trying to take it. Optimus Prime jumps in to assist, tackling the decepticon, giving you a chance to esape.
With a screch of the tyres you move out of the base and into the city streets (screen 3). Optimus gives the order to roll out, and you speed away, avoiding traffic. Its not smooth for long, as you pin backwards to outrun that deception with saws on his hands (name?)
You dodge and weave, eventuall reversing into a subway tunnel. Just as you cross the tracks a train barrels through, decaptiating the head of the decepticon that was just chasing you.
You bust through and find yourself in a sewer. Megatron appears again and tries to attack (screen 4), but he bumps into a water main, breaking it, and spraying his arm (and you) with a bit of water. That gives you a chance to escape. You head around a couple of turns through some tunnels, tyres screching and engine roaring, and the vehicle turning this way and that..."Wrong way...we're trapped".
Eventually you exit the tunnel and find yourself in the pit of a construction site (screen 5). A deception jumps down and brutally knocks away a scaffold, sending poles flying at you. It then launches a missile, which gets right in your face, but files overhead, exploding behind. You feel the hot air of the explosion and see the glow. You spin 180 and see a huge hole blasted in the wall, and you pass through it. What is cool is that the exposed reinforcing mesh glows red hot and then fades at the tips.
You reach the 6th screen (the hole in the wall leads to a subway station), but all of sudden a powerful rush of air sucks you up and out to street level....Devistator is using his giant vacuum mouth to suck up everything. EVAC takes evasive action and takes cover, speeding away along the streets. You transition to screen 7, where Sideswipe appears and tries to attack, but time slows down (bullet time type effect), evac takes his gun, leaps over, shoots at his head, then lands back on the ground.
You try to speed away, but Devistaor is back, and you, along with several cars get sucked back, towards his mouth. Right as you go through EVAC engages his shields, and you pass straight through devistators mouth and out the otherside.
You aren't free for long though, as a flying decepticon comes in, hooks you with a cable and takes you on a terrfying flight above the streets, including a moment where you fishtail around into the side of an office building, smashing through the window, through tables and chairs, and back out the other side, taking out a concrete column for good measure.
This causes the cable to come loose, and you are hurled onto the top floor of a skyscraper under construction.
EVAC speeds around the floor, trying to find a way out (with some realisic theming like temporary construction lights on cables, and bits of equipment), you come to another screen (#8), where Optimus and Megatron are battling it out, knocking over the tower crane in the process. Megatron urges you to protect the allspark. you turn away, to another screne, where that fighter jet decepticon comes in, shoots down a hovering NEST helicopter, before transforming and flying away.
You turn away to another screen (#9).. Evac asks "We're on our own, What do we do?". At that moment Megatron comes down and says "Beg for mercy". Optimus reappears and the two wrestle each other away.
Evac gets some balls, and says "No more running, he takes off and jumps onto Megatron from behind and says "If he wants the allspark, he can have it!", and proceeds to jam it into his back, causing him to overload.
As this happens everyone falls of the skycscraper...Evac: "Oh no!". This is just like Spiderman, where it feels like you are really falling.
Right as you are about to hit the ground bumblebee catches you. The force of it causes you to fall through the pavement and land in an underground car park.
You turn away from the scene and see crumbled columns and bits of street furniture/cars have fallen down with you.
You reach the final scene, where Optimus bends down and says "Your bravery has saved the planet, well done!".
You head back to the unload station, and above you you can see a full sized Megatron replica has fallen through the roof. As you pass under his red eyes fade into lifelessness.
The unload station is back in NEST headquarters, and you can see ninja stars stuck in the walls and roof and other signs that a battle has been going on whilst you were gone.
Woah, as I said, really well done. Better than Spiderman, and it never really lets up at all.
The ride takes place across two floors due to limited space in Singapore (And Hollywood) The lifting happens on the 3rd screen, and the trip down via a quick decent on the 'Freefall Scene' screen...a bonus because it enhances the falling sensation a bit. Would be awesome if they could make it do a Th13teen style true freefall, but that would be pushing in on this type of ride.
You do have to really look to notice the two lifts,...The GP wont in general, and even I didn't realise till my 3rd ride. But basically there are two of them in mirror image (for capacity reasons), when one goes up, the other goes down. The room is a big half cylinder. The projector is mounted on a pole at the back of the lifting platform, so when you go up, everything moves together. The curve of the walls of the room that the image is projected on means your whole field of vision is taken up. I took a ride where i didn't wear my glasses, and looked at the ceiling etc so I could see how it all worked.
