Today we have another great update from Renée this time at Universal Studios Florida with a look at the all new Fallon Attraction, Fast and Furious Supercharged and the awesome looking Mardi Gras parade. Be sure to check out all the fun below!! Written by Renée Girard At Universal Studios, the Mardi Gras celebration is still going on Saturday's concert was Jessie J and people were lined up EARLY (for some odd reason) Stilt walkers are among the entertainment on the streets of Universal Orlando for Mardi Gras The French Quarter Courtyard offers a variety of New Orleans style food and drinks Some work going on at the old Twister building for the upcoming Jimmy Fallon attraction. The parade starts in an hour and I already snagged some beads! One of the many bars for the Mardi Gras celebration Construction walls up around the old Disaster and Beetlejuice attractions for the new Fast & Furious. Creepy statues line the French Quarter area of Universal Orlando for Mardi Gras. Beads, beads, and more beads! The main store at Universal Studios is already selling Kong merchandise The parade is about to start, time for some Jell-O shots! The Mardi Gras parade at Universal Studios is so much fun! All of the parade floats are very elaborate and impressive. The parade performers and costumes are awesome! Of course the crowd loves getting beads! The final float passed by with confetti and more beads. We skipped the concert, but stopped by the new Hello Kitty store on the way out, which is adorable. We got a pretty good amount of beads from the parade. Thanks to Universal Orlando for a great day! Thanks again to Renée and Morgan for another great update from Universal Orlando Resort. We can't wait to see all of the new stuff coming to the park the next few years. Hope you had fun getting all those beads. =) Happy Monday, we hope you all had a great weekend and that you are energized and ready to take on the week (eh, who are we kidding). But we've got some great updates from FL this week courtesy of Renée that will hopefully help the work week go by a bit easier. First up is a great update from Islands of Adventure where we take a look at Reign of Kong and Hulk. Written by Renée Girard Today on the East Coast, we are at Universal Orlando! The transformation of the old NBA restaurant into The Toothsome Chocolate Factory is underway at CityWalk. (You can read about the new addition here) The skyline at Islands of Adventure is complete once again! Skull Island Reign of Kong is nearing completion (For a look at the Reign of Kong ride vehicles and more click here) Hulk coaster is almost back, with some construction still going on at the base. Hulk is looking great! Can't wait to ride it again soon! Drinking a frozen butterbeer at Hogsmeade on the east coast! Thanks again to Renée for another amazing update from FL. Tomorrow we'll be back at Universal Orlando Resort with a trip over to Universal Studios and a look at the new Fallon Attraction, Fast and Furious Supercharged and Mardis Gras. Here we are, the day after the grand opening of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Hollywood. It's been a long strange epic journey and one that we will certainly never forget. So today we bring you what will probably be our last Universal Studios Hollywood update for awhile as we hope we haven't over saturated you with all things Potter. =) Written by Gregg Condon Back at Wizarding World for the grand opening!! Lots of excited fans waiting to get in and be the first Wands at the ready!! Video of the opening, a walk-through of Hogsmeade and an exclusive interview with Arthur Weasley and Luna Lovegood. =) (Note: as a fan of the movies and books I'm ashamed that I couldn't think of Luna's name during the interview ... a testament to how tired I was as she is one of my favorite characters from the series) And they're off!! All of the talent from the films were amazing all week Some of the creative team with the Phelps brothers Inside Hogsmeade on opening day They were filming stuff all morning with Warwick Davis, he is such a cool guy. After he passed us for about the 5th time I asked if he was stalking us. ;) Shortly after opening the line for Forbidden Journey jumped to 3 hours Luna Lovegood and Arthur Weasley Cosplayers. Absolutely perfect. Potter is definitely a family affair ... Wait times in the park at about 9:30am The timed entry program worked to perfection So a few notes about opening day as there was a LOT of online chatter about the crowds, or later in the day, the lack of them. We have to remember that unlike Florida the main audience for Universal Studios Hollywood is locals. This means AP's. This is the same problem that Disneyland has and has had to come to grips with. First issue, only the highest 2 tiers of AP's were available yesterday. Secondly, on Tuesday the park sent out releases to all media outlets (us included) saying that Online Tickets were sold out for the day. What that number was is anybody's guess. But we think the park severely underestimated the amount of people who would show up to buy day-of tickets. The world has changed, most people like to buy things online before they go to a theme park, the movies, etc. The age range of people who would go to Potter on the first day are these people. Third, it was a Thursday, in April, just after Spring Break. Lastly, it's one day. The park is fine, the addition is fine, it's still going to be popular and there are crazy days coming. This is all a learning process for Universal Studios Hollywood. They have NEVER had anything even remotely close to this. And after all the issues with crowds on the first day of Fast and Furious last year it's hard to blame them for playing opening day of Wizarding World a bit conservatively. At the end of the day everybody had an amazing day and it turned into a nice opening for hard-core fans of Potter. We anticipate crowds coming, the timed entry works, they proved that yesterday. So if you do go expect it to be busy. Since we aren't planning on being at the park for awhile we figured we'd take a look around the rest of the park on opening day. The Studio Cafe is now open, looks great. Interesting to note, even though the park opened at 6:30 for many guests, many of the other restaurants in the park had their normal opening times of 10:30 and even 11:00. Again, learning process. Not much going on where Stage 28 was. Ratchet and Clank movie? "You're a Wizard Norman" (H/T to GreatAmericanCoasters on Instagram for that awesome comment) Pretty sure F&F wasn't always green ... right? And one last look at Wizarding World on opening day. Good times. And there it is, with that our coverage of Wizarding World Hollywood's construction and opening has come to an end. Wow. It's been an amazing 2 1/2 years of coverage for us. So many people to thank but we'd be totally remiss if we didn't send a HUGE thanks to Universal Studios Hollywood and their INCREDIBLE PR staff who have earned a few days off after a crazy week of premieres. Thank you all for reading, we hope you've enjoyed all the coverage. |
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