Welcome To Screamscape!

----    THE LATEST BUZZ    ----
    (5/14/12) A new construction update showing off Marine Life Park near Universal Studios Singapore has been posted to a Theme Park Guy Construction Board.
    (4/30/12) Dejiki has a new report this week from Universal Studios Singapore, showing off a set of new water cannons installed along the Jurassic Park River Rapids.
    (4/20/12) A new photo update showcasing the latest changes and adjustments that have been made to Universal’s Hollywood Dreams parade has been posted to Dejiki.com.
    (4/19/12) Dejiki is back again with a new update from Resorts World Sentosa, this time focusing on the new Marine Life Park under construction. (MORE...)

Ride Rehabs - The following information is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate.
Nothing is reported as being closed at this time...

General Resort News - (4/30/12) Dejiki has a new report this week from Universal Studios Singapore, showing off a set of new water cannons installed along the Jurassic Park River Rapids.
    (4/20/12) A new photo update showcasing the latest changes and adjustments that have been made to Universal’s Hollywood Dreams parade has been posted to Dejiki.com.
    (3/20/12) Theme Park Review has posted a nice video showcasing both sides of the Battlestar Galactia coaster this week, featuring both on and off ride camera views.

    (3/15/12) Dejiki is back with a shocking report from Universal Studios Singapore this week. In a very surprising move, it seems the park has begun the work on changing the restraints used on the “Human” side of the Battlestar Galactica coaster from the former simple lap-bar only design to use the same Vekoma soft vest style chest and shoulder restraint padding that is used on the Cyclon (inverted) side of the coaster.
    According to Dejiki, only one train on the Human side has been modified so far, as well as the test seat out front. Work is apparently taking place to modify the second train currently. When questioned about the change, no one on the staff was willing to comment, though frequent riders are already upset about the loss of upper body freedom and the open air flight feeling that has now been lost. Admittedly, it does seem overkill to put the OTS restraints onto a coaster that does not perform any inversions at all.
    (2/27/12) A rather large photo update showcasing virtually all aspects of Universal Studios Singapore can be found posted to Parkz.com this week featuring well over 350 pictures.
    (1/23/12) Dejiki is back with a great new update showing off all the new changes and upgrades that have been added to the newly reopened Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure ride. In addition to minor tweaks, some new effects and dino location changes, the biggest technical improvement has seen the addition of a second elevator system and drop flume, allowing for a much higher hourly capacity than before. Some great official themed JP Drying Pods have also been added near the ride. I love the little touches they’ve added here like the JP and InGen logos on the pods, and a funny sticker on the side about how the pods do not provide “adequate shelter” in the case of a Dinosaur attack.
    In closing, it’s nice to see Universal Studios Singapore finally enter a period of time where everything they talked about so many years ago is now finally open and every major attraction (including Transformers) is up and running at full tilt. That said… I’ve heard from a few little birds that more new attractions are on the way in the near future. Stay tuned!
    (1/20/12) According to a Tweet sent in by Dejiki, the Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure ride will reopen today after being closed for the past several months for improvements. I can’t wait to see what’s changed.
    (1/4/12) A video showing off the entire Hollywood Dreams Parade has been posted to YouTube and has been embedded below. Enjoy.

    (1/2/12) Dejiki is back again with a new huge photo update from Universal Studios Singapore, this time checking out the new Hollywood Dreams Parade as seen on New Years Eve.  The parade appears to have quite an impressive Jurassic Park float, complete will a fully animated T-Rex that lunges at the guests.
    (11/22/11) Universal Studios Singapore will soon put on a parade called Hollywood Dreams. According to this article the 30 minute parade will feature detailed floats, special effects, dancers, music and lots of your favorite characters. It will perform once a day on Friday, Saturday and select holidays and will run through five of the parks lands.
    (11/8/11) Resorts World Sentosa, home to Universal Studios Singapore, will be transformed for the Christmas holiday season to become one of Asia’s largest Yuletide holiday destinations. The 49-hectare resort will be covered from the waterfront to the Festivewalk dining strip with nearly a quarter million LED holiday lights, arches, roving characters and the region’s tallest Christmas tree standing 38 meters tall.
    (10/24/11) Dejiki has posted a great trip report from the first Halloween Horror Nights event at Universal Studios Singapore. Check it out.
    (10/21/11) Universal Studios Singapore has sent out a preview video (see below) showing off just a teaser of what you can expect from the park’s first ever Halloween Horror Nights. They have also posted a more detailed list of the event’s six scare zones (with pictures) on the Resorts World Blog. The six zones will include: Carn-Evil, Vengeance of the Matriarch, Post Apocalyptic Rage, Pestilence, The Void and The Edge of Darkness. Some pictures of the props set up in the park already can be found at Dejiki.com.
    I’ve also posted one more video for you, showing off the official TV ad for Halloween Horror Nights, featuring the international debut of The Director, always out looking for new talent. 


