It looks like the days officially are numbered for a roller coaster at Universal Studios Florida.
Universal Orlando this week filed an application with the South Florida Water Management District to remove and replace its Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit roller coaster. Filed under application number 241223-48710 and codenamed Project P830, the application would allow the resort to begin work to "remove [the] existing attraction and replace with proposed attraction," according to the document.
The document does not detail what that attraction would be, but one obvious candidate for a Rip Ride Rockit replacement would be an Orlando installation of the Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift coaster that is now under construction at Universal Studios Hollywood in California.
That Intamin spinning coaster is set to open in 2026.
Given the timing of this application, Universal is unlikely to begin any demolition work until after Universal Epic Universe opens May 22, 2025. And given that Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit runs near the soundstage buildings that Universal uses for many of its popular Halloween Horror Nights houses, I would not expect to see major demo work begin until after next year's HHN event. That puts the commencement of the project at late in 2025, at the earliest.
Update: Universal announced Friday that HRRR would close in early September.
A Maurer Rides X-Car coaster, Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit is known for its vertical lift and on-ride music options that individual riders can select. The original idea for the attraction was that you were recording your own music video, with a custom on-ride video with your music that you could purchase at the end of the ride.
But HRRR has suffered from a rough ride experience for many years, making it the lowest-ranked roller coaster at the Universal Orlando Resort among our readers - even lower than the kiddie coasters. That lack of popularity plus downtimes and maintenance costs have made the coaster a top candidate for replacement at the resort.
So if you want to get in a last ride on Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit, now is the time to get that done.
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The only surprise about this is how long it lasted, it was plagued with design flaws and never was an enjoyable ride.
A Mack inverted powered coaster please. It's what the orlando market is missing. Anything else would be redundant. You have spinning coasters in the new park and guardians. You have flying coasters in seaworld and osaka. You have the big boys next door. Make this one different and perferably family oriented. Add some proton packs to it too!
Good write up. Just curious why there was no credit given to Alicia Stella, who first broke the permit story. She was also the one who broke the Universal Great Britain story as well.
Inverted power does beat Disney to the punch with their Monsters door coaster. Youre right about nothing being inverted in Orlando. They cant get away with no to low themeing. So it needs onboard speakers on par with what you get from Star Tours for me to care. Im tired of low effort themeing. If i want ride farm conveyances at least tell me a story.
RRR has always been a mystery to me. Very temperamental in whether it gives a decent ride or runs rough and ragdolls you. Has great views, though. And if you are lucky, you can catch dueling Hogwarts Express.
Only rode this once and while I liked the concept and how it was laid out, just not a favorite.
How about expanding The Mummy - The Mummy needs more Track.
RRR is not fun except the Crazy lift and selectable Music.
Some guy (Clifford also known as Rockitman) received an award from Universal for riding it 10,000 times.. I questioned who was counting as this record can be easily scammed....
For the record, this was a public records release, which was available to everyone at the same time. No one "broke" this story, but people on the east coast did have a three-hour time advantage in posting over my holiday-drowsy self on the west coast who only saw it in my in-box when I woke up late today.
Nooooo! I really enjoy this ride as it carried some certified bangers as on ride music. I have fond memories of that ride and that vertical lift sure is sweet.
Ah this is unfortunate... I can only hope now that the space isnt left vacant and that Universal puts something worthwhile in its place.
The beginning lift definitely holds a lot of potential that the rest of the coaster fails to live up to IMO. In addition to the rough track, the ride itself never sustains any real momentum after the first loop. There are too many starts and stops (err…starts and jolts). I do realize that for some riders that that feature actually holds some appeal, just not for this one.
Good riddance. Bad ride with a gimmick that didn’t really work with the ride. If you’re going to use music, make the motion of the coaster go with the music.
And now Universal has confirmed it themselves with a September closing.
I'm pretty surprised by this move, because there are plenty of other projects/locations that should have gotten priority over replacing RRR (Simpsons and Fear Factor most notably). Personally, I've always enjoyed the coaster, mostly because of the "secret" playlist that allowed riders to tap into a much deeper catalogue of songs beyond what you can access through the on-screen menus including bands like Rush, Metallica, Muse, Kansas, and Black Sabbath. I also think the coaster was clever in being thrilling without inverting, and having excellent capacity given the insane number of blocks, allowing it to run with up to 7 trains at a time with an efficient conveyor belt loading system.
Ultimately, the rough, choppy ride, and failure of the attraction to generate additional revenue from POVs and photos made RRR an easy cut from the lineup. The fact that the coaster wasn't linked to any recognizable IP also hurt the appeal with every other attraction in the park attached to IP. Sadly, this is yet another case where popular music just cannot be the driving force behind a successful theme park project - it's interesting that RRR and RnRC are given their walking papers in the same year.
As others have noted, I would expect Universal to replace RRR with a unique version of F&F Hollywood Drift since USF is unlikely able to accommodate a clone of USH's coaster given the way the California coaster is being woven through the hillside and escalators.
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Cool concept, but ultimately not a great coaster, especially next to its neighbor The Mummy and its cousins over at IoA. The main appeal for this coaster to me is simply its placement as a landmark “weenie” in the park. That they will be demolishing it is welcome news in my humble opinion.