Universal Studios Florida is an
American theme park located in
Orlando, Florida. Opened on June 7, 1990, the park's theme is the entertainment industry, in particular movies and television. Universal Studios Florida inspires its guests to "ride the movies," and it features numerous attractions and live shows. The park is one component of the larger
Universal Orlando Resort.
In 2010, the park hosted an estimated 5.9 million guests, ranking it the eighth-most visited theme park in the United States.
History
Park history
Unlike its sister facility,
Universal Studios Hollywood, which is a working film and television studio that became a tourist attraction and theme park, Universal Studios Florida was designed as both a theme park and a studio from the start. It was also the first time that Universal Studios had constructed an amusement park "from the ground up."
A major component of the original park in Hollywood is its studio tour, which featured several special-effects exhibits and encounters built into the tour, such as an attack by the
great white shark from the film
"Jaws". For its Florida park, Universal Studios took the concepts of the Hollywood tour scenes and developed them into larger, stand-alone attractions. As an example, in Hollywood, the studio tour trams travel close to a shoreline and are "attacked" by Jaws before they travel to the next part of the tour. In Florida, guests enter the...
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