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Skull Island: Reign of Kong - Reviews, Photos, and Videos

Soooo, I rode Kong for the first time last week during my Orlando trip and it was pretty alright. Big disappointment, not bad though.

Thoughts:

-One of my major complaints with this is the duration of the ride. It IS 6 minutes long but it feels SO MUCH shorter. And that’s unfortunately due to BIG BIG BIG pacing issues.

-I think it’s a HUGE wasted opportunity to not include more actual sets (like Mike West promised...) and instead use, yet again, the same old same old 3D. I wouldn’t mind if it was a new interesting story but it's another “something goes terribly wrong”, action centred, water spraying Universal 3D ride. Been there, done that. I liked the 360 part because is definitely something that you don’t find in any other Orlando ride (even if that’s gonna change in 2018 with Fast & Furious).

-There are BAD seats. You can clearly see the edge of the screens in some.

-The transition between the 360 room and the Kong scene is AWFUL and simply unacceptable.

-The Kong animatronic is incredibly detailed and easily the best animatronic I have ever seen. Unfortunately, the encounter is brought down by ridiculous narration by the drivers and just the awkwardness of the scene: Kong's just there and roar. It would have been cool if he interacted in some other way with the riders. The narration of the drivers also takes out the dramatism of the moment of entrance in the temple. The bad score and the way too high speed of the truck doesn’t help neither. I rode it three times: two with Jinks and one with Kalana. She's less annoying than Kinks but that's not a big compliment...

-The queue is good. I loved the podcasts, they were great. I loved the witch room too: the little effects used were nice touches and the witch itself was very detailed. I also liked the room near the end with the boxes with different creatures. The weird looking worm was very disgusting and awesome. They were moments in the queue were they weren’t many things to see though… The line moves pretty quickly and long wait times doesn’t seem so long as a result.

-The façade is amazing and I would put it in my top 5 at Universal for sure. It’s a shame that there are parts that are unthemed and just painted in black or not painted at all. Universal can be lazy sometimes…


My overall score for Kong is a 7. I mean, I still had fun… It’s a FUN ride but it could have been so much more. Oh, and I rode it at night one time. The scene is slightly better. This trip was kind of disappointing in terms of new rides: The "New" Hulk was just okay and Frozen Ever After was pretty mediocre (that ride actually made me MAD). Kong is easily the best of those 3 new offerings.


My new Universal Top 10 RIDES (not including shows):


1-Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
2-Revenge of the Mummy
3-The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman
4-E.T Adventure
5-Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts
6-Jurassic Park: River Adventure
7-Popeye’s and Bluto’s Bilge Rat Barges
8-Men in Black: Alien Attack
9-Transformers: The Ride 3D
10-Skull Island: Reign of Kong

If I had horrible grammatical mistakes I ask for forgiveness: english is not my first language.
 
Soooo, I rode Kong for the first time last week during my Orlando trip and it was pretty alright. Big disappointment, not bad though.

Thoughts:

-One of my major complaints with this is the duration of the ride. It IS 6 minutes long but it feels SO MUCH shorter. And that’s unfortunately due to BIG BIG BIG pacing issues.

-I think it’s a HUGE wasted opportunity to not include more actual sets (like Mike West promised...) and instead use, yet again, the same old same old 3D. I wouldn’t mind if it was a new interesting story but it's another “something goes terribly wrong”, action centred, water spraying Universal 3D ride. Been there, done that. I liked the 360 part because is definitely something that you don’t find in any other Orlando ride (even if that’s gonna change in 2018 with Fast & Furious).

-There are BAD seats. You can clearly see the edge of the screens in some.

-The transition between the 360 room and the Kong scene is AWFUL and simply unacceptable.

-The Kong animatronic is incredibly detailed and easily the best animatronic I have ever seen. Unfortunately, the encounter is brought down by ridiculous narration by the drivers and just the awkwardness of the scene: Kong's just there and roar. It would have been cool if he interacted in some other way with the riders. The narration of the drivers also takes out the dramatism of the moment of entrance in the temple. The bad score and the way too high speed of the truck doesn’t help neither. I rode it three times: two with Jinks and one with Kalana. She's less annoying than Kinks but that's not a big compliment...

