JAWS - THE RIDE THAT GOT AWAY!

Today - June 20th 2024 - is the 49th anniversary since the release of the first ever summer blockbuster movie, JAWS!  As the countdown for the big 50th anniversary next year begins, let's look back at the greatly missed JAWS THE RIDE!

Jaws The Ride opened at Universal Studios Florida in 1990. Its troubled early days/years are well documented online and in print and a revised version of the ride finally opened in 1993.

I first experienced the Jaws ride in June 1994 when I was 13 years old and it terrified me! It all felt so real, with the build up to the encounter starting long before you boarded your tour boat:

• learning about the actual Chief Brody that the movie was based on as you waited in line watching the comedic ‘Hey There Amity’ show on raised monitors;

• setting off for an Amity Boat Tour but don’t worry “no sharks have been spotted for years”;

• turning the corner to see the sinking Amity 3 tour boat by the lighthouse, then a shark fin breaking the surface;

• hiding out in the stinky, dark boat house but the shark still finds you;

• being attacked on the port side just before a giant explosion at the Amity Gas Co. singes your eyebrows;

• and then a final shark attack amid a shower of sparks as it chomps down on the power cables just like the climax of JAWS 2!

Brilliant! They don’t make theme park rides like that anymore!

Back then, there were no digital cameras and the cameras we did have used actual film which needed developing later at a cost - whether your shots were any good or not. You took a chance having your camera out as you were at risk dropping it overboard or getting it wet during the shark attacks. The boat skippers also warned you that there was to be no flash photography. I was lucky enough to take several photographs of the Jaws ride in 1996 and 1998 which I now cherish for the memories.

Visitors were also lucky to see props from the last Jaws movie, 1987's awful 'Jaws The Revenge', including a shark which was left on display in the 'Bone Yard' (now the Plaza Stage area near the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit) to bake in the sun and have its teeth stolen.  Immediately outside the ride, in the town of Amity, you could get up close to a chomped Amity Police boat and the Neptune's Folly boat which killed the shark during the finale of that much derided movie. 

Theme park goers bid ‘farewell and adieu’ to the Jaws ride at Universal Studios Florida in early 2012 and it was subsequently replaced with the immersive Diagon Alley from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. 

The hanging captured shark (known as Bruce after the prop shark from the original movie which itself was named after Spielberg’s lawyer) was installed in 1990 outside Jaws The Ride but was thankfully relocated from Amity to Fisherman’s Wharf when that part of Universal Studios was redeveloped. 

Bruce is still popular to this day. The nearby Chez Alcatraz bar cleverly capitalizes on the visiting Jaws fans by tempting them with the dramatic Ocean Attack cocktail!

But be warned: don’t do a Chief Brody and attempt a ‘half-ass autopsy’ on the bad fish after a few drinks: selfie-seekers won’t appreciate seeing that little Kintner boy spilling out all over the dock!

You can find out more about the Jaws ride in an in-depth book by Dustin McNeil, called ‘Adventures in Amity: Tales from the Jaws Ride’.

See all our Universal Studios Florida photographs in a special album on our Facebook page >>> P&K USA