Jaws Attraction (Orlando)

From Freepedia

This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality.
This article has been tagged since September 2005.
See How to Edit and Style and How-to for help, or this article's talk page.

This article is about the theme park attraction at the Universal Orlando Resort; for other uses of the term, see jaws (disambiguation).

Jaws is a slow-moving boat ride at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida based upon the film Jaws. It simulates a shark attack in Amity Harbor. The boats rocks back and forth and riders are splashed with water. There are no big drops like Islands of Adventure's Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls.

1 Ride Premise
2 Ride Specifics and Accessibility
3 Tips
4 Trivia
5 External links

Ride Premise

After the shark attacks of 1974, as portrayed in the film Jaws, the tourism industry of Amity Island, Massachusetts almost died out. Years later some wealthy tourists asked an old seaman named Jake Grundy to take them out to see the places where the shark attacks occurred. Grundy got the idea to make a business out of that, starting up Captain Jake's Amity Boat Tours. Due to the popularity of Captain Jake's, the town decided to change its philosophy of denying the sharks attacks happened to embracing the shark attacks. Now, Amity is Shark City with a booming tourism economy.

Tourists entering the ride will be taking one of Captain Jake's Amity Boat Tours out to see the sights from the film Jaws. The boats are piloted by one of Captain Jake's skippers, and all are protected by an army surplus 40 mm grenade launcher. However, Jake is confident that you'll never need to use the grenade launchers because the last great white shark anyone has seen was in 1974. What could possibly go wrong?

Ride Specifics and Accessibility

Each boat has eight rows which are designed to fit six adults. Two boats are designed to comply with the ADA, so they have a part of the back row missing in order to fit a wheelchair on the boat. The ride takes about 5 minutes in total.

All riders will get wet, possibly soaking wet. There is no place that always stays dry on every boat every time around. It is, after all, a water ride that is designed to get its riders wet.

The attraction has no height requirement; the only restriction regarding children is that they must have their own seat on the boat benches. Hand-held infants are not allowed, and children are not permitted to sit in the laps of adults. The ride has loud noises, intense pyrotechnic effects, and large mechanical sharks that come out of the water, so the ride may not be suitable for some small children even if they are physically large enough to ride. There is no place where guests can observe the ride without going on it, so they must make a decision based on the ride's description on the sign and information provided by attendants.

Guests with back and neck problems, heart conditions, medical sensitivities to fog effects, motion sickness, and who are pregnant are advised not to ride. Not all guests falling into these categories would have trouble with the ride, so they may ask attendants for assistance. The final decision of riding or not is left up to the each individual guest.

Guests in standard wheelchairs may enter the queue as normal. Guests with electric wheelchairs or electronic convenience vehicles (ECVs) may not enter the queue as the lanes are too narrow; attendants take them and their parties to a different entrance near the front of the line. Guests with wheelchairs or ECVs have the option of leaving the chairs and ECVs off to the side and entering walking into the boat from the row lanes, putting the chair right next to the boat and transferring in (a half transfer), or boarding the boat in their own standard wheelchair or transferring from an electric vehicle into a standard wheelchair and then boarding the boat (a full transfer).

While boarding, riders are instructed to remain seated with hands and legs inside the boat at all times. Standing, smoking, photography and videotaping are prohibited. Although enforcement of the no photography or videotaping rules often depends on whether the skipper cares about it or not, riders should be aware that cameras and video equipment are at risk of getting wet on the ride. All riders must wear shirts, including small children, and guests are discouraged from bringing food and drinks on the boats.

Due to its nature of being an outdoor boat ride, Jaws temporarily suspends operation when lightning is within five miles of the park. Once 15 minutes have passed after the last lightning strike within five miles, the ride will resume operations. Park control determines when the ride closes and opens due to lightning; the attendants at the ride do not make those decisions. Rains has no effect on the ride's operations.

The queue video is supposedly a broadcast of WJWS Channel 13, a local Amity television channel. It always is airing an episode of "Hey There Amity," a magazine news show, commemorating the 1974 shark attacks. It also features ads for other programming on the network and local businesses in Amity as if it was a real station. The video has not changed since the attraction opened in 1990 even though the ride itself has changed over the years. Advertisements for Captain Jake's Amity Boat Tours show aspects of the ride as they were in 1990 that have since changed, including the skippers wearing white hats (now skippers have the option of wearing a blue denim bucket hat, though most choose not to) and boats having curved canopies (which are now flat).

The boats do not actually float, and they run on a track. They are still considered boats enough to fall under Florida's open container law, which means that open containers of alcohol are not allowed on the boats.

Tips

As with any other attraction, the queue is usually shortest at the beginning and end of the day. In addition, the queue tends to die down some during Fear Factor Live shows as that attraction is adjacent to Jaws. When Fear Factor Live shows end however, the queue generally gets flooded with people.

Guests should only enter the queue if they have their entire party together. The structure of the queue buildings and their roping makes it difficult to join people who have already gone in. Trying to rejoin other people often just makes for hassles for the attendants and other guests.

Guests should know the number of people in their party prior to reaching the front of the line. Attendants usually have less than a minute to load the boats as full as possible, so knowing the number of people helps the attendants and makes the line go faster.

The attraction's entrance has a large sign that says "Amity Boat Tours" on the roof to match with the theme of the ride. The fact that there is no large sign that says "JAWS" often causes confusion among guests. The sign with the ride guidelines does however have a Jaws sign at the top, and the Universal Express Distribution kiosks adjacent to the entrance say Jaws as well.

Sometimes during peak hours in peak months the attraction will have a single riders line that also takes parties of two. Interested parties should ask attendants for assistance.

Trivia

On the right side of the first part of the ride is a building marked "Steven's Cannery" that was named after Jaws producer Steven Spielberg. This is probably a pun based on the fact that movie film is traditionally kept in cans. The building is dated 1890 though, which means that in the storyline of the ride it must have had some other unknown name before being renamed for Speilberg.

During the ride, Captain Jake's base calls Police Chief Martin Brody for help. At this point Brody should be in his 70s, yet he apparently has not yet retired from the force.

None of the buildings along the ride route, like Brody's House, the lighthouse, or the church, are actual size but still appear to be thanks to perspective effects.

The sharks in the ride scream as they rise out of the water. In real life, sharks have no vocal chords and therefore are incapable of screaming.

Occasionally lightning will strike the island at the attraction, and when it does all of the shark effects go off at once, including the screaming.

The queue video is still run off of a laser disc.

Perhaps learning from the confusion caused at the Orlando attraction, the Jaws ride at Universal Studios Japan has a very large sign that says "JAWS" rather than an "Amity Boat Tours" sign.