    (10/12/11) I did a little checking with Universal Studios Singapore regarding the status of the Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure. While they did not give me a date as to when the ride is expected to reopen, they did confirm that in addition to the normal annual maintenance work you would expect to see, they are also adding ‘an additional lift system that will greatly increase its daily capacity.” 
    From what I understand about the ride, it featured an elevator style lift system near the very end of the ride, so upgrading this to some kind of double elevator platform system would really increase the ride’s capacity.
    (8/26/11) Universal Singapore made another big announcement earlier today, that the park will soon become home to it’s own version of Halloween Horror Nights. An old HHN friend will also be headlining as the Icon for the first ever HHN in Singapore… The Director. As before the sadistic filmmaking thriving on being at ‘cutting edge’ of his craft, filming his tortured subjects to capture their best and final performance.
    The event will have several scare zones, and two haunted houses to experience, one of which has been built inside one of the park’s soundstages. HHN Singapore will run for a total of 7 nights over a two week period: October 21-23 and 27-30, from 8pm to Midnight. As with all the other HHN events, this will be a separate ticket event not included with regular theme park admission, though special “upgrade” offers will be made to the daytime guests who want to stay on and experience Halloween Horror Nights.

Late 2011 - Transformers - (12/7/11) Universal Studios Singapore has sent us a link to a new video clip showcasing footage from the big grand opening celebration event for Transformers: The Ride, held on December 3rd, featuring Michael Bay, and even a report from our friend Stefan! Great stuff!!

    (12/5/11) Transformers: The Ride is now officially open, and I asked the TheThemeParkGuy to cover the ride for Screamscape and give us his honest opinion. For starters, he sent in a great POV video showing off the entire massive themed queue for Transformers. Massive may be an understatment… because it looks like you could spent a few hours in there if it was completely full. Thankfully there is a lot to look at and plenty of fun videos to watch along the way. Now lets see what Stefan thinks of the ride:
    “If you've experienced Spiderman and you ride Transformers the first time, you may be disappointed. Transformers is not a revolution, it's an evolution of the innovative and brilliant 1999 hit ride. It’s more like Spiderman 1.5.
    That's how I felt after the first ride.
    But something happened when I rode it over and over again: I started to get addicted and felt like it was getting better and better the more I experienced it. Why is that? I stopped expecting something totally new and experimental, I stopped comparing it to the Spiderman ride, let go and just absorbed it the way it is. And it's a hell of a brilliant ride, with endless-appearing curved giant screens, a floor change carried out so ingeniously that you won't notice it and ride vehicle movements matching the action on the screens timed to the split second. Highlights include a road appearing on the screen on which you all of a sudden seem to be driving - you literally get sucked into the screen; being pulled through an office building; jumping over robots, between skyscrapers and at the end, dropping over the edge. The only weakness of the ride is the lack of atmospheric settings between the screens and the total absence of animatronics. Yet I would call it, together with Disney Sea's Journey to the Center of the Earth, the best ride in the world to date.”
    Stefan’s review makes a lot of sense with everything I’ve been hearing about the ride experience, and it now makes sense why I heard from day 1 that we would likely never see a Transformers ride installed in Orlando as long as Spiderman was still up and running. Transformers seems to borrow a few too many iconic and “Wow!” moments from the Spiderman attraction, and incorporating them into it’s own unique experience. This isn’t a bad thing… as every report says that Transformers is a simply awesome experience, top to bottom, and the crowds are loving every second of it in Singapore, and I expect the reaction from the Hollywood park will be the same as well.
   Speaking of the ride experience, I figured it wouldn’t take long for a full POV video of the ride experience to surface, and I’ve embedded one that surfaced on YouTube below the queue video. It’s a full video…SPOILERS and ALL, so you’ve been warned. There is one section of the ride that is dark where one of the screens malfunctioned during this particular ride through, but you get a great idea of how amazing the ride experience is.


