Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ride
4½ minutes.
Average wait in line per 100 people ahead of you
4½ minutes.
Load-
ing speed
Moderate-fast.
Hasbro's Transformers—those toy robots from the 1980s that you turned and twisted
into trucks and planes—have been, er, transformed into director Michael Bay's block-
buster movie franchise and then to a theme park attraction befitting their pop-culture
idols. Recruits to this cybertronic war enlist by entering the N.E.S.T. Base (headquar-
ters of the heroic Autobots and their human allies). Inside, in the queue, video monit-
ors catch you up on the backstory. Basically, the Decepticon baddies are after the All-
spark, source of cybernetic sentience. Your job is to safeguard the shard. The vastly
annoying top villain, Megatron, and his pals Starscream and Devastator threaten the
mission, but don't worry, you have Sideswipe and Bumblebee on the bench to back
you up.
The plot amounts to little more than a giant game of keep-away, and the uniniti-
ated will likely be unable to tell one meteoric mass of metal from another, but you'll
be too dazzled by the debris whizzing by to notice. The ride's mix of detailed set
pieces and high-tech video projections bring these colossi to life in one very intense
and immersive thrill ride.
This ride draws crowds—your only solace is that The Wizarding World of Harry
Potter-Diagon Alley draws even larger throngs. Follow our touring plan to minimize
waits. The single-rider line will get you on board faster, but as singles lines go, this
is the pokiest we've seen. Finally, it's hard to focus on the fast-moving imagery from
the front row; center seats in the second and third rows provide the best perspective.
The Supply Vault, also known as the Transformers gift shop, opened in March
2013. Transformer characters Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and Megatron appear reg-
ularly on the streets of Universal Studios.