I'd give this a 10/10 for sure.
I kept moving around to:
Battlestar Galactica Cylon
Despite the best efforts of this ride to imitate a B&M, it ain't one, and I doubt any prospective park would pick this model over the B&M inverted coaster unless it was wayyyy cheaper. The new rubber harness design is comfortable and eliminates headbanging, but the ride still doesn't track smoothly enough, and has some definite shaking, including some pretty strong shocks as you drop into the vertical loop. Some things never change. Still, its very reridable, so this isn't a dealbreaker, but rather a lost opportunity for Vekoma to "be good". The dueling moments aren't as close as th old Dueling Dragons...more just a nice visual (And you get to experience the dueling effect better on the Human side....anyways...)
The queue is themed to be like a Cylon base, with a cool double mirrored/one way glass type thing, where it was basically a section of wall with glass on it, and it looked like there were long rows of cylon robots behind it, dissapearing to infinity. The interior section of the queue was typical alien spacecraft stuff, but the walls as you approached the station were a bit like nemesis at alton, where it had flesh type stuff growing over metal and hoses.
You head out of the station, launch upwards quite quickly, get slowed a little bit, go over the top, down a drop and into the cobra roll, the track then races alongside the Human track, around a very high up helix (great views), down and into a cobra roll. This leads into another helix, and a large drop into a trench with fog, where you hit top speed and go around a loop. You come up again, around a turn, and into a zero g roll, which doesn't actually deserve to be called one. Its more like a barrel roll the train ambles through, with no real weightlessness. One last helix leads to the brakes.
I enjoyed 5 min queues both days for this one, so I got many rides in.
Pressing on, I went around to Canopy Flyers fearing low capacity. It was still walkon at this point. Be sure to ask about single riders, because they have cards they give out to let you do this.
I rode 3 (not all at once) front and back n stuff. Fun little ride, with nice views, and it goes over the top of tree canopies as the name suggests, but it is over pretty quickly, but at least the best part, a tight helix is right at the end and that's where it really swings. There were cute bits of theming, like chunks of amber with mosquitos embedded inside in the rock walls in the queue.
After that I turned around to get on....
Revenge of the Mummy
-Pretty soild like the Orlando version, but I still don't think its a "worlds greatest" like many say, but still very good by all means.
The story is a bit different...You are aparently looking for 'the book of the living' to destroy Imhotep, rather than the Orlando one, where its a movie set and "The curse is real".
The downside of this is that the scene where you had the false unload station is replaced with Imhothep appearing with 'the book' and still damning you to death. Still fire on the ceiling etc, but none of the breaking glass, which I liked.
Otherwhise, its largely identical to Orlando, except the animatroincs are cheaper and more jerky. Cant argue with 5 min queue times. SRQ is again availab.e
The ride is set in an actual temple, and they have done a good job at theming the side of the building, such that the side facing Jurrasic Park matches that area, and the side facing Sci Fi city matches that area.
The bottom floor spends ages ziggzaging around tombs and wooden fences..ahem buttressing, with the odd crate, giant vase, block, mummy coffin etc forming an obstacle for the queue to get around...The waiting areas are massive at this park...Bigger than many Disney attractions even, would hate to see it on a busy day.
The ride starts off with a dark ride in a tomb, with cool stuff like writing appearing magically across a wall. You reach a treasure room guarded by Imhotep, which erutps in flames and mummy zombies pop up either side of the track. You rush to escape under a large dropping stone door, going down a little drop to get under....Eventually you reach a dead end, bump into a wall, cracking it (hard brake!), and causing thousands of scarab beetles to being swarming over the wall (All done with projectors) You reverse away to escape down a small drop, spin around on a turntable to face forwards again, where Imhotep tells you to "prepare to surrender your souls". At this moment, you launch uphill, through a cloud of green smoke and into a dark coaster section, with sweeping banked turns and small airtime hills, with the best pop being right at the top of the launch before the downhill curve. The carboard cutouts are more subudued, with the paint on the edges fading to black and no neon lights like the Hollywood version, so they work better and actually look like floating figures. Eventually you reach another room...Imhotep appears again, threatens you, the roof erupts in flames, and you then get launched down a drop into a pit full of red fog, and through one final coaster section.
