- Theme park has great potential
- Revenge of the Mummy ride was fantastic!
- Hot weather really puts you down
- Service a few notches above elsewhere in Singapore
- Slow handling of rides resulting in longer queues
- Don't see the point for some attractions
- Opening hours were too short
Overall (1-10, 10 being the best): 7.5
We arrived at the theme park just 10 minutes before 9am. The basement car park was huge - they even had trams to ferry you around the place in case you didn't feel like walking. Taking the escalator up to ground level felt like emerging out of a hole into a whole new world - the contributing factors being the escalator entrance the "hole" in the ground and the ambient music at the park entrance.
The entrance was quite void of guests and most of the ticket counters were shuttered. Perhaps it was because the park was still in its soft opening phase. Nevertheless, I was expecting that because of the thin crowd, we would be able to take all the rides - and more than once at that. Well, I was sorely mistaken - but more on that later.
I made my way to the ticketing booth as I had made my bookings via phone which needed to be exchanged for actual tickets. Apparently, if I had ordered via the website, this would not have been necessary - I could just print out the tickets.
Well, it didn't take much convincing (from my wife) for all 5 of us to upgrade to the annual Fun Pass! I was confused at first: the website had indicated annual Fun Pass holders were entitled to a free ticket before 5 April. I had taken it to mean that after I upgraded to the annual pass, I would receive one additional free ticket. Apparently, the day on which I upgraded was the free day. So, its no different than if I were to upgrade after 5 April, except that I got to enter the park one time before 5 April. Weird.
Now for the park!
... or not. We were informed the annual pass would have to be made inside the park itself. So we made our way to the Guest Services inside the park to queue...
... and was informed after we reached the counter, that we should have queued at the annual pass office instead:
With that overhang, you wouldn't have seen the words "Annual Pass" until you were literally beneath the sign! Talk about bad design.
It seemed that a lot of guests had the same idea as we had, because we spent more than an hour in the queue before we were issued our passes. The counter girl took our photos, made us fill in some forms, and lo and behold!, we were issued our passes.
The annual pass totally blew me away! Because it was the flimsiest, most "we don't really appreciate you" type of annual pass I had ever seen. In fact, the annual pass looked exactly like the one day ticket. Borders issued a much better looking membership card - and they charged me only S$10. For S$318 I had expected a much better quality looking pass than this... this... words fail me. No, I am not about to post a picture. Yes, we did ask if we would be provided a better quality card later. No, we would not be.
The park looked to be quite handily dressed up. Although I felt that Tokyo DisneySea's landscaping was better, Universal Studios Singapore's was still not too bad. Again, similar to Universal Studios Japan, because scenery outside the theme park could be readily observed, it detracted from the immersion we could otherwise have felt. Tokyo Disney Resorts took great pains to hide outside scenery, including having the monorail take a dip to near ground level during its circuit to avoid being seen from inside the park.
We didn't see many costumed cast members around the Hollywood area - only Betty, Frankenstein and Charlie Chaplin. In fact, we didn't see any more costumed cast members after we entered the park proper. It was a great disappointment considering costumed cast members at Tokyo Disney Resorts had way more face time. I wasn't sure whether this was due to the weather or the (lack of) crowd.
There was nary a sign of rain throughout the entire day. In fact, it was so damn (excuse me) hot that I was drenched in sweat the whole day. I certainly didn't appreciate having to queue up - albeit in the shade - for more than half an hour for a disappointing Treasure Hunters ride.
Battlestar Galactica was down. Not that I really missed it as I'm not one for courting heart attacks. What I did miss was the opportunity to photograph my friend screaming as he took the ride.
The first real ride we sat on was "King Julien’s Beach Party-Go-Round" - your run-of-the-mill carousel. We had to drag our kid off the ride after 2 rounds - after which we spent another 10 minutes calming her down with food. One thing which I observed common to all the rides was that the queue took a long time to move. The carousel staff took some time to clear the previous guests, took even more time to check whether the ride was free of guests before finally letting in the next batch of riders. The speed at which the visitors were ushered onto the rides could be mightily improved, comparing to Tokyo Disney Resorts' carousels.
Ah, the castle. The centerpiece of the attraction. The castle looked quite impressive up close. It housed the attraction "Shrek 4-D Adventure". Its one of the few attractions where the queuing area was air-conditioned. The pre-show filler comprised of a (quite obviously) Singaporean cast member who introduced us to the concept of "frogging" - you can do a search on the web to find out what I meant.
(Spoilers) There was a display panel depicting the gingerbread man flopping about on a table in a dungeon setting, and what with the cast member going on about "frogging" and "you prisoners" I had thought the main show was going to take place inside a dungeon. Thankfully, this was not so. The 4D experience was a lot less mild than those in Tokyo Disney Resorts. The seats had a tendency to fling you wildly about while ceiling sprinklers happily rained water down on you. Well, that was a bit exaggerated.
It's quite a nice show - I certainly wouldn't mind queuing up again and again for this attraction, especially since it's air conditioned. Even my kid gave her thumb's up.
Next, we went for the "Donkey Live" attraction.