    (12/2/11) Our friend The Theme Park Guy had arrived in Singapore for the opening of Transformers: The Ride a little early, only to discover that the ride is pretty much running full tilt for all park guests all day long. He sent in a nice collection of preview photos (see sidebar) to Screamscape showing off the ride queue and EVAC car. I’ve asked Stefan to provide us with his own review of the ride and cover the grand opening for Screamscape as well, so look for a special Transformers update to be added in about 24 hours or, once they finish the media event and have the official grand opening event.
    Meanwhile our friend Dejiki has posted footage from yet another Transformers pre-show video briefing. He has also posted new photo reviews of the Starbot Café with a list of Menu items as well.
    (12/1/11) According to this news report, Hasbro is working on creating an official EVAC Transformers toy.
    (11/28/11) Lots of new Transformer goodness has leaked out of Singapore over the past several days. For starters, one of the pre-show queue videos has been posted to YouTube this week by our pal Dejiki, who has also posted an audio recording of the on-ride audio experience as well… so consider this your SPOILER ALERT before you follow the link to listen in.
    Want more? A second video showing off much of the queue experience has been uploaded to YouTube by the Sentosa Theme Park Blog who also takes you through the gift shop and new restaurant as well. Then you can also find some new in-ride footage clips shown as part of a local news report video as well, such as getting sucked into Devastator’s vortex.



    (11/23/11) Another video show inside the NEST facility, shot by the official Transformers: The Ride Blog, has been posted online.

    (11/22/11) Dejiki is back with an awesome update from this own experience through Transformers: The Ride. It’s full of spoilers… so I’ll leave them there for you to discover when your ready, but what you also need to know is that in addition to official Passholder Preview sessions on November 25-26, the ride is also said to be open for limited “Technical Rehearsal” runs between now and opening day, so if you visit, you just might get lucky.
    Meanwhile, you can also watch some of the pre-show ride videos clips as well as see video of the preshow rooms, and even a glimpse of the EVAC, in this report shot by the local news.

    (11/18/11) Want a sneak peek at the Transformers ride? Check out pictures and a report taken from someone who was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at the Singapore version of the ride, and posted it all to a Transformers fan site.
    There is a full description of the ride scenes as well, so consider this your SPOILER ALERT before you make the jump and find out what’s in store for us all very soon.
    (10/21/08) The big news today from Universal Studios and Resorts World at Sentosa was the unveiling of the plans to build a major theme park mega-attraction based on the Transformers film series that will open first at the new Universal Studios Singapore theme park, to be followed by a copy at Universal Studios Hollywood. While there are no solid details about the exact ride system itself, I’ve got to wonder if this may be the next evolution use of the ride system used on the award-winning Spiderman dark rides in Orlando and Japan. Certainly the omission of those two popular markets for the attraction does raise an eyebrow, though Orlando currently has it’s hands full with Harry Potter. Still... if there was any other movie theme that would really warrant the use of the Spiderman ride system, Tranformers would be it, allowing for a mix of real in your face special effects mixed with giant 3D projection technology to bring the giant battle-bots to life.
    Now for some quotes from the press release as well as an impressive piece of concept artwork.
    “The attraction will fuse 3D-HD media, mega special effects and stunning robotics with a ride system that will transform perceptions of theme park experiences. The rides are scheduled to make their debuts first at Universal Studios Singapore and then at Universal Studios Hollywood, both prior to summer, 2011.”
    In "Transformers," Earth’s humans are caught in the middle of an intergalactic war between the friendly Autobots and the evil Decepticons, which are able to change into a variety of objects, including cars, trucks, planes and other technological creations.
    Tom Williams, Chairman and CEO, Universal Parks & Resorts, said: "Transformers will be a jewel in our collection of world-class rides based on great movies. We’re thrilled to be collaborating with Hasbro, DreamWorks, director Michael Bay and the film’s executive producer, Steven Spielberg, who has been responsible for so many of our signature rides and attractions."
    Tan Hee Teck, Chief Executive Officer of Resorts World at Sentosa, the mega resort that is home to Universal Studios Singapore, said: "It is great that Asia will be the launch pad for the first Transformers attraction. Transformers was introduced to the United States in 1983 but traces its roots to Asia. Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Megatron are familiar names to Asian audiences, who grew up with the robot toys and love the movie. When Transformers opens in Universal Studios Singapore in 2011, it will be the first of its kind in the world. We may see a surge of Transformers mania.’’
    Larry Kurzweil, President and Chief Operating Officer, Universal Studios Hollywood, said: “Transformers represents a perfect match for our theme park: an exhilarating blockbuster with a great story, clever humor, non-stop action and flawless special effects. It has all the elements necessary to become one of the world’s most exciting theme park rides and a centerpiece attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood, The Entertainment Capital of L.A." 

