That's completely different. That's an entire park that takes years of redesign and millions of dollars to get it to where it should've been when it opened. This is a roller coaster. Completely unfair comparison. This ride can be fixed with relative ease compared to the overhaul California Adventure needs/ed.
Regardless if it's a park or a coaster, you stated this about gauging success:
Well if we're talking about this, the crowds it has brought Universal is a sign of success.
DCA brought in loads of people, and has since tapered off dramatically. Hence why they are getting the huge overhaul now. But that's a topic for another time, and as I said earlier, it was more of a sarcastic response. The only reason Rockit is bringing in loads of people is because it's new. Once the novelty wears off is where we really can determine if the ride has legs.
Rockit has been plagued with problems since day 1 with everything from budgetary reasons to creative differences. The valleying aspect is definitely a pain in the ass, but until it happens when people are actually on the ride it is not a big deal.
Anywho, back to my point.
Rockit was originally supposed to have 2 different tracks that split off, and all those oversized Hollywood letters. Obviously that has since been changed. Also, Universal's original plan was to have B&M to come in and design the ride but they wouldn't be available until 2011.
Enter: Maurer Sohne.
I think the decision to end up going with them was a good one as the X-Car really works for the ride. However they wanted something that was totally out of Sohne's norm so Sohne definitely had to step up to the plate.
During the construction of the ride, you might recall that the lift hill had some issues that delayed the opening of the ride. During this little issue, Universal wasn't really happy with how everything was playing out. After a small set back between the 2 companies, they eventually worked out their differences and Sohne went back to work.
In the mean time, Universal Creative was planning to use the characters you currently see in the queue as part of their marketing push. Somehow, that plan got lost in translation and we end up with Syd Vinyl. :doh:
Now that we have few backbones to the story, let's fast-forward to now. Techinically speaking, the coaster is in "technical rehearsals". However, in order to cash in with new coaster hype, Universal is advertising it as open. So now, you have a problem where the coaster still has a list of issues (rough cars, missing lift hill banner, no magic carpet, no express) but is being billed as the new, must-see attraction. As you saw with most of the reports we had on here, it left a bad taste in a lot of mouths. Throw in the valleying, and now the coaster gets shut down for the day.
So now you have people traveling to see this new coaster and have a 50/50 shot of it being open.
So, after all this babbling it comes to the point that one does not need to ride an attraction to determine if it is succesful. Riding is just one aspect of an opinion. With what I just listed, it gives plenty of people some information to form their own opinion. Seeing how you haven't ridden the ride, it really doesn't give you that much room to speak either.
Having said that....
I do agree that the ride itself shouldn't be damned this early in it's life. The problem wasn't the coaster, but how Universal was so quick to try to open this without it being 100% ready. If they had waited, I'm sure a lot of reviews would be different.
I've heard and why people constitute it as a failure, it is because of a bad experience on a rough car or in a long line.
Try actually waiting for 120 minutes in the hot humidity of Florida and get on one of the rough cars. You'd be upset too. Those cars are really rough. I've gotten off the ride with a headache that lasted me the whole day, twice.