After refurbishment, Revenge of the Mummy is now open at Universal Orlando in a “Technical Rehearsal” phase. I’m one of the biggest fans of this indoor roller coaster, having ridden it over 300 times. Hearing that it was getting refurbished this year was not only exciting, but of course a bit worrying. Would it lose the little quirks that made it so good? Would the storyline and queue remain the same? What about Brendan Fraser, would he get his coffee?
Revenge of the Mummy reopened today, unannounced, after an over half-year closure. The indoor roller coaster has been closed at the Universal Orlando Resort in Florida since January 7th, 2022.
Long-time fans worried the plot of the beloved theme park attraction would be lost while supposed changes to the control system took place. However, the storyline remains the same and the general feel of the attraction is similar, with long-overdue upgrades to some areas of the ride.
Everything is subject to change from this portion of the article on, as the ride is in “Technical Rehearsals.”
Changes to Effects:
The storyline and props remain mostly the same throughout the ride experience. Effects that have been off for years are now working, but some effects have also been removed (may contain spoilers for those who have not ridden).
At the start of the attraction, we were told Imhotep had been upgraded, his movements may be just a bit more fluid than before, but it is not noticeable to the average rider, some delayed audio is noticed during these technical rehearsals, & the speed through here felt slow and delayed. Following this, the “treasure room” is in full working order with no changes. Upon exiting this room, the door that drops on riders comes down much quicker; so quick in fact that you completely miss the dropping wall if seated in the first row, and actually see the wall come to a stop if seated in the back row. This doesn’t give quite the same oh no we’ll be stuck in here forever-mentality that the older, slower-moving effect had.
The “Bug Room” has the most noticeable changes. Screens are now in use instead of the screen/practical effect combo that had “real” bugs crawling towards riders. Physical bugs no longer fall out of the skeletons to the riders’ side or in front of the car via a slot on the wall (seen below). The walls no longer have 3D bugs on them, nor do the columns. Instead, all three walls now have a brightly projected screen, with a small water effect added above, only hitting those riders seated in the middle of the train. The effect on the screen is more animated, bugs are larger, and the outcome is average.
The turntable room and following launch tunnel look great, with most effects working better than ever. The roller coaster section and ride experience from here on out remains much the same with some effects needing small timing-tweaks. The smashed-window effect in the final fake-out room needs some improvement, as you can see the slider doors very clearly at the moment, possibly due to lighting changes in this area. But Imhotep looks much better!
While this is still in technical rehearsals and effects can change, there are problems with speeds at the moment that will hopefully be addressed in the near future. The same effects starting late or too early were common on the multiple rides I had today. Depending on where you were sitting in the car this had you miss certain things and the pacing of the story just felt, off.
Overall, the ride has changed very little, but long-time fans will notice the differences, and hopefully, these issues will be fixed. Right now with the current speed of the attraction, there are some odd pauses of nothingness in between each scene.
Technical Stuff:
Some more things the average guest would not recognize are details about how the ride itself is running. Dispatches are slower, noticeably slower, in fact. I imagine capacity is 30% less at the rate of these dispatches. Revenge of the Mummy has one of the most complicated block systems ever, one that takes a bit too long to describe in text, but I’m not sure they fully re-figured it out yet. It will be noticeable to seasoned riders of the attraction that you are waiting a while to dispatch. This means that the queuing will be longer if it continues to run in this state, especially during busy seasons.
Braking was not as quick as before during our ride-throughs. Hard-stops are known to be present during a few sections of Revenge of the Mummy, but it doesn’t feel that way anymore, and the ride itself seems to take a bit longer to complete the dark-ride portion now, but I can’t confirm this. I personally enjoyed the scary-quick stops and felt they fit in with the theme of the attraction, but it was jarring for some guests.
The queue is the same apart from one new wall opening which allows an Express user to merge with the regular line before the interactive features of the queue. This is something that would previously cause issues with the interactive features due to the location of the merge point and/or made the express line longer as they have their own loading platform which provides less capacity than the regular line. All fixed now.
Overall, the computer and brain of the attraction definitely changed, and riders who know the Mummy will be able to feel those changes, but the average guest will likely enjoy it just as much or more. The sometimes janky and aggressive quirks the Mummy previously had, are no longer present.
“A scary army of mummies. Swarms of scarab beetles. Huge fireballs. Can you survive the wrath of the evil Imhotep?” The best ride is back at Universal Studios, but at the moment it seems they still have some bugs to work out!
