Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift (USH) - General Discussion

[Delake]

I still feel like car 1 is the only “tame car” there certainly is a gradient from cars 2-4 but the Jump from cars 1-2 feels a lot bigger than 3-2

 

[Ron101]

Car 3 (blue) doesn’t even spin at all on the tallest inversion

 

[Delake]

Car 3 (blue) doesn’t even spin at all on the tallest inversion

Well yes, but it is (to me atleast) more intense in the other parts of the ride than car 2.

At the end of the day, the rides great and it all comes down to personal preference in what you want from a ride.

 

[Ron101]

Anyone know if the coaster opened today for softs?

 

[Jerroddragon]

Anyone know if the coaster opened today for softs?

I heard it only opened for a few hours yesterday, so if I hear anything I'll post it here but you might only have a limited time to get there and get in line

Edit: I have a friend at the park and the sign says no guest testing today.

 

[Freak]

Anyone know if the coaster opened today for softs?

Yeah at this point it’s just AP previews

 

[DragonSlayer]

F&F noise has made it to The Times (pretty much the UK’s paper of record), apologies if paywalled: ‘We can’t live like this’: rich LA suburb enraged by rollercoaster screams

Lots of quotes from residents but maybe the only new-ish point is “Universal, the studio which owns the park, has responded with a promise to urgently install more sound barriers. But that has failed to quell the anger.”

I get that Universal can’t do nothing and shrug at the complaints, but I also think responding by doing something clearly risks getting drawn into a cycle of complaints / mitigation / complaints / more mitigation. Once people are annoyed it’s rarely possible to change their perspective even after making a legitimate effort.

 

[bdubsCEO]

I got headshots done in Toluca Lake yesterday and the (wonderful) lady immediately launched into a whole speech about the noise upon my mention of Universal. She alleged that it literally sounds like the coaster is right behind their neighborhood and that they have it worse than when she lived next to a highway.

I’d honestly assumed that 100% of the complaining was just for the sake of complaining because the sound walls are pretty extensive already and the entire thing was engineered to minimize noise, but it was interesting to talk to someone who was so certain it’s a massive issue.

Anyways, I’m about to FINALLY get on it for the first time. Cannot wait.

 

[Jake S]

Let's see what happens when the new barriers are installed in a few weeks.

 

[Jerroddragon]

There is no way the coaster is worst then a Freeway....let alone a busy street....Airport...or a Train

My dad lived next to a train for a few weeks, for 5-10 mins they could not watch TV or really do anything with sound because it was so loud and shaking the house

Once its just open, I will go to these neighbors and see if its really "unlivable" but think this is just a few people that just want something to complain about. I don't think its really affecting day to day life

 

[DragonSlayer]

Idk. It’s easy to call nimbyism, and I’m sure there’s an element of that, but also sound is weird. All it takes is for something to echo awkwardly off a hillside in a way someone hadn’t predicted and the “sounds like it’s right next to us” thing suddenly becomes more real.

Anyway, lighter news, here’s Christopher Nolan getting his ride yesterday, lol.

 

[Jake S]

There is no way the coaster is worst then a Freeway....let alone a busy street....Airport...or a Train

I lived in Fontana, right next to the 15 and 210 highways, during high school. Thanks to the large sound walls built next to the freeways, I hardly noticed them. You know what everyone in the neighborhood noticed (and complained about!) loudly twice a year? The NASCAR race that happened several miles south of us.

All that to say ... yeah, I can imagine this being more annoying than the drone of a highway. It's also worth noting that the sound wall I talked about is the exact type of mitigation Universal is trying to do for these neighbors. There are also absolutely noise ordinances regarding air traffic — if you've ever flown in or out of the airport in Santa Ana, you'll know they takeoff and land at an extreme angle due to noise concerns.

Oh, and one of the many hurdles facing high speed rail in California is, you guessed it, noise complaints.

