West Coast residents will no longer have to travel to Orlando to be able to experience the fun and atmosphere of Universal Studios Florida, as the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park will soon be home to a new section devoted to its Florida cousin. Universal company officials announced today that construction will soon begin on the as yet unnamed area.
“We’ve tossed around a few different ideas about how best to bring a new experience to our visitors,” Universal Parks spokesperson Dante Segers tells Uncle Walt’s Insider. “There is tremendous competition in the theme park industry to innovate and have the latest and greatest attractions. But what we were hearing from our guests in California the most is how they really wished they could get to Universal Studios Orlando more often.”
While the Hollywood and Orlando Universal parks have similarities, and even some identical attractions, there are differences between the two parks.
“Sure, we have the actual working movie and television studio here in California,” Segers continues. “But roller coasters? Not here. And yeah, we’ve have our own version of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but only Universal Studios Orlando has Diagon Alley.”
The solution, Universal announced, is for Universal Studios Hollywood to add a section to their park themed to Universal Studios Orlando.
“The plan right now is to build a scaled-down version of Universal Studios Orlando inside of the Hollywood location,” Seger explains. “It won’t be a separate park, so in essence, our visitors will almost get to experience parks on both coasts for one admission. It’s even going to have its own, separate Wizarding World of Harry Potter in addition to the one that’s already there. And we really want people to think they are in Florida, so we’re also looking into how we might add daily rain showers in that section.”
In an unguarded moment, Universal’s spokesperson all but admitted that competition may be at the heart of this announcement. After being reassured that his comment would be off the record, Seger told Uncle Walt’s Insider, “Yeah, let’s see that landlocked ‘mouse park’ down south try to duplicate their Florida parks in Anaheim!”
