The Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios Orlando, Florida

As a lifelong Simpsons lover, I was so excited to here that Universal Studios was opening a Simpsons themed ride in 2008.

I finally had the chance to check out the ride this October on a trip to Orlando. The Simpsons ride replaced the old Back to the Future simulator ride at the park, which left me torn because I love them both. To be fair, Back to the Future was a bit dated and needed improvement anyway, and the creaters of the Simpsons ride do pay homage to BTTF with an appearance by Doc Brown.

The ride is elaborately themed, and designed to resemble Krustyland, an amusement park based on Krusty the Clown. You enter the ride through Krusty’s mouth and exit through the Kwik-E-Mart gift shop.  All your favorite characters are here, with 24 Simpsons characters involved, all voiced by the original actors.

The pre-ride show is about 5 minutes of original SImpsons footage with a clever storyline. The ride itself features none other than Sideshow Bob, back (once again!) to kill Bart. This time though, he’s out to get you too.

The ride is 6 minutes long, a pretty good deal, and features a ride on a decrepid roller coaster, where you’re riding in a car right behind the Simpson family. I won’t give away the ending, but it’s a wild ride!

It would have been nice to see the ride’s creators make this more fun. If you take away the Simpsons element, it’s just another simulator ride. To really make the ride successful, they could have used technology like that used on the Spiderman ride at Islands of Adventure, which is really just an update on a simulator ride itself.

Die hard Simpsons fans will be happy to experience this attraction, if only to take pictures with Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie.