Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit

[Marni1971]

We love the ride. In my opinion it looks fine from all angles, and that's where opinion does not equal fact. Some don't like the look, some do. But opinion is not a reason for calling for heads on a platter.

It certainly still has.... issues.... that need fixing even before last night. And then as HTF said it should continue to be a solid addition to the parks line up for years to come.

Does no one remember Test Track had 18 months of continual problems?

 

[JungleSkip]

Does no one remember Test Track had 18 months of continual problems?

We're on 4 years now, Martin.

As for the "Genreal people like it" excuse, it's a big roller coaster. People are always going to like big roller coasters.

 

[Marni1971]

Indeed. It's had plenty of problems. There again, I went on The Smiler finally last weekend after 7 months of trying.

What I'm trying to say is if someone finds it unattractive this isn't reason to remove it. But also someone who likes it doesn't have a valid reason to keep it. Personally I do hope it stays. Just without the rough ride. And bits falling off. And dodgy track sections. And evac issues. And sensor problems.

Has the LED lighting been fixed on all the cars yet?

 

[Shucker]

Are there some issues with the design, yes. Is it a fun, unique roller coaster, yes. Will there be backlash from this, no. As a matter of fact, this story is posted all over the news outlets (even drudge report). Nobody got hurt and a ton of people who may have never seen UO took a look at it today. I think it would have been better if UO gave them something special to turn it into a "look how lucky those people were" story.

 

[Disneyhead]

I really am the only one who really likes this coaster For me its probably the funnest coaster ride in the Universal Parks and has slowly climbed the ladder and is surpassing the Hulk as my favorite one on property.

I too really like it. I even like the way it looks. AND I don't care that it goes into the NYC set. I like the kinetic energy it brings to the park. And I am particularly glad that it's NOT a B&M. Orlando is already B&M heavy.
But I do wish they would update the music choices.

 

[Hockeyman55]

I too really like it. I even like the way it looks. AND I don't care that it goes into the NYC set. I like the kinetic energy it brings to the park. And I am particularly glad that it's NOT a B&M. Orlando is already B&M heavy.
But I do wish they would update the music choices.

This right here! What I love most about it is it a very unique coaster with some unique elements as well as some pretty decent airtime. Going up that lift hill makes me nervous (not in a scared something will happen way) every time and I love the feeling, been a long time since Ive been on a coaster and had that nervous feeling

 

[adjjb]

Since they started the ride up first thing today when the park opened like nothing happened at all, I don't think they're in a rush to shut it down or remove it.

 

[Nitro_230]

The general public loves Shrek. The general public loves Monsters Inc Laugh Floor.

You know what else I'm sure the general public loves to hear about? people being stuck on coasters for hours on end!

First, what HTF says below. Second I don't really think people like Monsters Inc Laugh Floor.

Rockit scores very well Skip, relax no need to take it personal just stating the info as is and thats all.

The guests who are there for a week and drop a grand or two like it. In the end that's what matters.

And mainejeff you can laugh at my statement about the loss of capacity in the park, but every venue has an affect on the capacity of the park, if they didn't they wouldn't be built. Even the closure of Horror Makeup or Twister would negativity impact the overall capacity of the park even though they are small venues. Each thing you remove puts more people in the streets (making it more crowded, less appealing and lowering the overall capacity) and when you reduce the number of things to do you reduce the chances of getting a second day out of people.

 

[Lucky Planet]

the weird thing for me with this ride and what happened yesterday is that sometime around July I had a dream I was at universal, and in the dream I would ride Rock it and i would fall from it to the ground.... I even remember falling to the floor, it was pretty creepy.

Of course nothing like that happened, but seeing the ride stuck gave me a weird creepy feeling because it reminded me of the dream, which I had forgotten about.

 

[KRAKENvsMANTA]

This issue sucks, but Rockit is still the funnest coaster at UOR in my opinion. It gets a lot of hate, but at the end of the day, it's still one of the most popular rides at the park.

I do wonder how this affects Rockit's extended refurb downtime that was rumored for early next year, if at all.

 

[batsmouth]

I really like Rockit one of my favourite coasters in Orlando, but I've not heard about this until this afternoon on the drive home from work - listening to a Local Belfast radio station and it was on the news :stunned: Bit shocked, maybe the mouse sponsors the station

 

[Felipe]

I really am the only one who really likes this coaster For me its probably the funnest coaster ride in the Universal Parks and has slowly climbed the ladder and is surpassing the Hulk as my favorite one on property.

