The next park on our theme park tour was Universal Studios. I wasn’t entirely enthusiastic about this one, and could have passed on it. But we went and it was entertaining. We arrived relatively early (everyone was still passed out on eggnog apparently), and went on the Revenge of the Mummy ride, the special effects and Backdraft stages. The special effects show talked a bit about green screens, and how sound is added to movies. Backdraft had some talking and then they burned stuff. The Revenge of the Mummy ride was surprisingly short, wikipedia says 2 minutes, but it had a what-it’s-over-already?? feeling.
After some lunch, we lined up for the Simpson ride. This was the worst wait of our entire trip; it was quoted at an hour but when we were halfway through the line, they started operating at limited capacity. It took us about 2 hours to get through the line, but the ride was pretty good. It’s a motion-simulated ride, but each motion simulator only had 8 people in it; and the screen was like a planetarium screen.
After that, we went to watch the Universal Animal Actor’s show, which was a bit disappointing since it was short. Plus I couldn’t tell whether the animals were screwing up, or whether they were gags inserted into the show. We tried to go on Shrek 4D but the line wasn’t worth it, and went past Grinchmas to see people play in the snow. By then, the park was really packed so we went on the Studio Tour to finish off our day.
The studio tour is both interesting and not. It’s interesting to see movie props and sets, but you’re just seeing environments (and a couple of cars) from a tram. It’s not like you get to really see how movies or TV shows are made. Interspersed in the tour are several “events” such as a bridge collapsing or a flood but I think they would only impress fool little kids.
The Studio Tour was the most interesting part of the visit, but not worth the price of admission. Unless you like the rides. Maybe I’m just getting old.
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