Hollywood Ripride Rockit still closed

[Chitown]

Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket which is only a year old has been closed for a month and the park isn't saying why.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business ... 2183.story

[monsterfan99]

I was in guest relations 2-3 weeks ago for something else and they said to guest "it is annual maintenance on the ride." When asked when it would run again, people were told "it could open in a few days or a few months, we don't know." The simple fact they are lying to the public and press says something about Universal as a park.

This ride is beyond a joke. The ride has never used Express, the moving platforms took months to turn then don't work most of the time, they have already replaced a train and it's capacity is half of what it should be. Even worse, it opened 4 plus months after it was advertised as opening. This is my vote for worst addition to any park in US.

[ragingbull1331]

I was so excited to try to ride this last winter but since there was no express line and a 3 hour line, I said no way! If I go back again this winter break I hope its opened so I can ride it before it possibly gets torn down...

[Luxornv]

According to another forum I frequent, there were fatigue issues with the X-Car on another coaster and they shut this down as a precaution. At least that's what everyone else was told. Fatigue takes time to set in, and this ride, even if it had been running continuously, isn't even old enough to be fatigued to the point of failure. It's really unfortunate what happened with this ride. I was lucky enough to be able to ride it when I was there last August, and I thought it was an amazing ride. i hope they do get it fixed, but it's seeming like they may not be able to fix it at all and it may be scrapped. That's only been a very small rumor so far with a basis on Screamscape. However, with all that has happened, it wouldn't be too surprising.

[monsterfan99]

^Universal has said it is not stress on the cars. On top of that, there have been markers in and around the ride along with people working on the track each time I head over there. I'm still 100% in the camp that the track has stress fractures.

[BP317]

When Rockit opened I gave it 3 years, now i'm starting to doubt it lasting that long. If any more major issues arise after this one is fixed it doesn't seem worth dishing out the big money for such a crappy ride. Anyone remember Rocket Rods?

[monsterfan99]

According to the Universal Twitter and my friend who was just there, the ride is running again. I'll be there tomorrow to give it a try while waiting to meet Tony Stewart.

[monsterfan99]

I finally rode this again today and it was worse than opening weekend. The ride shakes no other, the capacity is crap due to Universal's awful operations and worst of all the audio is broken. Even in the last week, the ride has went down every day but one. Today alone it was open for 2 hours then down for 5 then open one. It's a bad sign when the best part of the ride was my friend playing Windows Solitaire on his broken music selection screen.

[Coaster Justin]

I wonder why Universal didn't just go with B&M or Intamin to build the Coaster.

[monsterfan99]

^$$$

[Danhockey04]

I've rode it twice since reopening, first time was as bad as before closing and second time was actually smooth and I was surprised. Though still not a good ride, but it was smooth and Night on Bald Mountain makes the ride much better.

[BP317]

I rode it a couple days ago and it was rough as hell in row 3 and the music didn't work in my seat. There's no reason for a ride like that to be so bumpy, the wheel bogies are poorly designed and need work. For a ride that does a lot of jerking around the wheel assembly's are not designed to be shock resistant (brilliant engineering on Maurer Sohne's part). Another major problem it seems to be having also is their loose item policy where they don't allow you to ride with anything in your hands. That does not work well with the moving floor. I caused it to stop in the station because I was holding my keys and they told me to put it in my pocket, but I couldnt reach my pocket because the lapbar covers the whole torso so they stopped the moving floor and everything got screwed up (thats a dumb policy anyway for various reasons).

Anybody who is familiar with omnimovers knows that they are constantly having to slow down or stop to load people with disabilities. With most rides it doesn't make too much of a difference because the entire belt is filled with cars so the ride will still be maximizing capacity. On a roller coaster with legitimate trains it makes no sense at all to have an omni-mover setup because when you have to load a guest with disability (or more specifically in Rockits case, loose item or seat problems) you have to stop everything and can't send any trains. The capacity would have been better using a normal station double load/switch track, at least that way they could still send trains if one is having a slowdown.

[Ilovthevu']

I wonder why Universal didn't just go with B&M or Intamin to build the Coaster.

Intamin always has major problems with their coasters. Those aren't reliable to get. I'm surprised they have survived this long.

[ragingbull1331]

I want to go to Universal this Winter Break. Do you think that Ripride Rockit will be taken down then or will they keep it up for a longer period of time?

[monsterfan99]

^Depends on the day. There is no guarantee it will work or the audio will work. No matter what you do, run there first thing when the park opens. The line will get to be an hour and stay there within minutes. The ride has no Universal Express still and the single riders is a joke. Half the employees refuse to use it as it involves counting.