Thrilling and Intense rides at Universal less and less.

[Jrb1979]

I know I may get some flack for this but it really is a shame that Universal is going toward more a family park like Disney. I only say this cause as good as Hagrid's might be, the fact they took out 2 of the best coasters in the park for a more family friendly one is upsetting. Dragon's Challenge was no where near its end of life. It was an intense and great coaster, with it gone it leaves a hole in the Parks line-up.

Orlando could use more big thrilling coasters. Right now they have the Sea World ones and the Hulk. Its a shame a boy and his wand has so much power over Universal.

 

[TommyJK]

A couple of things.

1. Dragon Challenge from a track perspective was indeed end of life. It was 20+ years old and the track needed full replacement (ala Hulk a couple of years ago). Instead of redoing it they decided to replace it with Hagrid's (which is much more fitting the HP Theme). And even with it's more "tame" build, it's still 48" minimum height requirement so by no means a "family" coaster and all reports have said it's plenty full of thrills with its top speeds over 50 mph, spike and backwards section, and drop track.

2. They are already in the process of building a new Jurassic Park coaster, which is rumored to be the fastest coaster in Orlando with launches and multiple inversions. So full on massive thrill coaster.

 

[skylock]

Have you ever heard give the people what they want?

Universal gets a boat load of money from the potter stuff. They are stealing people away from disney for one day for about $200 per person who will buy anything they can fit the potter related name on.

I have seen whole families wearing robes, carrying wands with big honey dukes bags coming out of three broomsticks.

How much dragon's challenge stuff do you own?

 

[DisneyMom93]

Personally, if we want to go to a park with extreme roller coasters there are local ones we can go to for a fraction of the price of a vacation at Disney or Universal. I like the larger themed "experience" rides on my vacation.

 

[Disxuni]

To be honest, I personally think by what I've seen and heard about Hagrid's coaster, it seems relatively thrilling. People have compared it to Expedition Everest which is considered one of the "thrilling" coasters at Disney's AK. As well as compared to the Mummy, which I think is a fairly adventurous.

The only family aspect I see of this coaster is the fact that they're not intentionally trying to scare young guests while on the ride with the storyline elements and do not have over the top spirals, or 85 foot drops, but they'll drop you 65 feet backwards and drop you 17 feet down to another track.

Besides, Jurassic Park is getting a coaster, which I would imagine hype up the thrill factor and be our "thrilling" DD replacement.

 

[TommyJK]

Personally, if we want to go to a park with extreme roller coasters there are local ones we can go to for a fraction of the price of a vacation at Disney or Universal. I like the larger themed "experience" rides on my vacation.

This too! For pure "coaster porn" experiences I have Canada's Wonderland near where I live that has 6-8 Thrill coasters (depending on your definition of a high thrill coaster) and it costs us a fraction of what a day at Universal costs. One of the rides (Flight Deck) is a basically the same experience as Dragon Challenge (invert with multiple inversions and high speeds)

For Universal I go and pay the premium of the costly vacation to experience unique attractions that I can't get anywhere else. Hagrid's is another new one to add to that list of a ride experience I can't get elsewhere. But almost every regional Six Flags or Cedar Fair park has an invert that gives a nearly identical ride experience as Dragon Challenge did.

 

[CPanther95]

I'll wait to see what the Jurassic Park roller coaster has to offer before I'm ready to declare that Universal is moving away from big thrill rides. I loved Dueling Dragons, but the loss of the dueling aspect and the shoehorning in of a HP theme made it lose a lot of the appeal to me. I'm not a HP guy, but I'm glad they are adding a heavily themed / non-screen / immersive ride into the HP area - it just fits better and makes that area better. Something I hope the JP roller coaster does also.

But I do know you can't look at it as "Dragons was replaced by Hagrid". That only makes sense if you have a much narrower view than what Universal needs to have to keep the parks thriving well into the future. They need to be constantly looking 5-10 years down the road.