(Spoilers) This attraction resembled the "Turtle Talk" attraction in Tokyo DisneySea, in that it required some audience participation. Somehow, the crowd wasn't seem quite enthusiastic about it. The CG animated Donkey called up two audience members for public embarrassment, which was quite amusing to audience members (like me) who didn't have to participate. One thing I noted was that the computer driving the CG couldn't quite make the mark, because there were some stutters in the frame rates, and in one instance, Donkey teleported across half a screen. They also tried to localize the attraction, with references made to ERP and Phua Chu Kang. Localization was also applied to some of the other shows such as Monster Rock.
Lunchtime. The burger that came with the meal certainly exceeded my expectations. The size could compare with Carl Juniors'.
For S$8.80, the burger came with the standard fries and drink. Very affordable for theme park fare. I also observed the same burger selling in the Hollywood part of the theme park. Hopefully, the other food outlets will be more varied than this.
We were informed that the park would close at 6pm with the exception of the Hollywood area which would close at 6.30pm. This was not so. We were told later by another staff at the Hollywood area that it would close at 9pm instead. This was after we had bought our dinner for take-away. It seemed that there were some miscommunications amongst the staff. Hopefully, these kinks would be worked out soon.
My friend and I decided to queue for the "Canopy Flyer" ride, while the rest took my kid for the "Dino-Soarin'" ride (a spinning around ride). We waited in the Canopy Flyer ride queue for more than 40 minutes. Meanwhile, my kid had already sat on the Dino-Soarin' ride 4 times.
(Spoilers) The "Canopy Flyer" ride was incredibly short. 53 seconds was what my friend had timed. There were only 2 spots where the G forces were higher than normal due to the centrifugal force when the carriage swung outwards as seen in the picture.
Although the ride was not too bad, it was not good enough to warrant such a long waiting time. The frequency of carriage arrivals was not fast enough to keep the crowd moving, and each carriage could only contain four occupants. My friend and I were unlucky enough to end up on the rear-facing seats, which made the ride less fun than it was.
It was 2pm when we finished the ride, so we rushed off for the Waterworld show.
The show was loud, blinding and wet (for those in the front seats). All in all quite fun, although I preferred Disney Resorts' shows more.
We decided to give the "Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure" ride a miss, as we didn't want to get wet that day.
We couldn't take the heat anymore, and decided to take a break in some air-conditioned venue. We chanced upon a Singapore staple - the Food Court. Yes, there's a Food Court in Universal Studios Singapore, and you would find this there as well:
Yup, the Food Court is that big.
After the break, we left for the "Treasure Hunters" ride, where we queued for 30 minutes (or more). We were misled - the display showed 0 min for the waiting time but it was because the staff was midway changing the display. It showed 30min just as we were walking in. Duh.
Even though we were in the shade, there was no breeze and the ceiling fans weren't helping much with the heat. The antique cars really behaved like antique cars - slow.
(Spoilers) The animatronics was horrible. They could have learnt so much from Tokyo Disneyland's Pirates of the Carribean ride. And since this ride was outdoors, all the flaws of animatronics were exposed.
I will never sit on this ride again - even if all the other rides were to shut down.
After the bad experience, we decided to take the "Revenge of the Mummy" ride, as the queue was only 15 minutes long. And we were glad we did! Its one of the best attractions in the park! I won't add anymore here - go experience it!
It was already 4.30pm when we exited the Mummy ride. With one and a half hours to closure of all the rides, we decided to squeeze in "Lights, Camera, Action" before the last show at the "Pantages Hollywood Theater".
I was hoping to see a mini-cyclone in the middle of the stage, but was disappointed when only the effects of such a hurricane was enacted. Perhaps my expectations were too high.
(Spoilers) Again, explosions and some wet audiences account for the bulk of the show. The tanker crashing into the studio would have made for a memorable experience - if you were standing in the front middle part of the audience - which was coincidentally where you would get wet too.
It was 5pm when we left "Lights, Camera, Action" for the Monster Rock show at the "Pantages Hollywood Theater".
The performance was good, but I didn't really like rock and roll music. The cast performed about 5 or 6 loud numbers. Nothing much else to comment here. Here's one of the naughtier poses:
That about sums the day spent at Universal Studios Singapore. I missed a couple of rides, and all the street shows though. One good thing about this theme park is that you need not have to walk far to get to the next attraction. Sometimes I felt that Tokyo Disney Resorts was just too big - it took forever just walking from one end to the next.
Although it lacks the polish of Tokyo Disney Resorts, there's still lots of potential especially with Madagascar and Transformers coming up. Revenge of the Mummy ride is still my favorite, and would be the main draw for those who can't/don't want to take the Battlestar Galactica ride. Since it has just opened recently the landscaping and rides are totally new. In contrast, some parts of Tokyo Disneyland are already showing their age. Service around the park is definitely a notch above usual Singapore standards though I guess I am too used to the efficient service in Japan theme parks. The opening hours were also too short. They would probably extend the weekend opening hours to 9pm after the official launch, but I hope they would do the same for Fridays as well.
My kid wasn't taking too well to the heat, so we decided to drop plans to visit the park again the next day.
You can find the rest of my photos here:
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| From Universal Studios Singapore |
Thanks for reading, and hopefully I'll visit again soon to put up another update.
