Race Through NY w/ Jimmy Fallon (Universal Studios, FL)

With the rumors circulating that Team Members were getting rides on the new Race Through NY (which replaced Twister, RIP Bill Paxton), I had hopes that I'd be able to get on it before the Spring Break crowds started showing up. Sure enough, two days later, I'm checking Twitter and see that it just soft opened this afternoon. I jump out of work today and head on over to the park.

Wait time listed 45 minutes, which is incredible for a soft open so I walked in. You're given a colored pass (see above, colors corresponding to the NBC peacock logo) by a front desk concierge. Past the concierge is a memorabilia corridor containing things from every Tonight Show past host. I could personally appreciate Triumph the Insult Comic Dog at the Conan booth. Think this area could use benches in the center of the room to prevent people from sitting against the displays and blocking views. After 20 minutes, the lobby lights change to orange... time to go upstairs!

This is the longer of the waiting areas, but so much to do. There are couches and a lounge-like atmosphere in one room. There are app-like video games that you can play while you wait or you can simply take a nap. In the next room, we have several TVs showing greatest hits of Fallon's show (not being a fan of Fallon, I found a lot of these to be hilarious) and a small stage. Intermittently, the Ragtime Gals barbeshop quartet will come out and sing for 15 minutes or so, which is an absolute hit. Other times, Hashtag the Panda will come out and dance and high-five the people in the crowd, letting people grab selfies. I really enjoy this lax 'queue' if you would even call it that... it's essentially like waiting for a table in a restaurant, except with entertainment and the freedom to move around. Honestly feel like they could benefit from serving beer in this area. After about 40 minutes, the lobby lights change to orange and I'm going into the short queue.

We're sent into our rows and a TV comes on with the Tonight Show beginning starring us. Jimmy has The Roots rap the safety instructions, which I thought was pretty clever. Sara with no H is in the audience whining. And we head in to the ride described as 'a flying theater'!!!....

And it's a regular theater. By many accounts, Fallon was supposed to be Universal's answer to Soarin'. By the looks of it, it was going to be the answer to Star Tours or another Minions instead (exception being this is all one big ride vehicle as opposed to smaller four-seaters of Minions). We face a screen that has Race Through New York on a closed curtain, put on our 3D glasses and we're ready to go.

(Ride Spoiler)

The video opens at the Tonight Show where Jimmy pulls up in his Tonight Rider (ugh) and tells us we're going to race him through NY... was this mentioned anywhere else in the queue? So random. We zoom out of the studio and break out onto the streets of Manhattan. Pizzas flying, taxis all over the place, we drive through Times Square. Lots of smells going on. Get dinged by a subway and end up diving down into the East River. Water spray abound... this is a nice mist though. Fly out above NY past the Statue of Liberty's fireworks and the Empire State Building. On top of Empire, Hashtag the Panda is massive (for no reason, even Jimmy acknowledges this) and he grabs us and hurls us to the moon... no seriously. So we're floating on the moon, we run into The Roots who tell us that there's an 'unfinished rollercoaster' that goes from the moon to Earth. We ride that, fall off the tracks and head towards the ground when Jimmy opens up this vortex that we fly through and we somehow end back up at 30 Rock. We break towards the finish line and beat him. He says congrats and the ride is over.

What the hell just happened?

Aside from the clear lack of cohesive thought, the ride is very smooth. If we were comparing it to Soarin', that's about the only thing I'd say it has in common. This makes riding a lot more comfortable than Minion Mayhem; however, Minion's great storyline blows Fallon out of the water. Don't really care for the fact that they put no effort into theater theming. It feels like you're watching a movie... I think enclosing it like Star Tours would make it feel like you're actually racing. I'm reading that they may make the ride controls more aggressive, which I couldn't disagree more on. Although the movement is somewhat tame, think that's what Universal needs if it keeps doing these jerky simulator rides.

So what's the bottom line?

The ride is mediocre; however, this is a can't-miss queue experience. So I wouldn't give it a high score for re-ridability. Twice would probably be enough and that's it. Queue experience I'd give a B+ but close to A, while ride is a low C. The optimistic me gives this overall a B-.