USS Revisited

This year is really the year of theme park for us. After Legoland Malaysia in June & August, and HK Disneyland in September, today we visited Universal Studio. It was our 3rd visit to USS, but the 2nd to enjoy the rides as we went in the first time only to see the fire works on Hollywood After Hours.

The trip was organized by our GRC. We saw the posters everywhere, and enticed by the price we decided to join the fun. It's $35 per ticket, inclusive of $5 meal voucher, $5 retail voucher and return bus ride. The park was usually closed by 7pm, but it was open today until 11.30pm for the special event.

We went to the RC for the bus pick up at 5.30pm. At that time it started pouring, with dark sky and some occasional thunders. The bus was slightly late but the driver was considerate enough to let us board from the sheltered area. We went into USS around 7pm, due to the long queue for the buses at alighting point.

We proceeded right away to Transformers The Ride. Even then, it had snaking queue already although it wasn't exactly visible right away as they separated the queue area into several segments. We spent about 45 minutes queuing, took a seat on the car, put on our glasses - only to be stopped just before the fun started. They experienced some technical issues so we went through the ride with minimum movements, movies were playing but muted. The staff distributed express pass for us to make up for the disappointing experience, which we gladly used when we came back after having a quick dinner. The second time round it was a blast. We breezed through the queue - even the single rider queue was really long - and people were curious how we managed to get an express pass.

There was a water show in the WaterWorld at 10pm, but we decided not to go there and took some other rides instead: Treasure Hunters, Revenge of the Mummy, and Madagascar: A Crate Adventure.

Luckily the rain did not last too long. And visiting a theme park in the evening was much more enjoyable as temperature was more tolerable. The only drawback was the minimum photos that we took.

At the end of the visit, everyone gathered at the USS entrance to find the right queue for the bus. The The RC people did a great job managing everything, the distribution of tickets, giving out information, and especially the transport. The sheer number of people attending (around 8000 pax) alone proved that it's a no mean feat.