My family went to Los Angeles last week to visit some friends and give the kiddo the gift of Universal Hollywood. When I was a kiddo, all I knew was the studio tour (with “Jaws” being my favorite part), but today there’s an amusement park with rides, entertainment, and overpriced food and tchotchkes. There’s also a new roller coaster based on the “Fast & Furious” franchise called Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift.
Admittedly, I haven’t seen the original in its entirety (if at all, and the sequels have captured even less of my interest), but I’m always up for a roller coaster ride. So is my wife, but it’s difficult to handle wild rides with a seven-year-old. Luckily, Universal Hollywood has created a method to allow parents to swap while waiting with a son or daughter.
The indicated wait in line was anything between 50 to 90 minutes, but the Universal Hollywood app allows you to keep tabs on the time so you can start filing when the wait is acceptable to you. Additionally, there were three lines: general, Universal Express (for the well-heeled who don’t want to wait in line so long), and Single Rider. I went in the latter because I imagined it was faster than the general admission, and I ended up being correct.
What makes this roller coaster special is that the cars rotate from their respective platforms, giving the illusion of drifting. While it may come off as a gimmick, it does add an element to the experience because we generally are used to facing the direction of the coaster; arcing in a different direction from the movement of the coaster is a novel experience.
There are four cars from the movie that are replicated for this roller coaster: a 1970 Dodge Charger R/T, 1997 Mazda RX-7, 2002 Nissan Skyline GT-R, and 1994 Toyota Supra. I found myself being placed in the line for the Charger, but it also was the lead car, leading to some trepidation on my part — I had found myself getting nauseous on those movie-screen rides that have a lot of fast motions. I ended up being paired with a young guy from Sacramento who had done the ride before. I asked him, “Is this ride bad? Middle-of-the-road? Harmless?” He replied that it was MOR, which cheered me up.
And he was correct — Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift was nothing crazy other than the drifting. It also didn’t make me nauseous, though I imagine seeing the entire movie franchise will.
Word of note: The park made riders put their belongings in a locker, so I was not able to take pics while waiting in line, but the video below may give glimpses of what I could not catch with a lens.
Considering Universal Hollywood has few rides like Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift, it clearly is something created to pull folks to the park. Yet now that I have ridden the roller coaster, I’d probably choose another park for my next bit of entertainment — considering my son, probably Legoland California Resort.