When you get a good, smooth ride it's fun. But it's so inconsistent and I've gotten more rough than normal rides (and that's beside all the problems we've heard about). But even if I consider all of UOR's coasters at their best, Rockit is still not my favorite. I enjoy Hulk and Dragons more as coasters, and maybe even Mummy too, but Mummy being a hybrid, it's not a fair comparison. I will give you that I'd prefer a smooth Rockit over Woody Woodpecker or Hippogriff, though


As for the GP appeal, I do get it. I've had many experiences, most recently when some family friends came from over seas, and one of their kids kept constantly asking if and when we were gonna go ride the "Hard Rock" coaster It's appealing in many ways. You see it before entering the park and it calls to you, the LEDs, the interactivity and the opportunity of riding to a song of your choice. It all sounds great, until you ride it and you get banged and shaken around pretty badly. We did not have the most horrible ride with them, but the dad and the two kids still came off it and mentioned how they liked it but it was pretty scary. On another occasion, I was with my cousin at the parks and he wanted to ride it like 7 straight times. Some were smooth, some were not. But being the big coaster at the Studios, coaster fans wanna do it.

If you think about it, the concept of Rockit has many things that make it super appealing to the casual visitor or the hardcore theme park geek... if only it was engineered and built well... It's the only outdoor coaster in this park, it's one of only two big coasters in the park, the interactivity, the music, etc.

With the amount of profit and investment capital that COMCAST is working with nowadays, and how much they want to put into the parks, I would cut my losses and get rid of it. It might even be possible to count it as a loss or whatever for their taxes. Anyways, I would do it in the least damaging way possible, maybe even build another big outdoor coaster in the MiB/Simpsons plot first, and then take Rockit down, with a solid replacement plan ready to go in, continuing their aggressive but smart building plans. That way they wouldn't lose that type of ride and the guests would not be as upset. This hypothetical coaster in the MiB/Simpsons plot could even be tied into Krustyland pretty well, if they don't have another IP that they could work in and get more merch sales out of.

 

[IzzyB]

This right here! What I love most about it is it a very unique coaster with some unique elements as well as some pretty decent airtime. Going up that lift hill makes me nervous (not in a scared something will happen way) every time and I love the feeling, been a long time since Ive been on a coaster and had that nervous feeling

I agree. The first time I rode it was after all the bad reviews here and I was shocked how good it was and the great airtime you get. I personally have no issues with it. I do agree it needs to be smoother and hopefully their fix works.

 

[Paul9251]

I don't get how this is national news. No one was hurt, just inconvenienced for 45 minutes. I'd say that's the power of Universal these days.

I thought people were stuck for five hours. At least that's what my local news here in Rhode Island said. Then I read on Orlando Sentinel people were stuck for 3 hours.

 

[IzzyB]

I thought people were stuck for five hours. At least that's what my local news here in Rhode Island said. Then I read on Orlando Sentinel people were stuck for 3 hours.

It was between 2 and 3 hours. They got stuck somewhere between 6:30 and 7 according to reports and they got off a little after 9.

 

[Enbee]

Tearing down the ride right now isn't practical or quite logical. And leaving an unused coaster to stand there would be even worse. But that doesn't mean Uni shouldn't be thinking and talking about its future.

The energy it brings to the front of the park is nice. At night it is pretty cool to look at. The ride can be really fun, but more often than not it isn't. I don't know how people enjoy it more than Hulk and Dragons, however that's besides the point. If we could rewind time, would anyone here advise Uni to go ahead with building this attraction?

 

[DragonSlayer]

It's strange how some rides really seem to just be struck by a curse and can't shake it off (Smiler, looking at you...). For something relatively commonplace in coaster terms like this to happen right on top of everything else in recent months really is unfortunate.

I have to ask though, don't they have a better procedure in place for high-level evac? All of Gerstlauer's Eurofighters with a vertical lift have an evac vehicle attached to the side of the lift hill tower, and they can be evacuated with a car fully at 90 degrees, no problem. Having to get the fire dept in seems unnecessarily long-winded; I'm surprised if Maurer don't have a more effective procedure for their rides like Gerst.

 

[Teebin]

Wait wait wait... Isn't a train supposed to go through the first break run before they release another train from the station? If so, then why was there a train stuck on both the first break run and one about to go over the top? Do they push it that close?

 

[Enbee]

The line is always twice the wait of everything else in the park, and I'm pretty sure that doesn't have much to do with popularity. They were always running at least one empty train when I was there last month. Capacity has been awful, so maybe they are pushing that close.

 

[Spideyfreak]

Wait wait wait... Isn't a train supposed to go through the first break run before they release another train from the station? If so, then why was there a train stuck on both the first break run and one about to go over the top? Do they push it that close?

In theory, one can be on the lift and another can be in the first gravity block. If they really wanted to, they could push it that close, yes. Now if one hit the top of the lift before the next one cleared the first block, a few things could happen: Lift Stop, Ride Stop, or E-Stop. I have no idea how that ride system is supposed to react, or how it normally operates (mostly because I don't give a crap out this pile of junk). I do believe that the intervals are set as the RVs are entering the station.