Late 2011 to 2012 - Resorts World Sentosa Phase 2 - Under Construction - (5/14/12) A new construction update showing off Marine Life Park near Universal Studios Singapore has been posted to a Theme Park Guy Construction Board.
    (4/19/12) Dejiki is back again with a new update from Resorts World Sentosa, this time focusing on the new Marine Life Park under construction.
    (12/27/11) A few new pictures of the Equarius Water Park under construction near to Universal Studios Singapore have been posted to TheThemeParkGuy this week. Check it out!
    (10/10/11) A detailed trip report through the new Maritime Experiential Museum & Aquarium can be found here, including a good description of the interesting effects you’ll find in the Typhoon Theater attraction.
    (9/12/11) The Theme Park Guy dropped into Resorts World Sentosa and took some pictures of the new Equarius Water Park under construction.
    (9/6/11) According to BlooLoop, the Maritime Experiential Museum & Aquarium attraction at Resorts World Sentosa will be ready to open on October 15th.  In addition to the more traditional museum style displays, there will also be a rather cutting edge attraction called the Typhoon Theater. This 150-seat 360-degree multimedia theater will take guests on a perilous sea voyage aboard a sailing ship that encounters a storm. The effects you will encounter here are said to be quite stunning, and while I don’t want to give the secrets away, this is not just another 4D theater, but rather something entirely unique that will immerse you in the experience.
    (5/28/11) Resorts World Sentosa has announced that they are on track to open Phase 2 of the resort, which will include a Maritime Museum, an Aquarium and a marine life park. The first to open will be the Maritime Museum opening in the 3rd Quarter, followed by the Marine Life Park in mid-2012. Equarius, the fifth hotel, has also completed it’s structure and is moving right along.

Late 2013 - 3 New Attractions and Resort Expansion - Planning - (2/7/12) I’m happy to report that the rumor mill is grinding full crank, squeezing out all kinds of juicy tidbits regarding the next ride project on the way to Universal Studios Singapore. From what I’m hearing the park is considering adding another dark ride to the park… one for the family guests however, that will feature a suspended ride system very similar in concept to the one used on the E.T. rides. While this all sounds good so far, I’m a little less than thrilled about the theme chosen… as it looks like they’ve locked on to a concept involving Elmo from Sesame Street.
    I’m really not sure how popular Elmo is in Singapore… though the Sesame Street characters are popular at Universal Studios Japan and were intended to go into the old Universal Studios Dubailand park as well. Honestly, if you go back and look at the promotional model they put on display when Universal Singapore was first announced, you’ll see a couple of Sesame Street characters in the model as well, so Sesame Street has been on their mind for some time it seems.
    That said... a previous statement from Resorts World indicated that three new attractions would be on the way to the park for 2013, two of which would be unique to the Singapore park. With new kiddie Sesame themed attractions on the way to Japan, I’m betting we could see a Sesame themed flat ride or two also installed as well to go with the dark ride.
    (9/12/11) I’ve posted a map image showing off the location of the still closed Stage 28 building as well as it’s size and location compared to the park’s other major attractions, including the Transformers building. According to Wikipedia, Stage 28 was listed to be a walkthrough attraction through a soundstage full of props and items from various Universal films from over the years.
    (9/6/11) I’ve heard a quiet rumor suggesting that Universal Singapore may be eyeballing the yet-to-open Soundstage 28 building near the front of the park as a possible home for a Simpsons ride. I’m not sure if this would be the same giant screen simulator style ride that we’ve seen in the US parks, or something else entirely, or if this is just wild talk. I know The Simpsons as branded characters were not deemed popular enough to bring to the Universal park in Japan, but according to our source The Simpsons are apparently bettern known in Singapore, ranking up there with the Family Guy and South Park characters. Anyone know more about what’s inside the Soundstage 28 building and if it is even big enough to support a copy of The Simpsons ride system?
    (5/28/11) Resorts World Sentosa is projecting that Universal Studios Singpore will have up to 4 million visitors this next year, which will be boosted by the new Madagascar: A Crate Adventure as well as the confirmed opening of the Transformers ride in late 2011. They have also confirmed that three more brand new attractions for the park are on the way and will open in 2013. Details were not given, but they did confirm that two of the three attractions will be unique attractions to the Singapore park, which of course means that the third will be a copy of an attraction from one of the other existing parks. Any informed guesses out there as to what could be in the pipeline?