USSi Exclusive: Universal Studios Singapore photo report

We know you all have been waiting with bated breath to have a look at the latest and only major theme park to open this year around the world. The USSi team was lucky enough to snag the sold-out tickets for the sneak preview of the 2nd Universal Studios theme park to open in Asia, and the only one in the South East Asia region.

We visited the park on Friday, February 19 and we were very amazed at every thing this theme park has turned out to be. We snapped more than a thousand photos of the park, which explains why we took so long to upload! And we’re excited to present to you this exclusive photo report!

With the obsessive amount of photos we have taken, the USSi team have decided to make this a week-long report. Beginning today with this post, we will give you a general snapshot report of the theme park, followed by detailed photo reports of every zone in the theme park. Here’s what you can expect in the coming week -

Saturday - General overview of the park (Selection of photos from different zones)
Sunday - Hollywood
Monday - New York
Tuesday - Sci Fi
Wednesday - The Lost World
Thursday - Egypt
Friday - Far Far Away
Saturday - Madagascar
Sunday - Universal Studios Singapore in the dark.

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The Universal globe at the entrance.

The entrance archway designed by architect Michael Graves.

Preview Tickets were all sold out. Only 3000 tickets were released per day for the preview period between Feb 14 to Feb 21. They were sold at $10 each and each person can only buy a maximum of 6. The ticket can be used to exchange for a combo meal inside ANY of the F&B outlets. (We thought this was an excellent deal, and we’re essentially not paying anything for the admission to this preview) Tickets were so in demand that some preview tickets turned up on eBay with 5 times the ticket price.

Hollywood Boulevard, the first zone once you step in at the entrance. This whole area is sheltered by a ETFE canopy, which is the same ones used at the Beijing Water Cube. We were disappointed at first that the Universal Creative team decided to install canopies around the park as they were simply just unsightly, but when it rained on us during our visit, we were so thankful that these canopies were there to shelter us. Given Singapore’s unpredictable weather, what with the tropical climate and the monsoon seasons, these canopies are actually essential for the park.

While we were walking through the street, we noticed something strange about what we were experiencing. While it was a little hot and humid before we stepped into USS, we realised that the temperature around Hollywood zone is much cooler than outside. To our surprise, we noticed that there were cooling machines installed and concealed within the buildings of Hollywood that lowers the temperature around the area. These ‘green cooling solutions’ are part of the park’s effort to make guests feel more comfortable under Singapore’s sweltering hot sun we think this is definitely something every guest will appreciate. We are impressed already.

Universal Studio Store sells most of the items you can find around the park. We don’t actually remember seeing Universal Studios Japan having so many merchandise and souvenirs available. We would like to commend that the park’s service staff and cast members were excellent, always smiling, waving to you and ready to help.

The lagoon, with other parts of the park in view, from the Hollywood standpoint.

The lagoon wasn’t as big as we thought it would be. If you want to compare it to USJ’s lagoon, which by the way is huge, the one we have here is like a pond. Still, it’s impressive that they can squeeze the lagoon in given the small amount of space that they were given to build this park.

We’re not too sure if a staging of fireworks or water show is possible, but we hope to see USS surprise us with at least something on the lagoon.

Egypt, Sci Fi City

Shrek’s castle from the lagoon.

New York

Marilyn Monroe on the streets of NY.

Sci Fi City. We’re actually disappointed with how this area turned out to be.

Battlestar Galactica Dueling Coaster - World’s tallest dueling roller coaster. Not to be confused as the world’s tallest coaster, as this is far from it. Both trains launch out of the station at the same time instead of the conventional chain lift system.

Accelerator

The Lost World

Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure.

Dino-Soarin’ for the kids.

Egypt - We were totally impressed with the re-creation of the Egypt area. We’ve never been to Egypt, but we totally felt like we stepped into the country when we walked through this space. The sculptures are very detailed and the theming around this area is very well done. What’s even more special is the fact that Universal Studios Singapore is the only Universal Studios with a whole land dedicated to Egypt.

Next to Egypt, is Far Far Away, another area created exclusively for Universal Studios Singapore. It’s a faithful re-creation of Far Far Away in the Dreamworks animated feature - Shrek. And again we are very impressed with this area’s theming. Put in a horse carriage, crowds in medieval clothing and we can imagine ourselves in the Shrek movies.

We remember seeing this billboard of Fairy Godmother in Shrek!

The Shrek 4D attraction housed in the only Shrek’s castle ever built.

The castle looks amazingly detailed.

Moving on, we are now at the Madagascar area, another area created exclusively for USS.

The characters on King Julien’s Beach Party-go-around are so hilarious, we actually feel like riding this carousel.

The characters of Madgascar.

The container ship housing Madagascar - A Crate Adventure. The vessel is HUGE in size, almost like a life-size replica of a container ship.

And we end our first part of our photo report with the tree featured in Madagascar movies.

Although the rides aren’t operational during the Preview week, we are thoroughly impressed after the visit. The park may look small from the outside but it is surprisingly bigger than we think it is. You can actually feel that the park is very compact (like they are squeezing as much as they can) but they did a very good job at distinguishing the different zones apart. The theming on every area is very well done, and we are VERY excited to visit the park again when it officially opens with the rides.

Look out tomorrow for our more in-depth photo report of the Hollywood zone!