Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 24, 1990 TAG: 9006240284
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By AMY WEBER LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
DATELINE: ORLANDO, FLA. LENGTH: Long
According to local media reports, 10 percent of those in attendance, about 1,000 opening-day parkgoers, demanded refunds.
And they got them. The studio gave a free pass, good for any time in the future, with each paid ticket through June 16.
Management of the park, which gives visitors a close-up and sometimes scary look at movie sets and some of Hollywood's most dramatic special effects, refused to let rides' glitches rain on their opening-day parade.
Celebrities such as Michael J. Fox, Jimmy Stewart, Bill Cosby, Jane Seymour and Charlton Heston were on hand to say kind words at the morning gala in front of 1,000 guests and media. A buoyant Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America, declared Florida "the new Hollywood."
The park is "the kind of magic God would have created if he had sufficient funding," he said.
And President of MCA Sid Sheinberg credited MCA Vice President Jay Stein - the whirlwind force behind the park - with bringing the project "from swampland to dreamland."
Still in a dream state on opening day were Jaws, Kongfrontation and Earthquake: The Big One.
As of Wednesday, both Kong and Earthquake still had not opened. The Jaws ride was operating, a studio spokeswoman said.
But a walk through the Kongfrontation attraction (certainly the biggest, and said by preview guests to be the best attraction) with park General Manager Tom Williams provided a taste of what future travelers to Orlando can expect.
Riders play the part of commuters on Roosevelt Island tramway in New York. TV monitors interrupt programming with the news that King Kong is on a rampage on Manhattan Island.
Buildings on the 71,000-square-foot, 6-story soundstage are built to three-fourths scale and depict a New York neighborhood. Riders can see inside apartment windows. A 6-ton Kong attacks the tramway not once, but twice. Hanging from a bridge, the beast (54 feet finger to finger) roars and breathes banana breath into the tram, swats at a full-scale attack copter that sluices in from the right, then he manages to whack the tram. Around the bend, the big ape reappears, grabbing the tram and heaving it down 30 feet.
Kong - and the entire park - are much bigger than the California version of the Universal Studios tour. The Florida park also has a greater diversity of attractions than its West Coast cousin.
"Universal Studios Hollywood is the original," said Joan Bullard, vice president of public relations at Universal Studios Hollywood. "The technologies we experimented with there, they brought here and made bigger."
Bigger doesn't necessarily mean better. But there's one thing that small isn't.
And that's big.
For instance, Universal Hollywood's Jaws ride is a quick dunk compared to the Florida ride of the same name; riders here take a six-minute pontoon-boat tour of Amity's bay. The 24-foot, 3-ton monster goes so far as to bite your boat.
Visitors on the inaugural journey were well-pleased. The Jaws show producer tagged along on that first ride, which finally opened on the third day after the park's grand opening. And despite comments such as "Ignore that" at some slip-up and "There was supposed to be an explosion there," riders were enthusiastic.
"It was well worth the wait," said 24-year-old Robert Strow of Florida; he admitted to having visited the park "several" times on his pass - which is good for a year.
Earthquake shares little with its Hollywood counterpart, other than title and a deluge of water. A pre-show, with demonstrations and films, narrated by Charlton Heston, on techniques such as matte painting, blue screen and stunts, is followed by a six-minute ride featuring an 8.3 shudder.
One thing Hollywood has that Florida doesn't: a tram. Roaming through the street sets is one of the studio's greatest pleasures.
The New York sets re-create streets from areas including the Upper East Side, Little Italy and Grammercy Park. In "Beverly Hills" and on a much cleaner, much happier theme-park version of Hollywood Boulevard, there are the Beverly Wilshire, Ciro's and Max Factor facades, along with the Walk of Fame and a Schwab's Pharmacy, which sells ice cream at $1.25 a scoop. (A "director" stops by every day to "discover" a would-be starlet.)
Mary Ann Barna of New York said the sets are "very intricate, a lot of things to see," although she was disappointed (on Day Two) that the glamour attractions were closed. But, chimed in her husband, Neil, "all the shops are open."
Indeed, the exits of all of the rides and shows provide convenient, adjoining access to their own gift shops. After the Ghostbusters show - one not to be missed - the door to the gift shop pops open, and Stay Puft and Slimer dolls, Ghostbuster action figures and Ectoplazm bubble bath beckon.
Goofy and gruesome see-through specters haunt the Ghostbusters show, which re-creates the final scene of the original movie. Seated visitors gaze up at the top of a giant building, a full-size Temple of Gozer set. The humongous head of the Stay Puft marshmallow man makes an appearance amid a spray of neutrana beams.
Another attraction not to be missed is the E.T. Adventure. After a stroll through a dark, evergreen-scented forest filled with tall trees and critters scampering in the underbrush, riders board cars that resemble bikes and take off. Bike riders take to the air to help E.T. elude police and return to his home planet. (The finale, however, may leave you feeling as if it's a small world after all.)
The line at the E.T. ride can be achingly long and sweaty; an opening-day line lasted 30 minutes, although one pair of parkgoers complained of a two-hour wait. Jay Stein told reporters, "We've done everything we can to minimize waits. . . . Also, we've provided shade, put fans in [lines] and put lines inside, where air conditioning is."
A sign at the line for the FUNtastic World of Hanna-Barbera warned of a wait of up to 1 1/2 hours, although the line I was in lasted a mere 45 minutes. TV monitors amuse those standing on sore feet with trivia (What breed of dog is Scooby-Doo?) and short cartoons. The sequence repeats every 30 minutes, meaning you could watch it three times before entering the ride. Mind numbing. (Scooby's a Great Dane, by the way.)
by CNB