- About Guide Rating (0=Yich!, 10=Wow!): 9
- Thrill Scale (0=Wimpy!, 10=Yikes!): 8.5
Intense launch, inversions, high speed - Type: Launched multi-element steel
- Highest point (feet): 110
- Max. speed (mph): 67
- Height restriction (minimum, in inches): 54
- Islands of Adventure
The queue snakes through the lab of Dr. Bruce Banner (the Hulk's alter ego for you Marvel-illiterates) where high-tech gadgetry abounds. The theme has something to do with a gamma-ray experiment gone wrong. It's hard to follow the storyline, but the industrial soundtrack is catchy and the atmosphere is compelling.
Like Disney's Rock 'n' Roller Coaster and other launched coasters, the Hulk doesn't have a traditional click-clack-click lift hill. Unlike the magnetic induction systems that propel most launched coasters however, the Hulk's train of cars moves slowly up the green "Gamma Force Accelerator" tube, and a specially designed booster thrust--the first of its kind--catapults its pneumatic tires 40 mph uphill. The launch requires the same thrust as a U.S. Air Force F-16 jet. Universal built a dedicated power plant to accommodate the ride.
The effect is like being trapped inside an old movie that's running way too fast. Quickly accelerating uphill defies logic, and feels both exhilarating and terrifying.
Emerging from the tube, the train barrels through a complete inversion 110 feet off the ground and accelerates to 67 mph as it "groars" through rollovers, corkscrews, and fog-enshrouded tunnels. The G-forces are quite intense.
Hulkamaniacs should look out for the mid-course freefall; a trim brake momentarily halts the madness, but it feels as if the bottom drops out when the train unexpectedly takes yet another sharp dive down.
