Was Rip Ride Rocket a failure?

I think generally a park expects an attraction of this size and scope to last 20 years or more, so in that respect RRR was not quite a success. There was also the retracking on portions of the back half of the course and some train modifications that indicate that the original design was not without some flaws. There have certainly been attraction designs that have fallen short, but considering the amount of churn that Universal Orlando attractions have gone through, getting 16 years out of a roller coaster isn't terrible.

I do think UC made some critical mistakes with this coaster. The first being the name, which was easily confused with Rock 'n Rollercoaster at DHS, another Orlando coaster that played rock songs on board. The second was selecting a manufacturer that had not previously designed or built a major attractions for a destination theme park, and was most known for wild mouse coasters. Another mistake was building Hagrid's and Velocicoaster, which surpassed the experience on RRR by miles. Once those 2 coasters arrived and joined Hulk and Mummy, they made RRR seem subpar even though it was one of the most visible attractions in the resort. Finally, the overall theme on RRR was out of sync with what USF has become, which is a park heavily reliant on well-known IP. While most of the featured songs (and many of the hidden tracks) were pretty popular, the basis of the coaster's concept was very different from every other attraction in the park that embraced the "ride the movies" concept (unless you consider the coaster appearing in Sharknado qualifies RRR as a movie IP). Also, I'm guessing that the right fees for the main tracks that guests could use to record POVs were never recouped in purchases, and the additional costs for rights of songs used on the hidden track list probably increased the maintenance costs of the coaster beyond your typical attraction - and likely explains why some songs dropped off the list after a few years.

I still think RRR is a novel coaster, but its theme was about 10 years behind the times even though the technology was ahead of its time. If this coaster debuted in the 90's when MTV was at its peak (and before Rock 'n Rollercoaster), it would probably have been labeled a "classic", and even if it was still rough, Universal would have had a lot harder time making the decision to close it.

For Universal? Yeah, it was a failure.

HRRR managed to date itself within 5 years and has been an eyesore since day one. It never could compete with Hogsmeade. It was always a maintenance nightmare due to Maurer's train design and they regularly had to rescue riders from the lift or the bottom of the non-inverting loop. It was never the draw it needed to be so they're tearing it down the moment epic universe opened.

For theme park fans? Yeah, probably a failure.

Its existence meant that we were robbed of a better, more thrilling coaster (maybe even from B&M). The soundtrack gimmick was no advancement for the industry. The only real novel idea was the non-inverting loop, which has only really been implemented in Skyrocket IIs and that one coaster in Australia.

Most importantly, for the General Public? Not at all.

Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit is not rough. I think I was tricked by the theme park community into thinking that it's rough, because on my most recent ride, it's really not. The general public mostly realizes that HRRR isn't great layout-wise, but it's driven up attendance. It's the best coaster in the park to a lot of people. It was many people's first "big" roller coaster and it's interesting to watch from City Walk and Hagrid's queue. I'm a little sad to see it go because it was only mostly a failure.

It's a failure only if you do not learn from it. I think that Universal learned quite a few lessons from HRRR, which helps explain why its recent coasters have been so amazing.

So while HRRR itself may have provided a painful and disappointing ride for many visitors, the failure it represented for Universal helped unlock a much better future for the company's "track" record. (Pun intended.)

Well, I believe it is a failure from the design. Therefore the company Maurer AG failed Universal..

Hulk - Mummy - Flight of the Hippogriff - Fire and Ice all stood the Test of time.

The concept was good but the execution failed. And costly.

"Fire and Ice all stood the Test of time."

Really??? Dueling Dragons/Dragon Challenge lasted just 18 years, and for the last 5+ years couldn't be operated as designed. Sure, UC was able to save a ton of money when they were able to adapt the coaster to fit into the revolutionary WWoHP, but the fact that the coasters could no longer duel made the attraction far less than the sum of its individual tracks.

Russell .... are you talking about the dueling aspect? Because if you are, then as you well know, it had absolutely nothing to do with the actual ride itself.

@Mako - I am, and yes, I realize that a handful of morons more or less forced Universal to change the way the coasters operated. However, the operational change was something that Universal should have foreseen and made efforts to allow for the coasters to duel as originally designed (B&M installed complicated, and I'm guessing expensive, mechanisms on the lift motors to actively weigh each train adjust the timing of the first drops to optimize all of the near miss/dueling elements). How is Universal's inability to find a solution to allow the coasters to duel any different that RRR's roughness or any other decommissioned coaster's fatal flaw? When DD stopped dueling, the popularity significantly dropped off. Ice/Hungarian Horntail by itself was one of the worst B&M inverts I've ever ridden, but when dueling, was dazzling (maybe top 10). Fire/Chinese Fireball could hold its own and wasn't quite as reliant on the near miss/dueling elements to create excitement/thrill, but I would put it on the same tier as Talon when comparing other B&M inverts.

Obviously the loss of DD led to the installation 2 of the best themed roller coasters in the world, but I think it's important to set the record straight and call a spade a spade. I look back on DD very fondly, but when Universal couldn't figure out a way to allow the coasters to duel, they became 2 very mediocre inverts and ultimately a failure of the design and ability to modify that design to maintain the aspects of the coasters that made them truly unique.