This isn't NIMBYism because ... that's not what NIMBYism is. NIMBYism is wanting something in general but not wanting it specifically near your home. NIMBYism can be about schools, housing, dumps and yes, even highways. But you can't be a NIMBY about something as pointless (albeit fun!) as a roller coaster. That's just not a thing.

 

[Mad Dog]

Idk. It’s easy to call nimbyism, and I’m sure there’s an element of that, but also sound is weird. All it takes is for something to echo awkwardly off a hillside in a way someone hadn’t predicted and the “sounds like it’s right next to us” thing suddenly becomes more real.

Anyway, lighter news, here’s Christopher Nolan getting his ride yesterday, lol.

Yeah. I'm in an area that's heavily wooded. I'm high on the top of a hill, then there's a deep valley and a high ridge that's about the same distance as that coaster is from the housing area. If I hit a hammer against a piece of wood, the sound goes across the valley, echoes back to me as loud, if not louder, than the original sound. Yes, sound reverberating is a tough one to analyze.

 

[fryoj]

There's a live event venue near me. Depending on time of year, humidity, and the way the wind is blowing, people 5-10 miles away can hear the announcer on the PA system clear as day. At the same time, people downhill a few hundred feet away can't even hear the place more than a low noise.

Sound is weird.

 

[Pacific]

I’ve now ridden 6 times (did the pass member event today, was a complete mess). Car 2 is definitely my favorite car now.

This queue in 91F is a nightmare.

 

[Freak]

I saw the clip. How is the AP preview line even worse than softs?

 

[Pacific]

I saw the clip. How is the AP preview line even worse than softs?

It was so frustrating because we were all trying to self organize to make a line towards our reservation time slots, because the team members were being sort of dismissive. But then they told us not to make a line, so then there’s just a blob of people around the area. LITERALLY a minute later, ANOTHER cast member tells us to start forming a line, TWO MINUTES before our timeslot begins. So those who were trying to be fair and civil got incredibly punished. The first time hearing a bunch of angry karens felt incredibly valid, because it was so insanely sloppy.

Most of the angry people weren’t GP asking if they could ride, it was pass holders angry at how sloppy the whole thing was. It was extra annoying because some of the cast members were acting like it was all our fault for being impatient and rowdy, which lightly ticked me off.

Cast member 1: “You guys got a line started?”
Cast member 2: “I mean, if you can call that a line”

This is SHORTLY after we were all starting to line up next to the side of the ride entrance in a neat line but they told us to disperse and wait in the mass glob of other passholders waiting around, confused at what the hell was happening.

Also, during the security and loose items check, two cast members stepped on my partner’s feet while trying to wand her. And they told me to keep moving, “she’ll catch up with you” after I was wanded. Another cast realized they stepped on her feet but I didn’t see this because they didn’t want me to stop the flow of the queue.

They better be glad we’re nice. The way they handled this was so damn clunky. At LEAST they added an hour to a timeslot instead of just the initial one listed on the site. But it was funny because at the registration line at City Walk, they said we could only ride once. Someone near the front entrance said the same thing…yet, that was completely untrue, LOL. Like, were the cast members not properly communicating (or guided) on how to run this or something? I couldn’t believe how amateurish this felt, the public preview last Saturday (on a significantly busier day) was ironically less stressful than this

This is a single rider line ride only, will NEVER step foot in that queue ever again. It is the worst designed queue at any theme park or amusement park I have ever been to. The giant brick building blocks ALL of the breeze, so not only are you hot, but youre also INCREDIBLY humid, so UV umbrellas and clothing will not save you. Felt like I was going to have a heatstroke in there, and the longest we waited was 30 minutes. Imagine 3 HOURS. And that’s without Single rider and Express!! Going from Mario Kart to HD is the craziest quality juxtaposition I have EVER seen, ahaha (we rope dropped SNW because our slot was 11AM, had breakfast at Toadstool).

Fantastic ride, absolutely rancid everything else surrounding it. I will only be riding this in the winter and fall.