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Diagon Alley Soft Opening Watch

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The_Bled said:
Although it is a possible to operate that way, there would be no way they do that. Every major attraction they've opened on the past 6 years had some form of soft opening. Mummy, Disaster, Hogsmeade, Rockit, Despicable Me, Transfomers, etc. It's just the universal operations way. Not only does the president of the resort want to see it operate with guests and get feedback, but soft openings also help weed out the people who don't need to be anymore. More of a "...if you can't take the heat, get out the kitchen scenario." So if people can't handle it or don't like the job, they quit or transfer while the heat is not really on. Imagine just opening to the GP and 4 or 5 of your team just up and quits. Also the fact that if the ride breaks down during soft openings it's pretty much warranted. They're used to get the ride up to 100%. Now, will we see soft openings? Yes. Will we see them everyday? Probably not. Will there be a decent amount of them? I think yes. I'm more concerned about a grand opening date to be honest then a soft opening.
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I hear you, but the rides you listed are incomparable to this project. This is pretty unprecedented in the theme park world, not only in its scope but in how ambitious their deadline has been. Theres also the fact that while you can delay the opening of a single ride to allow for more softs without much consequence, you cant really delay the opening of the parks biggest expansion ever to the same effect. Im guessing that Universal sets a period of days they would like to run soft openings between completion and their target opening date...as the project keeps getting delayed instead of pushing back the opening date (like they could with a less significant project), they start eating up soft opening days. The parks have been dead, people are waiting and Universal is going to lose humongous food/drink and merch sales for every day they're late in opening this sucker. So while I wouldnt be surprised if they do have softs, I can easily see how they would want to skip them, and I have been saying that since a few pages back.
 
Really, what needs softs besides the two rides? They don't need to soft open restaurants, shops or ollivanders. Those are things they do already. Just because the menus or layouts are different does not mean they are different enough to need a lot of practice. So it just comes down to the rides and I don't know that they need a lot of GP practice with those. They can have the TM's practice cycling the rides without people in them. They can do TM previews to get experience with actual people. They can even practice "bad guest" situations with TM's. That won't cover every scenario that the GP can throw at them, but neither will softs. When it comes down to it, I don't know that they really need to soft open.
 
Its a matter of crowd control and seeing how people flow through the land. Yes there are tons of restaurants, and good and stores on the resort. But when phase 1 opened, they didn't expect the 1 hour long line JUST for butterbeer, which is why they had to scramble and get additional spaces to sell it.
 
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I also have to imagine they want to test evac procedures with small groups of real guests. Probably wouldn't want to stop the ride on purpose when there are 3+ hour waits for them.
 
I'm hearing that some Entertainment folks are miffed that the first night of mock service in currently scheduled to conflict with the Woody awards...
I'm betting (small money) on public softs starting 6/7. I have an onsite room booked 6/9-12 just in case. ;-)
 
Skubersky said:
I'm hearing that some Entertainment folks are miffed that the first night of mock service in currently scheduled to conflict with the Woody awards...
I'm betting (small money) on public softs starting 6/7. I have an onsite room booked 6/9-12 just in case. ;-)
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Thanks Seth. Figure Gringotts would be open by then too?
 
GAcoaster said:
June 6th is the date they hope to begin limited soft openings if things stay on track.
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Unless you're getting the same info from the places I've seen, it seems word's out that a late-early June soft is possible. This makes it sound like the June 19th/20th/21st opening is likely and the vacation package dates are to spread guests out past the opening/buffer time.
 
Me and my folks are going to be on the Universal property on June 18-19. We'll be at Disney three days beforehand. I am hoping and praying that I'll at least be able to have a soft then. Please Uni...let me ride this. :pray:
 
Dangit- I have a friend going there this week who I hoped would be able to give me first hand info and pictures... guess I'll just have to wait.
 
So tomorrow is the last day to cancel my Royal Pacific reservations for June 4 - 8. I have to use vacation days before June 30th. Damn you Universal. Say something.
 
UNIrd said:
So tomorrow is the last day to cancel my Royal Pacific reservations for June 4 - 8. I have to use vacation days before June 30th. Damn you Universal. Say something.
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Well if you wanna move it, probably would be better off just taking care of the change now and move it towards the end of June. Would be a safer bet.
 
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