Given that Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit lasted sixteen years and seemed to draw enough of a crowd to be full when running, it's hard for me to call it a failure. There are plenty of rides that were built, ran for a couple years (if that), then where shut down and demolished because they either didn't work or were highly unpopular. To me, that's what's required in order to call a ride a failure.

What I think is more accurate is to say that Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit missed the target. Universal was looking for a signature thrill ride at the studios park with the coaster, and while they did get a thrilling roller coaster, it was one riddled with problems and known for delivering a subpar ride. This can be largely blamed on Maurer, who's only previous big coaster at the time was a very different design from HRRR, but it's also always a gamble when a park goes for something wholly original. I don't think the issue was really with the X-Car technology, as Mauer already had a couple successful examples of that coaster style operating, though upsizing the ride without similarly adjusting the hardware could have certainly contributed to the problems. Instead, I think they simply didn't know how to extend something designed for small compact coasters into a larger ride, and as a result they created a layout that simply didn't produce the desired experience.

Aside from the coaster itself, the other big issue HRRR had is that it's one of the few major attractions not tied to an IP. This means that with a guest pool increasingly driven by interest in visiting for a specific IP, HRRR wasn't really a priority for most guests, and it also wasn't an attraction that would attract anyone who wouldn't typically ride a big roller coaster. For the time it was built, it wasn't a bad move strategically, but the experience Universal provides has evolved to the point a plain roller coaster simply wasn't a great fit anymore. Even if the ride ran well, I've got a feeing it would have been up for replacement sooner rather than later.

Brian, you know that they had to completely retrack Hulk right? It didn't really test the time because they had to tear out the whole thing and rebuilt it?

Point taken Russell.
Makes you wonder how far down the line Universal saw the coaster being replaced?
I can't believe they didn't consider metal detection per Hulk, but they must have deemed it an unacceptable cost .... if, they had already contemplated the removal of the ride in the future.

I did attend DD's last day, but to be honest it was, as many of us who were there, with the hope of a slender chance of it dueling one last time.

I did not go to RRR's last day.

"Brian, you know that they had to completely retrack Hulk right? It didn't really test the time because they had to tear out the whole thing and rebuilt it?"

You're right Velocicoaster, but that retrack was done because the original steel had reached it service lifespan in terms of age and service hours. If Universal had chosen, they could have replaced individual pieces of Hulk track that experienced higher wear. It was completely replaced because the design of Hulk was so good and iconic that it was worth taking the coaster down for a full year and performing a complete track replacement to extend its lifespan instead of a series of minor repairs/replacements over a longer period and the prospect of a full failure (a la Fury 325) that would be a PR nightmare. Nemesis is the only other B&M in the world that has gone through a similar full track replacement.

I do agree with what AJ stated, and would agree that the term "failure" is not appropriate for RRR, and instead "missing the mark" or "not as successful as projected" would be a more accurate assessment of the coaster.

"I can't believe they didn't consider metal detection per Hulk, but they must have deemed it an unacceptable cost .... if, they had already contemplated the removal of the ride in the future."

@Mako - I think Universal considered that, but it was probably deemed inappropriate since one of the most common safety issues on DD was moronic guests flipping their shoes at each other during the near miss/dueling elements. Certainly, it would have been easy to make guests with loose fitting shoes (sandals, flip flops, crocs, etc...) to leave those in the station, but there were guests peeling off their tennis shoes and boots to fling them at the other train at the vertical loops. The only thing Universal could do for that would be to erect nets or other shields to physically prevent objects from one train to reach the other, but I'm not sure if that would have been possible without significantly impacting the experience - part of the alure of DD was that your feet were literally @3 yards away from the feet of the people on the other train.

I love this idea Makorider:

"I did attend DD's last day, but to be honest it was, as many of us who were there, with the hope of a slender chance of it dueling one last time."

They retrack Hulk because it is a Great ride and still very popular. If they retracked
Rip Ride Rocket - it would still be a bad design.

Why not just make it an inversion instead of the Top of track BS. They tried some Avant-garde coaster and it Dare I say it - Failed.

I have skipped RRR many times, but a ride like Hulk or Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike - most never skip. See the difference...

You can have different forms of failure.

Take a football team Like Dallas cowgirls.

They are a failure to the Fans since they have not won a damn thing since 1996, but to the owner they are a winner since he makes a lot of money from them.

Difficult to say whether or not RRR was successful. I'm sure there are those that will be sorry to see it go but attendance figures must suggest it wasn't still delivering the numbers it once had.
Personally the thing that I liked least was that it pervaded large areas of the Park. There was simply no escape from it.
I'm guessing that Universal aren't going to make it a rip OUT rocket and will instead simply change the theming ?
Anyway I'd prefer that they just dismantle the whole kaboosh afill in the holes and create a new ride that doesn't interfere with the ambience of multiple areas.
I'm possibly in the minority with that view but come on. I used to like watching things like Ghostbusters, for example, being performed on the steps. How could they ever do anything like that again with a coaster crashing through the walls every few minutes ?
So I'll be glad to see it go but not because of it's theming. Just it's positioning.

Actually, demolition has already started, and signs around the ride are talking about restoring the firehouse - dreams do come true!