The new Universal Boulevard entrance street includes two new shopping and dining venues, plus space for a new venue to be revealed later. None of the locations are open yet, but with the construction walls down, we are getting our first good look at their exteriors.
The biggest venue on the newly refurbished street is an expanded Universal Studios Store, which is being stocked with all sorts of park merchandise.
The second venue is a large new Starbucks Coffee location. It extends all the way down to the start of the construction wall, on the path toward Westminster.
Behind that construction wall is space for another venue in the new development, which has replaced the old "Soundstage 13." That building most recently housed the Universal's House of Horrors walk-through attraction, before its demolition last year.
On the other side of the Universal Boulevard, work continues behind construction walls on the Hollywood & Dine restaurant that is replacing the old Hollywood Grill. Universal's guidemap says that location will be open next month.
Of course, all this work is in preparation for the official opening of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and the big media event promoting that park expansion. The media event starts April 5 with the official opening of Potter on April 7. For those of you following the #PotterWatch, the Wizarding World again was soft-opened for "technical rehearsal" on Saturday, though Universal closed the land to new entries before 4pm.
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Can someone check the toilet paper in the bathrooms and make sure its different? If it's not Disney should block Universal from using it.
I was really disappointed that Disney did not get Starbucks to to put coffee cups in each scene of Carousel of Progress (More Starbucks is progress) or Ellen's Energy Adventure (The future of energy is Starbucks) and offer a $99 Starbuck ride cupcake package that only Disney can do. I would actually ride those busted up relics if I got to drink Irish coffee and eat cupcakes on them
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