Universal Studios Hollywood has been closed due to the Covid-19 Pandemic since March 2020. Last week, the park announced its re-opening on the 16th of April 2021. Together with the re-opening of the park, the brand new dark ride Secret Life of Pets: Off the Leash will open to public. The ride was originally meant to open in 2020, just one week after the park’s closure.
As the name indicates, the ride is based on the Secret Life of pets-franchise, created by Illumination. The first animation film in the series debuted in 2016, a second film was released in 2019. In the dark ride, riders will join the main characters of the films in a journey through New York. The ride is completely newly built and takes the place of the former Globe Theater.
Riders will be invited into the world of Secret Life of Pets. Throughout the queue line, they travel through the living rooms of many of the well-known characters from the films, and also the characters themselves show up as animatronics or on screens. Eventually, riders board the ride vehicles which are shaped like cardboard boxes, and start on a journey through the streets of New York. The ride system is an omnimover system by Sansei Technologies, each box offering place to two riders. Throughout the ride, 64 animatronics take riders into the world of cats, puppies and other pets.