After that you hit the final brake run before the station. Somehow Imhotep has been put back in a Mummy coffin, so we're all good!
I saw that JP River Adventure was building up a bit, but you have to pay $4 for an hour rental of the lockers there (Unlike Mummy/BSG, which have free ones), so I just spited them and used the lockers at Mummy. This ride is stupidly wet, like the rapids at SFMM. Ponchos don't help. Don't take a camera. Don't take a phone. Don't wear shoes that soak up water.
My first experience with the Hafema version of this ride type. The boats do let a lot of water in and spin a lot, which is good if thats your thing. There were perhaps not quite enough waves....A couple, but i do like rocking and rolling the whole time. The loading area is a bit of a clusterf***...you enter and exit on the same side, and the boats move along an aluminium conveyer belt that you walk on, so everyone is kinda trying to get on whilst others get off.
Found it funny too that the boats are made of "rubbish bin plastic" rather than fibreglass like most rapids boats.
Anyways, you go off the end of the conveyer belt down some rollers and splash into a gentle river and go through a couple of dino habitats. Up ahead the river becomes more treacherous, and you see washed away fences, an upturned raft and a flooded out guards post with water pouring out of broken windows and bits of furniture bobbing in the water. Things keep getting worse and you get washed down a canyon past some raptors, eventually reaching a water intake for the JP hydroelectric plant. The tunnel is pretty plain actually....literally black walls with the odd warning sign about dangerous water currents. It is in here that you get unavoidably wet in the first instance, passing under a fast flowing leaking pipe. Eventually you wash into a 'vertical hydrovato'r. You hear a voice..."Help me, I'm up here!"....you soon discover the T-Rex is up there too, snapping at you as you come up the vertical lift. Only some guests will get a good view due to the circular nature of the boat. I didn't get to see her teeth, rather it's neck and chin underside.
At the top, the doors open and you go down a drop about as big as the one on the Flume at Alton, hit the water, and get SATURATED by the wave. It's a gentle trip back to the station, with a couple of fountains adding insult to injury.
Had skipped it earlier, but went back to get on Battlestar Galactica Human
This is like a Human base where they are stationed to fight the Cylons. On the bottom floor the main feature you'll see is a repica Human battle spacecraft. The rest of the queue has futuristic airforce type theming...Think cages with flight suits, pinboards with photos of pilots giving the thumbs up, TV screens with video transmissions from your commander stressing the importance of the mission etc, and wartime throwback posters encouraging humans to enlist and fight the Cylons, enlist to fix viper fighter spacecraft etc. The ride safey vid is done like a 1940s wartime education video, with shaky images and pastel colours, and graphical styles of the time, telling you how to board the 'spacecraft'.
Again, you launch upwards, over the hill, down a large drop under the cobra roll and then 'orbit' up around the cobra roll. You run paralel to Cylon for a bit, before doing a helix in the other direction, flying by. The rest of the ride is more helixes and so forth, encountering the Cylon track from time to time. Right near the end the Cylon track swoops right above your head quite closely. It feels like an adult roller skater basically, and sounds and shakes like one too (Literally!) Good well paced ride, but again needs to be smoother. This one is marginally more popular than Cylon, but still short queues the whole time.
Pressed on to finally see the other side of the park.
Enchanted Airways
Typically rollerskater, but sounds a bit smoother and quieter when it runs. Lap bars are individual and quite narrow so your legs get pressed together. The queue has plenty of funny Shrek universe details, and the ride layout has various animatronics of well known characters helping out with the aviation operation, like Grandmother wolf waving landing lights and Pinnochio manning a guards booth, and the 3 blind mice in the control tower.
I got lunch at Glorias, and got a chicken cutlet bento with an iced milo. Didn't touch the Agar jelly.
The chicken cutlet was particularly nice.
Nearby was Madagascar: A crate Adventure
Pretty cutsey queue line, with a maze of bamboo switchbacks, irregular shade sail roofs, decorated with colourful island lights (some of them pufferfish)
I havent seen Madagascar, but basically your boat goes through the hull of a huge ship which forms the facade of the ride, and on the other side you discover the animals have been marooned on the island. Through here you go through a very nice jungle environment with the various characters in a few gag situations. One of my favourites was a couple of monkeys..."If you see anyone, throw poo at them!", cue the water droplet effects.
At one point, to escape (some crocs I think?) the boat runs on a fast conveyer belt.
