Universal Orlando this morning announced that its Fast & Furious - Supercharged ride is now open to the public, two weeks after its soft-opening and one week before its grand opening.
So what is this limbo? Technically, the ride is no longer in its "technical rehearsal" phase, meaning that the test-and-adjust period for the ride is over and that it should be running at full operation, including its virtual queue with the Universal Express immediate-entry option. But it also means that the media event promoting the ride has yet to come, so it hasn't had its grand opening moment yet.
That will come on May 2, when the ride presumably will be closed again to the public for much, if not all, of the day for the media event. That grand opening moment is coming at night on an evening when the park closes to the public at 7pm, so it's possible that there will be no public viewing for it, save for Universal's planned online live stream of the event.
FWIW, the opening moment for Universal Studios Hollywood's Fast & Furious ride was on the studio's backlot, and thus also available only to media and invited guests. Here's a look back at it:
The Florida installation is a stand-alone version of what serves as the finale of Universal Studios Hollywood's Studio Tour, adding a walk-through preshow that displays show cars inspired by the Fast & Furious film series. The ride itself also ditches the 3D from the Hollywood version (which includes the 3D King Kong encounter earlier in the ride). Otherwise, we thought that the ride portion of the attraction would be the same, but sharp-eyed riders have discovered that Universal has made a change to F&F in Orlando, which it has now brought back to the Hollywood original.
The FBI agent dialogue on Fast and Furious Supercharged has changed on the Studio Tour. It now matches Orlando. pic.twitter.com/PqyHLyxpEH
— RyanTheme Park (@Ryanthemepark) April 21, 2018
If you missed it (or couldn't watch the video), the FBI agent that attempts to arrest Roman at the party no longer orders him to the ground. Roman never goes to the ground, and the FBI agent still stands down when Dom, Lettie, and Luke show up with superior firepower. But the switch defuses a racially charged moment of a white law enforcement officer ordering a black man to lie down on the ground, while also making the law enforcement officer look a little less like a power-hungry ass.
See, it's equal opportunity pandering!
Oh, and, of course, let's not forget even though the black man isn't technically a law enforcement agent like the FBI guy, he is working on behalf of the federal government for a super-secret agency that often butts heads with the FBI as it attempts to fight a super-secret criminal syndicate that the "regular" cops and feds aren't equipped to handle because they don't have a fleet of street racers and ridiculously modified vehicles that can take on the baddies in a series of budget-busting set pieces. Which, ultimately, are the raison d'être for the entire Fast & Furious franchise.
Fast & Furious - Supercharged, whether in Hollywood or now in Orlando, puts you right in the middle of one of those high-speed, explosive moments, as Dom and his family, with you in tow (literally), take on Owen Shaw and his baddies. We will be in Orlando for that media event and opening moment next week, so stay tuned to Theme Park Insider for more coverage.
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Enjoyed the Q and the ride. The engineering that goes into these rides is amazing. Good stand alone ride as I am not a fan of the movies.
I’m not sure that it is a good stand-alone attraction. I wouldn’t bother to ride it if I were in Orlando because I have zero interest in the movies. Nonetheless, it was fun within the context of the Studio Tour at USH.
The edits made the first ride scene a little shorter. There's a lack of build-up and the fast race scenes aren't extended. I wish they did more with the party bus like actually having a party.
I'm more interested in how the Virtual Queue is working. I was really annoyed with the way Jimmy Fallon worked even with Universal Express. A 7-minute ride took nearly 45 minutes to experience even with UE because UE guests are not given priority boarding - they have to wait with whatever group they entered the waiting room with before they get to board. These virtual queues really diminish the advantage of UE, but I guess they're fine for rides that aren't worth experiencing multiple times in a single visit, which is where I think F&F will fall for me.
The waiting room isn't the queue. Its technically a pre-show (They used to hold in 2 parts, downstairs and then upstairs). But it shouldn't have taken 45 minutes unless there was a text issue astray usually call a group ever 6-7 minutes.
I may be one of the few people to think/say this, but I was very underwhelmed by the ride at USH.
Tech wise, awesome, but it never hit the levels of thrill and excitement for me.
It could be that I am not a huge fan of the movies (a few were fun, some were bad, and the rest were ok), but I wouldn't bother with this, even if I could just 'walk on' to the ride without queueing.
Having said that I hope it does well for them... the more people queueing for that ride, the less there is on the rides I actually want to go on... plus the whole ROI for the park and better attractions in the future blah blah blah....
Gotta see it before making a final judgement ... But the POV on YouTube looks cheesy as hell.
It’s cheesy with The Rock. Soon he’ll be in Jungle Cruise. The Shock.
Good to know you're still making ride evaluations from your desk chair Anton.
Perhaps you missed the last 3 F&F movies that included The Rock, or the fact that The Rock is probably one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood right now. His casting in Jungle Book was a no brainer after the success of Jumanji.
Rode it today, and was very underwhelmed. Compared to - oh, every other simulator at Universal Studios Orlando - it ranks dead last on excitement and enjoyment. The walk through the queue was the most entertaining part of the whole experience. The intro scenes were stilted, badly paced,and lacking in any sense of urgency. The ride itself was, to put it bluntly, boring. I can't even pretend to recommend this to anyone, unless it's raining and you need somewhere to keep dry and take a nap. I really wanted to love this ride. Now I'm just looking forward to them replacing it (hopefully soon!) with something better. (That shouldn't be too difficult.)
I agree with the poster about how underwhelming the ride is. The busses need to be trashed. First Kong, now this. You can't see what is going on. Views are blocked on one side or the other. There is no sense of high speed or motion at all. No seatbelts should have been a clue to how watered-down the excitement level is. The acting in the video portions is so bad and stilted. The pacing is off ad the actors, especially Vin Diesel are just going through the motions waiting for their paychecks. The queue is the only good thing about the attraction. Kong, Jimmy Fallon (though, personally, I love this one) and now this snoozefest. Universal keeps stepping down from the highs of the Transformers and the Harry Potter rides.
@Russell Meyer...he's in Jungle Book???!!!
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I'm assuming they ditched the 3D as a cost saving measure?