Despicable Me Minion Mayhem

Despicable Me Minion Mayhem – complete ride review

ATTENTION: This review contains spoilers. If you want to skip down to the media galleries and map, click here.

Tonight Despicable Me was finally open to guests. When I arrived I encountered about a 60 minute wait for the attraction. I entered Gru’s house, barely making it inside as the line at 60 minutes is about as long as the main section of the queue.  In this area you are entertained by a 15 minute queue video that sets the whole premise for the ride: becoming a minion. There are minion quizzes, profiles of the various characters — Gru, Agnes, Edith, Margo, Dr. Nefario, and of course minions — and a good deal of movie footage.

This part of the queue was probably about 45 minutes of the 60 minute wait I had. A few things I noted in the queue: the ride attendants are dressed like Dr. Nefario and the queue video for the first few runs is actually pretty entertaining.

After you finally get out of the main queue area you get to enter the real part of Gru’s house. This is the area where you get your 3D glasses; they’re the same as those used for The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man. You also get to see the inside of Gru’s house first-hand. This includes many items that folks who watched the movie will recognize: Gru’s “space helmet” box, the drawing of the girls in crayon on Gru’s wall, the lion head holding a dog in its mouth, which is holding a cat in its mouth, and more.

Despicable Me Minion Mayhem at Universal Studios Florida.

Note: When you are done reading the review, be sure to scroll down to the photo gallery to see many more images from inside Gru’s house.

There is also a pre-pre-ride video, as I’m going to call it, where you get your basic ride instructions (don’t put the glasses on before you’re told to, followed by a minion doing just that and running into a wall). This is also the area where you get separated into your rows. There are six total motion rows and one non-motion row. After watching the video and getting a little pre-ride history, you proceed to the main pre-ride video room.

In this main pre-ride room you are greeted by a ride attendant and then Gru eventually comes “in” (and minions too) as he walks across the screens in the room. He explains to you about how he and Dr. Nefario have come up with a process of turning people into minions and that’s what’s going to happen. He is eventually joined by the girls who find out he is going to be turning us all into minions and the girls tell him they want to do the training. After some back and forth Gru reluctantly agrees to allow the girls to train us. While this is happening, Agnes is trying to give Gru a present, but he says they will need to do that later. After Gru turns over the training to the girls, he leaves the room and you find out that today is the one-year anniversary of Gru’s adoption of the girls, and Agnes wonders if he remembered.

Despicable Me Minion Mayhem at Universal Studios Florida.

By the way, you will also get to experience a frightening piece of Dr. Nefario’s technology first hand in this room – the fart gun! Now, onto the main ride room!

As I mentioned before there are six rows of motion benches, and one row of stationary benches. The motion rows seat four to a bench, and there are four benches in each row. This allows for up to 16 people in each row, meaning they can seat 96 people in motion seating each ride. The benches and ride area remind me a bit of Jimmy Neutron in setup, but that’s about the extent of the true similarities. After entering the theater and you are seated you will be told to don your 3D glasses and a lap bar will come down in the motion rows.

From here the ride begins, the screen comes to life as the high definition 3D engulfs your vision. After that you are promptly turned into minions by Gru’s newest gun and off you go. You follow the girls through a minion training grounds where you go through a loopy, roller-coaster like path and go up, under, around, and through various obstacles along the way (hint: you will get a little wet here). Eventually, after an incident involving Edith and a banana, you will tumble down into the depths of Gru’s workshop and encounter a variety of the perils within. You will do this all while chasing after Agnes’ gift to Gru, because, in the process of falling to the depths of Gru’s workshop, the gift ended up falling from Agnes’ hands.

After Gru steps in, the girls and us do a little more maneuvering, the minions all put forth a gigantic team effort, and the present is saved. From here Gru brings us through 2 doors to a huge celebration of the girl’s first anniversary with Gru. During this happy ending the minion gun accidentally goes off turning us all back into humans. From here Gru says goodbye and moves onto the next group of minions to be.

The ride ends, everyone exits their benches and proceeds out the exit doors, handing their glasses to the ride attendants and proceeding to the minion dance party! In here there is music going, people dressed like minions, disco lights flashing, and a few minions in full costume. It seemed like people were really enjoying themselves and getting their boogey on. One thing I noted here is that the dance party portion exits right into the gift shop, so this part of the attraction is accessible to people at any time via the gift shop.

Despicable Me Minion Mayhem at Universal Studios Florida.

All in all, after months of waiting, going to Universal multiple times a week over the last month in anticipation, watching the movie again just two weeks ago, and hitting refresh way too many times on my Twitter feed, I found myself satisfied with Despicable Me Minion Mayhem. I don’t think I would go as far as to call it my favorite attraction at USF, but it certainly is a strong addition to an already impressive line-up. I thought the 3D technology was the second best in the park (the reigning champ for 3D, Spider-man, wasn’t dethroned by this up-and-comer). The story was fun, family-friendly, and most importantly, funny. I found myself smiling throughout and laughing quite a few times. After all, who doesn’t love those adorable minions? The ride benches were smooth — not jerky at all — and the effects were solid and immersive.

Ultimately, while I noticed some similarities to Jimmy Neutron, I didn’t feel like Universal just stamped a new theme on the attraction and re-opened it. It felt fresh, fun, and was indeed the perfect addition to round out 2012’s addition in their Year to Be Here. Now to start my countdown to WWoHP 2.0!

Click here to write your review!