Universal Orlando has confirmed that Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit will have its last day on August 17, 2025, just two days shy of 16 years of operation at Universal Studios Florida. While the company has not announced what will be replacing this attraction, permits show structures and a footprint that implies a new, possibly larger roller coaster could be taking its place.

Let’s dig into all that, as well as the latest speculation, in today’s news update. See the video version of this story below for additional visuals.

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The Universal Orlando official website now lists a closing date for Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit on August 18, 2025, meaning your final day to ride will be Sunday, August 17th.

Little information is listed, with it saying “Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit will permanently close on August 18, 2025 to make way for a new experience. More details will be available at a later date.”

Officially opening on August 19, 2008, Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit will close just a couple days before it’s 16th anniversary. The attraction saw most of the songs you could select while riding removed, now only leaving one song per genre, which was one of the signs it wouldn’t be around much longer.

Universal confirmed the official closure date to fans asking about it on social media this week.

Before we had official word from the company, permits from late last year had already confirmed the ride’s closure. Those permits described the project as removing the existing attraction and replacing it with a new proposed attraction in the same space.

A day after our story for these permits broke back in December, Universal officially confirmed that the ride would be closing. At the time, they were saying that it would close in early September though, so this new closure date may cause some folks who had planned a trip just to say goodbye to miss out on their last ride.

Two months after those initial permits were posted, the South Florida Water Management District approved Universal’s plan for the demolition of Rip Ride Rockit and for prep work on the new mystery attraction.

These plans, known as Project 830, show the project outline wrapping not only around the existing Rockit attraction, but the proposed project limits also encompass a section of the pathway in CityWalk, as well as some backstage area near the back of Universal Studios Florida.

The plans describe three new buildings to be built as part of the new attraction: One smaller one on the side closer to CityWalk, and two larger buildings near the back of the park.

One of the larger new buildings saw a permit posted back in March, which described it as a new 2-story 39,000 square foot facility named Building 51. This likely puts it as the one next door to Race Through New York, which is Building 50.

While the purposes for these two larger structures are not yet specified in public documents, it’s possible they could serve as multi-story locations housing ride queue, load and unload areas, and a maintenance bay. All of this would be for what most people believe will be a new roller coaster ride replacing Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit.

Work walls have already gone up along sections of the CityWalk side of the attraction, which may be related to this project. The work walls block some of the walkways highlighted in yellow in this photo from Bioreconstruct.

Prep work may also be happening on the other side of the project limits, where one of the two large buildings will be constructed in a backstage parking lot. This small parking lot near the sound stages has been utilized for Halloween Horror Nights queue path space in prior years.

And this is possibly why the closure for Rip Ride Rockit was bumped sooner, as the work that is already starting now will likely interfere with operations for that event. HHN runs from August 29th through November 2nd this year, starting just a little over a week after the roller coaster officially closes.

If demolition work on the coaster itself starts quickly after its closure, it’s possible the new attraction could be ready as soon as mid 2027, which would be a similar timeline to the Hagrid coaster’s construction.

As for what attraction will be replacing Rockit, Universal Orlando has not officially confirmed any details, only saying the ride is closing “to make way for a new experience.”

Most fans assume a new roller coaster will be built here, and given the shape of the footprint for the new attraction, which is utilizing nearly the same footprint as Rockit, but with just some extra space on the ends, a roller coaster definitely makes the most sense.

The property or theme that this upcoming coaster will be based on is still anybody’s guess. And while the most popular theory is that it will be an east coast version of Fast & Furious Hollywood Drift, being built now in Universal Hollywood, some fans are holding onto hope for something else.

Since the second large building being built as part of this new attraction project is to be added behind the old firehouse facade in the New York section of Universal Studios Florida, there is speculation that this new ride could be themed to Ghostbusters. Personally, I do not believe placement for one of the structures is enough evidence to go on though.

Although, the only evidence we have that this could be an east coast version of the new drifting coaster is a Notice of Commencement for work to be done at this park by the roller coaster manufacturer Intamin. They are the company behind the Fast & Furious coaster in Hollywood. So really, at this point it’s anyone’s guess.

I’m sure some of the desire for this to be based on Fast & Furious is that when they started building the one out in Hollywood, it came with a closure announcement for their version of the Supercharged experience… something I am sure a lot of east-coast theme park fans would like to see replaced out here as well.

Amusement Insider on YouTube recently released a concept video for their theory on what a new attraction based on the drifting coaster from Intamin could be like in this space.

The concept, which they refer to as ‘Orlando Drift,’ uses the same extreme spinning roller coaster tech coming to Hollywood, with its own unique maneuvers tailored to the space in Universal Studios Florida.

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In the video, we can see moves like a 90-degree sideways stall behind the concert stage, a tall spike on the CityWalk side of the layout, a wave roll, and an inverted top hat… all while taking advantage of the cars’ drifting ability to add an extra element of thrill.

Amusement Insider’s spec concept has the top speed at 69 mph and max height at 155 feet tall. It will be interesting to compare these stats to the official stats for this possible future roller coaster attraction—if that is in fact what will be coming to the space, and soon.

For now, we have just a couple months to say our final farewells to Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit. You can even pick up a “farewell tour” t-shirt, for sale now from Universal Orlando.

That’s all for now, but stay tuned to the site and YouTube channel as we uncover more permit details and compare them to construction on the ground over the next couple years.

Subscribe to the news feed or enter your email address below to never miss an update. Original Photos: Alicia Stella | Main Permit Documents: my.sfwmd.gov | Other Images as Captioned

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