-The queue is good. I loved the podcasts, they were great. I loved the witch room too: the little effects used were nice touches and the witch itself was very detailed. I also liked the room near the end with the boxes with different creatures. The weird looking worm was very disgusting and awesome. They were moments in the queue were they weren’t many things to see though… The line moves pretty quickly and long wait times doesn’t seem so long as a result.

-The façade is amazing and I would put it in my top 5 at Universal for sure. It’s a shame that there are parts that are unthemed and just painted in black or not painted at all. Universal can be lazy sometimes…


My overall score for Kong is a 7. I mean, I still had fun… It’s a FUN ride but it could have been so much more. Oh, and I rode it at night one time. The scene is slightly better. This trip was kind of disappointing in terms of new rides: The "New" Hulk was just okay and Frozen Ever After was pretty mediocre (that ride actually made me MAD). Kong is easily the best of those 3 new offerings.


My new Universal Top 10 RIDES (not including shows):


1-Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
2-Revenge of the Mummy
3-The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman
4-E.T Adventure
5-Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts
6-Jurassic Park: River Adventure
7-Popeye’s and Bluto’s Bilge Rat Barges
8-Men in Black: Alien Attack
9-Transformers: The Ride 3D
10-Skull Island: Reign of Kong

If I had horrible grammatical mistakes I ask for forgiveness: english is not my first language.
Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion. It seems that I enjoyed both Frozen and Kong way more than you did. Frozen is just in the wrong place and it's frustrating how it'll be done so much more extravagently elsewhere but at the same time what we got wasn't nearly as bad as what I thought it would be.
 
Good morning to everybody! I have been following these forums since the construction of hogsmeade (back when it was ioacentral) however this is my first post.

I was at Universal from august 25th- 29th. This was my first time back since Kong and Hulk were open. I tempered my expectations for the ride due to the feedback and reception I have read on here. I see it has been mostly positive however there seems to be alot of disappointment due to the hype around the ride. This kind of reminds me of what happened with Gringotts a couple years ago.

To the ride.

I think this ride is absolute amazing. The 3d and motion in the 360 room are the most convincing I have ever experienced. The Kong AA is absolutely stunning, in my opinion it is the best animatronic I have ever seen. My only disappointment was that I got to ride it 3 times and only went outside once. It really is alot better going outside. I would recommend waiting out in front to see if the RV's are going outside or not. In my opinion this really does make a difference in the overall experience. Oh yes and the queue is absolutely hands down my favorite queue anywhere!!

I have been so pumped for this ride ever since Mr. Hatetofly leaked the ride on the podcast a couple years ago. Let me just say this did not disappoint at all.

9.5/10

Congats Universal! This is a winner!
 
Good morning to everybody! I have been following these forums since the construction of hogsmeade (back when it was ioacentral) however this is my first post.

I was at Universal from august 25th- 29th. This was my first time back since Kong and Hulk were open. I tempered my expectations for the ride due to the feedback and reception I have read on here. I see it has been mostly positive however there seems to be alot of disappointment due to the hype around the ride. This kind of reminds me of what happened with Gringotts a couple years ago.

To the ride.

I think this ride is absolute amazing. The 3d and motion in the 360 room are the most convincing I have ever experienced. The Kong AA is absolutely stunning, in my opinion it is the best animatronic I have ever seen. My only disappointment was that I got to ride it 3 times and only went outside once. It really is alot better going outside. I would recommend waiting out in front to see if the RV's are going outside or not. In my opinion this really does make a difference in the overall experience. Oh yes and the queue is absolutely hands down my favorite queue anywhere!!

I have been so pumped for this ride ever since Mr. Hatetofly leaked the ride on the podcast a couple years ago. Let me just say this did not disappoint at all.

