The first time we visited Universal Studios Singapore (USS), it was so hot you could fry eggs on the pavement. So, it seemed fitting that when we visited again today, the rain was pouring so heavily, I was wondering whether we needed to build an Ark.
Luckily, the Hollywood area was sheltered, so it kept the rain out. Well, mostly out. In order to allow air to flow freely under and through the canopy, they had designed it such that there were gaps by the sides. However, in addition to the rain, there was also some wind, and it blew light sprays into the sheltered area. Nothing you couldn't shrug off - except I worried about my camera.
As we walked through the Hollywood area, it suddenly struck me why I had felt that Tokyo Disneyland's (TDL) and Tokyo DisneySea's (TDS) landscaping seemed more impressive. The centrepiece of TDL is Cinderella's Castle, and while walking through World Bazaar, you would have seen the castle right in front of you. For TDS, walking through DisneySea Plaza would put you right opposite the volcano. The impression this can make on guests isn't to be underestimated.
For USS, the other end of the "tunnel" was... a small fountain and a blank side of a wall (presumably from the Revenge of the Mummy attraction). Underwhelming to say the least. The sense of impact just wasn't there. The designers of the park could have done a much better job if they had studied competing parks more thoroughly. Unfortunately, now that the park has been (mostly) completed, it's a bit too late to rectify this issue.
Now, back to the rain. It's a horrible crowd killer. Light rain wouldn't have been that bad, but today's was a torrential downpour. There were small areas flooded with over 1cm of water at, for example, parts of the entrance to King Julien’s Beach Party-Go-Round and Shrek 4D. To their merit, there were cast members helping to shelter guests from the Hollywood area to the New York area.
Well, I should have checked the weather forecast. Next time, I will. Hopefully.
Since we were constrained by the weather, we decided to hang out at the carousel, my kid's favourite spot. Now, that would have been perfectly fine, except that the attraction wasn't designed with sheltered walkways from the exit point(s) of the ride to the entrance! That meant that guests leaving the attraction would have to brave the rain at some point. To mitigate this problem, the cast members allowed guests to use the staff entrance to get back into the queue, or even better, allowed the guests to just stay on the carousel itself for the next round! Well, both of these solutions would have proved to be highly questionable if there was a huge crowd, but luckily that wasn't the case today.
While in the carousel queue, I heard a rumbling noise and some screams. I couldn't believe my eyes, but there it was - people were wearing raincoats (and in fact, some weren't) and taking the Enchanted Airways roller coaster (outdoors) ride! Talk about being hardcore... I thought of taking some shots, but there wasn't a good vantage point where I wouldn't get myself or my camera wet.
We finally got to see Shrek live! It turned out that he would regularly pop up for photoshoots, but the number of people allowed to queue up for each shoot was quite pathetic. The shoot location was in front of the tree trunk in the picture below.
Time time round, we made sure to place ourselves at the outdoor performance areas to catch those performances. We had a glimpse of the Rockefellas. Pretty energetic and acrobatic performances from the team.
After the show, I was busy shooting some buildings, when with my eye pressed against my camera viewfinder, I saw someone's face reflected off my LCD. That couldn't happen unless I had grown another head on top of my shoulder. I turned around and saw Beetlejuice right next to me. Needless to say, my heart nearly tried to exit via my mouth.
We experienced Shrek 4D again, and in the shop experienced some customer service worth mentioning. My wife needed some hot water from a snack counter for my kid's milk. Even though they didn't have any, the staff ran off to another location/shop to get some hot water for my wife. That's dedication you won't find anywhere on the main island! On a side note, I observed this suggestive bust (pardon the pun) decorating the walls of the Shrek 4D shop.
The heavy rain stopped sometime past noon, and not surprising the day was much less hot for it. In fact, it was a quite pleasant afternoon with cloudy skies and acceptable temperature.
Next it was time to head for the Madagascar area for the Central Park Zooapalooza Tour. What that mouthfull meant was that 4 penguins, 1 lion, 1 hippo and 1 foosa would be dancing for your entertainment. When the animals paraded to the performance area, I thought that Alex the Lion (and most of the other animals for that matter) wasn't behaving as much in character as I would have liked. After the performance, they stayed behind for some photoshoots. There was an ugly moment when a guest wanted to take a photo with Gloria, oblivious to the long queue in front of the character. I didn't hear what transpired, except there were some heated words exchanged as the staff tried to get her to queue up.
We also caught the performance at the Kowabanga Cove, before we watched Monster Rock once more.
If you recall, I was pretty annoyed about our flimsy annual passes. While exiting the park, we noticed a poster featuring a credit type plastic card annual Fun Pass! We headed straight for the Annual Pass office to find out whether we would be getting a newer version of our pass. And were told we would be. Now, that was quite unexpected considering we were informed earlier that we wouldn't be. Again, I had to conclude that there was either some miscommunication between the staff, or they had all of a sudden decided flimsy looking annual passes wouldn't do. I'll be looking forward to getting my grubby hands on my new passes soon.
I blogged earlier that the overhang of the Annual Pass office was blocking the words "Annual Pass". The overhang had been taken down, leaving some ugly holes in the walls where it had hung from. Hopefully they were just taking it off for some rework in the design.
We had quite a relaxing day despite the heavy rain. I guess part of it was because we weren't rushing from attraction to attraction, unlike when we were at TDR. The annual pass is very helpful in that respect, as you needn't worry that you were running out of time.
We might be visiting soon again! For now, more pics below, with a link to the gallery.
