The Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios in Orlando will have its grand opening May 15-16, Universal Orlando announced.
The brief annuncement promises a "Simpsons-style" grand opening" complete with celebrities, then promises more details later.
The Simpsons Ride (at left) is a rebuild of the old Back to the Future: The Ride building. Construction began about a year ago and looks just about finished.
There's no word whether there will be a soft opening to get the kinks out of the ride before the opening. Usually soft openings start a few weeks before the grand opening. As of Friday, a construction wall still surrounded the building and construction workers appeared to be still putting things together.
The construction, reportedly costing $30 million, will use the 80-foot-tall movie screens and the bases of the motion-simulation vehicles from Back to the Future: The Ride, to give visitors a virtual-reality trip through a cartoon theme park called "Krustyland" -- the domain of The Simpsons' TV clown.
The ride also is being built at Universal Studios Hollywood, and is set to open May 17 there (with a reported $40 million pricetag.) The studios there have given local reporters a couple of opportunities to tour the construction site and the reports are that the pre-show is the highly-themed Krustyland carnival. There are new ride vehicles, new scissor lifts, new motion platforms and new digital projectors.