9.5/10

Congats Universal! This is a winner!
Welcome to the friendly & civil OU Forums.:cheers: Great review for your first post. It doesn't get any better.:thumbsup:
 
Just back from Orlando and finally got a chance to ride on Kong. I can't really match the detail of previous reviews but I'll give it a shot.

Outside theming is incredible, I think the doors give an amazing ominous feel to the whole attraction and the RVs going in looks awesome.

Some parts of the queue are awesome, I think the placing of the actors is good and really got me a few times. The witch is great also, incredibly detailed and well done. The worm is creepy as hell and that adds to it even more. Only issue with the queue is it felt like the story wasn't told very well, and the different people in the RVs didn't hold any significance. But, once again, another great queue by UC.

The ride itself was a little dissapointining if I'm honest. Although it was supposed to be the longest ride, it very brief. Especially the second time I rode they skipped the full outdoor scene due to weather, but it was well covered by the driver saying we have to hurry. I felt like so much emphasis was placed on Kate, despite how little was known about her. That's just a pet peeve. The screens were excellent BUT I absolutely despise how you can see the top of them from either the edge seats or the back row. I feel like that really takes away from the experience. Especially in the jungle scene, which looks complete bollocks when you're falling/ moving fast but you can see the top of the screen. I really hope they develop some sort of fix like Forbidden Journey with curved screens, or change the field of view for the trucks.

Kong at the end was absolutely breathtaking, I never take pictures on rides but I felt inclined to get a snap of him because he is truly massive and looks amazing.

Overall, a solid 7/10 for me.
 
I rode Kong this weekend. I'll start with the que. it was really nice, and I liked the 1920s advertisement voice introducing you to skull island the eighth wonder of the world. It really goes with the theme of the ride and I don't know why I love it, but it matches perfectly. The que inside was nice as well. I loved the witch chant, and as she said it the rumbling and voices got louder and louder. It gave it a very tribal and scary feel. I only saw the scare actors once because I had fast pass and they merged our line the first time during the witch room. The scare actors were amazing. I felt like I was in HHN when you see an opening that's coming up, and your trying to get as far away from it as possable. I was doing exactly that. It kept me jumpy as well as everyone else. Lastly was the crates and artifacts props before you board. That was nice and the with all of this combined with the speaker of the women telling you that someone I think was lost during the tour, gives a great story. As I boarded I had one of the white guy tourists. He looked kinda scary. I was sitting in the 7th row, so i saw him Farley well. He looked like an old et powdered manican that moved kinda fluently. His hair looked like a cheap cave man wig. I wanted to get a gelled sliked backed haired pilot. As soon as I saw the screen, I was super impressed. It looked sooo realistic. I'm gonna skip right onto the main room. I could see where the screen ends ended. I thought the screen should been on the roof and should have curved on the top and bottom. When we fall i didn't feel it like in grongotts. I Want to be on my side when we're falling, like you spdo when your falling. In general the screen needs to get done like in Harry Potter, but they should of done something EVEN better than that, just because it's a new ride. I also didn't like the plot. Kate got captured twice and that was it. The first scene I felt for her and I saw kings shadow coming in the distance which was cool, but the slug thing was a bit like what happened to her the first time. Then some type of claw grabbed her. That was a little less realistic. Not like all of this is realistic but, I think you get it. The Dino scene was cool but the room needs to be so amazing that I should be terrified for my life, if that's basically the entire ride. Once what was over I saw Kong. I was expecting 30 ft, but the second time I rode it, I was a little more in awe, I think because I took of my glasses and I was right on the edge. Once I figured out that it was over after that, I was kinda disappointed. Even though it said it was six minutes, I didn't feel like it at all. The ride in general is a good ride but I would kill my self befor I was 175 minutes. I didn't want to imagine people's faces once they waited in that line for that long and saw how short the rode was. Although I LOVED the music. I loved loved loved the music. Especially at the end when the music plays and everyone screams yay cuz we're all safe. I liked lithe ride, and it looks really nice, but it was too hyped. I was expecting more.
 