You eventually encounter King Julien, the Lemur, who complains that the Foosa are always ruining their parties by ripping their heads off etc. At this point, you get the feeling they were short on money because the whole section is CGI on screens rather than animatronics.
So after that you go into Foosa territory along with all the other shipwrecked animals to try and stop them.
This last section goes back to being all 'animaltroinics' though, and you pass through a volcano, where you see the animals taking on the foosas, who are defeated by a stick of TNT provided by the penguins and carelessly thrown by King JulienA pretty colourful and energetic ride, which i guess the kiddies love. Was alright, but I only rode it once, and I'm struggling to remember all of it, so I guess it perhaps didn't leave a lasting impression.
Back in the NYC section is Lights, Camera, Action
Special effects show akin to Backdraft and Twister, but its all automated, so works more like the effects seen in a dark ride...Pretty fogood. In particular, this is one ride queue where it looks like the park was built 20 years ago...Rusted, bubbling paint, crumbing concrete edges etc.
I'll actually adress that point now. The park is well detailed and themed, but local construction labour resources, and local climate (Causing rapid corrosion and staining of concrete) means that some bits weren't built as well as they should have been.
It's a bit like what Ben was saying about World Joyland with splattered paint and spilled concrete just left from construction. It's not as bad as that, but it is noticeable, and also sometimes stuff like plant equipment wasn't hidden from view properly:
Or conduits that are supposed to be under a slab, but the upper layer of concrete has chipped away.
Just worrying on such a young park. I think the worst looking bit was probably the area immediately around Battlestar, with cheap fencing etc:
Dunno, maybe because I've done a few defects inspections on buildings prior to handover I notice this sort of stuff.
But back to this attraction!
The queue for the ride is just under a big roof behind the NY facades, with various large movie posters suspended from the ceiling.
The queue is split in 3, and enters the first room in parallel, at 3 tiered levels. The first room has Speilberg going on about the wonders of movie effects and the history of sound stages. You then watch a short clip of various well known movie effects (Eg the takeoff in Apollo 13, Frankenstein coming to life in the original film, the flying bikes in ET, The Delorean in BTTF jumping through time and so on.
The next room is configured the same way, inside a New York boat shed, and you are about to film the scene of a Category 5 cyclone.
Very well put together, with the backdrop of city skyline and harbour actually being a projection screen set a fair way back, giving proper depth.
You'll see the water catch fire, boats fall off their ceiling hooks and splash into the water, window panels get blown away, wind, rain, waves on the water, debris crashing through the ceiling, boat chemical cabinets catch fire and heaps more. The Grand finale is a ship crashing through the boathouse doors, and coming a fair way in! The floor drops at the end like on Twister at USF.
For the rest of the day It was a lot of re-riding, thanks to short queues, crowds that don't necessarily do a lot of riding, and SRQ. I was kinda deliberately avoiding Water World (But I gave in and watched in the next day)
I did go and see Shrek 4D, which we had at Movie World...Really just exactly on par with ours, but the preshow room is bigger, and the impressive castle exterior.
The park has a parade at 6, but i killled some time prior by seeing Monsters of Rock in Pantages Hollywood Theatre.
The Show is MCed by an American in a School Uniform, who brings to life 7 classic Universal monsters (Dracula, Frankenstien, Phantom of the Opera, Warewolf, the Bride, a female Mummy), done by having them appear from behind 7 human sized rectangular screens. They perform a few songs, with dialogue and banter between each song. The coreography, lighing, music and pyro were great, but some of them had screechy singing voices (The Bride in particular)
I know I only named 6, but I have NFI who the pink girl is in this pic: http://www.rwsentosa.com/language/en-US ... oodTheater
Worth a look.
I got an evening meal at Mels. It's not a dine in though, rather more like a regular fast food outlet with a counter. I tried the 'Shiok' Burger, a "Uniquley Singaporean Taste"...Beef, tomato, lettuce, bacon, onion rings, avacado....Yeah doing alright so far, until I realised it had chicken floss on it, which I promptly picked off.
The Hollywood Dream Parade time rolled around. Some cool stuff, like a T rex float, a scorpion king float (A single bloke was in it, sticking out waist up), a few tropical Madagascar ones with heaps of people in animal suits and so forth. Lots of general street actors too, like people in 30s style journalist outfits with old style cameras who would dance along and freeze every now and then to all shoot a photo in sync together.
And now I suddenly have to head off, so I'll continue this TR later.
