Continued
Back To The Future
. . . The Ride is actually two identical rides, located side by
side in the same building. Each ride contains twelve identical
eight-seater DeLoreans, each in its own “garage.” The
cars are arranged on three levels: four on the bottom, five in
the middle, and three on the top. As you proceed into the maze
of ramps that lead into the Institute, you will be guided to one
of these levels. Once inside, you will wait first in a staging
area and then in a cramped anteroom to your vehicle’s garage.
All along, the imaginative video introduction keeps you posted
on Biff’s caper while preparing you for the rigors of time
travel. When you are in the final anteroom, an amusing safety
warning featuring a family of hapless crash dummies explains the
dangers of the DeLorean you’re about to squeeze into.
At last the door opens
and you see your DeLorean (and the wobbly group who just rode
in it groping for the exit). If you look up you can see a gray
void looming overhead. Once everyone is seated, the padded lap
bars lock into place and the sides of the car fold down. It’s
a tight fit.
Tip:
Try for the front seats. The view is better and rear seat passengers
can expect to get their heads banged against the (padded) rear
wall of the car. And heed the warnings about securing your personal
belongings. Cameras, wallets, glasses, and the like have been
known to disappear into the time-space continuum.
Suddenly you’re
airborne in a cloud of liquid nitrogen smoke and a flash of strobe
lights that mask the DeLorean’s rise up and out of the garage
below. Your vehicle is actually an open-air cousin to the high-tech
simulators used to train airline pilots. Like a box on stilts
it hovers a few feet off the ground, but for all you know or care
you might as well be in the depths of interstellar space.
You are now facing
a mammoth, curved movie screen that completely fills your line
of vision and represents the true genius of this ride. Other simulator-based
rides (like the Hanna-Barbera ride here at Universal) use a movie
screen that serves as a window to the outside of your spaceship
or other vehicle. With Back To The Future, you are outside and
the environment wraps around you. The illusion is startling, not
to mention sometimes terrifying.
The movement of the
simulator’s stilts is surprisingly modest. You never actually
move more than two feet in any direction. But try telling that
to your brain. The kinetic signals sent by your body combine with
the visual signals received from the screen to convince you that
you are zooming along at supersonic speeds, making white-knuckle
turns at dizzying angles. Matching the technological wonder of
the concept is the care that went into making the multi-million
dollar 70-mm Omnimax film in which you become a key participant.
Its budget reportedly rivaled that of most major feature-length
films. It was directed by that living legend of special effects,
Douglas Trumbull, and as they say in the movie biz, every penny
they spent is on the screen.
The best seats
in the house. The best way to experience this mind-boggling attraction is from
the front row of the middle car of the middle row of DeLoreans.
Regardless of which of the two “theaters” you enter,
this car is designated as “Car Six.” This position points
you directly at the center of the domed screen. You’ll experience
less distortion of the image (and, not incidentally, reduce any
tendency towards motion sickness) and you’ll be less likely
to be distracted by glimpsing other cars out of your peripheral
vision. (By the way, in the unlikely event you find yourself bored
during your umpty-umpth ride, especially if you’re off to
the side of the bottom row, looking around at the other cars will
give you a deeper appreciation of just how clever this ride is.)
Unfortunately, there’s
no easy way to position yourself to get the optimum seat. It’s
pretty much luck of the draw. If the lines are short or nonexistent,
you might ask an attendant to point you to car number six (they’ll
know what you’re talking about). That might at least get
you to the right level. Otherwise, you’ll just have to keep
trying until your lucky number comes up. For die-hard fans that’ll
be something they can live with.
Tip: If you’re prone to motion sickness but still want to savor
the special thrills of this ride, take a Dramamine, or a similar
over-the-counter anti-motion sickness pill, before you leave for
the park. Popping one just before entering will probably not protect
you. During the ride, keep your eyes focused on Biff’s car
dead ahead to avoid too much conflict with your inner ear’s
balancing mechanism. If you find yourself getting uncomfortably
nauseated, shut your eyes and tell yourself to relax. Remember,
the ride lasts less than five minutes. Some queasy riders report
getting relief by turning their gaze away from the screen and
focusing on an adjacent car.
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