... hopefully that means they already knew what would replace Fallon, Furious and Kong before they even opened them.

 

[maverik85]

Personally, if we want to go to a park with extreme roller coasters there are local ones we can go to for a fraction of the price of a vacation at Disney or Universal. I like the larger themed "experience" rides on my vacation.

Feel the same way. Large extreme coasters are a lot harder to theme and immerse you in. While they are a lot of fun, people go to Disney and Universal to get immersed in themed lands. If i want to just go ride a bunch of big coasters I can go to a Cedar Fair or Six Flags type park and ride a bunch of them for about $50 instead o hundreds i spend to go to Universal and Disney.
Also I don't think stuff has really tamed down that greatly. As stated there is a new high intensity Jurassic Park coaster coming and Hagrid's has thrills itself, just nothing as extreme as the Dragons but not a kiddie coaster either. Personally while I loved Dueling Dragons I'd much rather have something that fits in more with the land and theme like Hagrid's.

 

[Jrb1979]

I like theming as much as the next guy. I love coasters like the Mummy. Very high theming and very thrilling. Wish they had more coasters like that. I realize that Harry Potter draws a lot of people in but I still think the park could use another coaster like the Hulk in its line-up.

One coaster I would love the Jurassic Park coaster to be like is Maverick at Cedar Point. For those who haven't been on it, it's a low to the ground coaster that has a launch of 70 mph and a 95° drop of 100 feet. One the best intense coasters around.

 

[leiaorgana]

I'm not here for big coasters so I'm glad they're building different types of rides that I can actually go on. The Mummy is my absolute limit. There's plenty of other places for coasters. I'm a little sad that Sea World are going in that direction now tbh I prefer cohesive theming and storytelling over "thrills" and like pp said they're already adding another big coaster in the Jurassic World/Park section so that'll more than fill the gap that Dragon Challenge left. We get 2 new rides (Hagrid and JW coaster) that the majority of people can enjoy now so how can that be a bad thing?

 

[Jrb1979]

I'm not here for big coasters so I'm glad they're building different types of rides that I can actually go on. The Mummy is my absolute limit. There's plenty of other places for coasters. I'm a little sad that Sea World are going in that direction now tbh I prefer cohesive theming and storytelling over "thrills" and like pp said they're already adding another big coaster in the Jurassic World/Park section so that'll more than fill the gap that Dragon Challenge left. We get 2 new rides (Hagrid and JW coaster) that the majority of people can enjoy now so how can that be a bad thing?

Sea World went to the direction in adding big coasters cause its something the Orlando area doesn't have a lot of. The biggest reason what they were doing before wasn't working in drawing people to Sea World.

I am hopeful that the Jurrasic World coaster will be high thrilling but I have a feeling it will be a lot like Cheetah Hunt as opposed to Maverick at Cedar Point. A 70 mph launch with inversions would a nice addition to Universal.

 

[Disxuni]

I loved Dueling Dragons, but the loss of the dueling aspect and the shoehorning in of a HP theme made it lose a lot of the appeal to me.

The Dueling aspect took a lot of the thrill out of it in my opinion. It was the only coaster that made me actually "scared" for the first time since I was a kid due to the thrill and the wow factor of the dueling aspect. And while I'm a massive Harry Potter fan, the dueling take away, along with them watering down the theming due to them trying to theme it best as possible to as being part of the TriWizard tournament without changing too much at the same time due to the limited budget made it as a shell of a ride in my opinion. The wait time dramatically decreased due to I think all of these reasons, as well as the herd of people who were waiting to get a locker with the minimal amount of lockers they had, since it was now a requirement, not a choice to put all belongings in a locker.

Could they have done the same as Hulk and get a new track and new queue? Of course. However, instead of spending millions of dollars on recreating something, they wanted to take advantage of the moment to do something unique, different, and once again breaks new barriers in theme park technology.