Universal Studios Florida
Ride Reviews
updated Sept. 8, 1996
IMPORTANT - You get a 10% discount on just about EVERYTHING
at Universal Studios with a AAA Card! This works for admission, gift stores,
restaurants, etc.
T2 - T2 is a 3-D film combined with live actors on the stage.
The 3-D effects are great and the live sequence work well with the film,
but it was WAY too loud! The film was full of shooting and the theater
has a tremendous sound system that must have been cranked up to full volume.
E.T. - You ride through E.T.'s planet on bicycles. Parts of this
ride were great and other parts were confusing. It was also WAY too loud!
The small children around us were terrified by this ride and screamed the
whole way through. Luckily the sound system was louder than the children.
Back To The Future - Similar to Body Wars and Star Tours at WDW
but MUCH more realistic and rougher. I sat in the back seat of the Delorean
and my head was continuously smacked into the rear wall. I came away with
a headache. I was a great ride, but I will think twice about repeating
this one.
Hanna Barbera - Another flight simulator. Pretty tame compared
to Back To The Future. Here you fly through he Flintstones and The Jetsons.
It's a fairly good ride with a few realistic flight sequences.
Ghostbusters - This is a stage show. The lead character in the show is Louis Tully. The actor that played it looked and sounded like Rick Moranis. He was really good. In this first part of the show a person is brought on stage and helps with the Ghostbusting equipment. He gets slimed and the audience gets wet.
The next part of the show takes place on a big stage. There are many
special effects in theis part. This is like a live version of the end of
the first Ghostbuster movie. The scene is on top of the building with Gozer
and the Stay Puft man. The special effects are good (but not perfect).
It was obvious to me that the ray guns were not actually shooting, but
that there was a piece of plastic between us and the stage where we could
see reflections of ray gun and ghost effects that were above and behind
us (similar to Disney's Haunted Mansion). Still, it was a good show.
3D Hitchcock - The first part of this show is a movie hosted
by Anthony Perkins. It discusses Hitchcock and the movie Psycho. The next
part is a live re-creation of the shower scene from Psycho. It uses a person
from the audience. This part was interesting, but not great. The final
part is an interactive area where you can see different movies like Rear
Window. You can also participate in a filming of the drop from the Statue
of Liberty.
Earthquake - Similar to Catastrophe Canyon at MGM but more realistic.
Unfortunately they do not take you "Behind The Scenes" like they
do at MGM to see the ride reset. The ride seemed short to us. We were expecting
to move to the next scene of the ride when the cars pulled backwards out
of the subway station and we exited.
Kongfrontation - This was a good ride. You ride in a cable car
through the streets of New York. You see the destruction from King Kong
and then he appears and swats at the cable car. The car falls as he hits
it. There are a couple of other confronations with Kong before the ride
is over.
Jaws - A very wild boat ride! There are two attacks from Jaws.
One of the attacks is followed by a large explosion of gas tanks. The flames
from the explosion were so hot that it was actually painful. It was an
interesting ride, but not one that I would repeat. It was quite short.
We were glad that we didn't wait in line for 1.5 hours to ride it. We would
have been disappointed.
Animal Actors - This was a very good show. It is a sit down show
in an amphitheater. Many animals are in the show. There are trained cats,
dogs, birds, pigs, etc. We saw Benji, Lassie, Babe, etc (or at least their
cousins :-) ). It was very entertaining.
Lucy Tribute - This looks like a store. Actually the front of it
IS a Lucy store. The back part has many interesting displays of Lucy
memoribilia. There are clothes and notes and letters and photos and awards.
One very neat part is a miniature of the original I Love Lucy set.
It shows the layout of the different sets and the camera placements. Lucy
invented the three camera technique. The actual set was painted in shades
of grey. This made it easier to work with since the show was in Black & White.
They didn't have to test colors to see what grey shade they would be on
TV.