Universal Studios Orlando: Transformers!

Transformers: The Ride opened this evening for approximately 90 minutes starting at 7:15. The chatter around other boards pointed to tonight being the first day of soft openings after 7:00 PM.

Arrived at the park around 6:30 PM, lots of people hanging around as employee previews were going strong. The statue of Optimus Prime over the entrance is very cool! The area was buzzing with the Transformers music. The entrance closed at 7:00 PM and team members were stating the ride would not open until June 20th.

The suits were hanging around the entrance and instructed Team Members to begin previews. The line filled quickly, but I was around the 15 or 20 back from the front of the line. The queue felt much longer than Spiderman, however the tone of the queue is similar to Spiderman. The detail in the queue is quite impressive.

Once you reach the loading area, they load the ride similar to Spiderman with two cars at a time. The ride vehicle is almost exactly as Spiderman, but the vehicle does not have the holding area for lose items.

The ride itself felt quite long and quite cool! The elevator piece to move the vehicles from one floor to the next felt very seem less in transition. The film and sound certainly felt more fresh than Spiderman. In my opinion, the coolest trick was the backwards motion screens...something Spiderman does not have. However many other tricks are similar to Spiderman, such as the water effects and vertical free fall.

Even with the similarities to Spiderman, the ride is great! After exiting the ride, the line was upwards of 90 minutes. Universal has another great ride on there hands and with Potter coming next summer...this is truly the place to be!

Good to finally hear someone has been on it, though I wouldn't expect reviews to be that different from the Hollywood park.

Say what you will about Comcast, but they're dumping money in to these parks at a ridiculous rate. Nice to see them freshening the place up.

My wife and I are going to HHN23 and we were considering just relaxing by day, but with Transformers and now The Simpsons expansion that's not going to happen.

Rumors on the street is the Simpson expansion restaurants will be open this weekend for previews. I did notice several employees walking around in their new costume garb for the new eatery. Depending on the weather, I may walk over there this weekend to see the new area and have a chicken and waffle sandwich.

However the wife has been wanting to hit up Sea World for the new Empire of the Penguin attraction. Due to her work, they are offering extended hours on Saturday with a free meal voucher...thus Sea World may win out.

We originally planned on waiting until next year to go to Universal again, but my husband is saying now maybe September. Fine by me! He's also interested in the Star Tours re-do (we missed it last time), the SeaWorld ride, and hitting up some stuff we missed at the Disney parks. I thought this season was gonna stink, but it looks as though I was wrong!

Glad to hear Transformers is looking good. I'm always a little confused when they deny the ride is opening until the confirmed date and then go ahead and open it up anyway. Why the coyness and teasing?