I rode Kong this weekend. I'll start with the que. it was really nice, and I liked the 1920s advertisement voice introducing you to skull island the eighth wonder of the world. It really goes with the theme of the ride and I don't know why I love it, but it matches perfectly. The que inside was nice as well. I loved the witch chant, and as she said it the rumbling and voices got louder and louder. It gave it a very tribal and scary feel. I only saw the scare actors once because I had fast pass and they merged our line the first time during the witch room. The scare actors were amazing. I felt like I was in HHN when you see an opening that's coming up, and your trying to get as far away from it as possable. I was doing exactly that. It kept me jumpy as well as everyone else. Lastly was the crates and artifacts props before you board. That was nice and the with all of this combined with the speaker of the women telling you that someone I think was lost during the tour, gives a great story. As I boarded I had one of the white guy tourists. He looked kinda scary. I was sitting in the 7th row, so i saw him Farley well. He looked like an old et powdered manican that moved kinda fluently. His hair looked like a cheap cave man wig. I wanted to get a gelled sliked backed haired pilot. As soon as I saw the screen, I was super impressed. It looked sooo realistic. I'm gonna skip right onto the main room. I could see where the screen ends ended. I thought the screen should been on the roof and should have curved on the top and bottom. When we fall i didn't feel it like in grongotts. I Want to be on my side when we're falling, like you spdo when your falling. In general the screen needs to get done like in Harry Potter, but they should of done something EVEN better than that, just because it's a new ride. I also didn't like the plot. Kate got captured twice and that was it. The first scene I felt for her and I saw kings shadow coming in the distance which was cool, but the slug thing was a bit like what happened to her the first time. Then some type of claw grabbed her. That was a little less realistic. Not like all of this is realistic but, I think you get it. The Dino scene was cool but the room needs to be so amazing that I should be terrified for my life, if that's basically the entire ride. Once what was over I saw Kong. I was expecting 30 ft, but the second time I rode it, I was a little more in awe, I think because I took of my glasses and I was right on the edge. Once I figured out that it was over after that, I was kinda disappointed. Even though it said it was six minutes, I didn't feel like it at all. The ride in general is a good ride but I would kill my self befor I was 175 minutes. I didn't want to imagine people's faces once they waited in that line for that long and saw how short the rode was. Although I LOVED the music. I loved loved loved the music. Especially at the end when the music plays and everyone screams yay cuz we're all safe. I liked lithe ride, and it looks really nice, but it was too hyped. I was expecting more.
This old AA from Hollywood was also described as being 30 feet.
kingkong.jpg

Our Kong is similar but you can see more if you look down and of course his arms aren't raised.

As far as seeing the edge of the screens it's better when you sit closer to the middle.

Edit: I don't care much for Kate either but I do like the creatures in those scenes. They get really close.
 
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This old AA from Hollywood was also described as being 30 feet.
kingkong.jpg

Our Kong is similar but you can see more if you look down and of course his arms aren't raised.

As far as seeing the edge of the screens it's better when you sit closer to the middle.

Edit: I don't care much for Kate either but I do like the creatures in those scenes. They get really close.
It's not a matter of where I sit. It should be better for being more than 2 hours
 
Soooo, I rode Kong for the first time last week during my Orlando trip and it was pretty alright. Big disappointment, not bad though.

Thoughts:

-One of my major complaints with this is the duration of the ride. It IS 6 minutes long but it feels SO MUCH shorter. And that’s unfortunately due to BIG BIG BIG pacing issues.

-I think it’s a HUGE wasted opportunity to not include more actual sets (like Mike West promised...) and instead use, yet again, the same old same old 3D. I wouldn’t mind if it was a new interesting story but it's another “something goes terribly wrong”, action centred, water spraying Universal 3D ride. Been there, done that. I liked the 360 part because is definitely something that you don’t find in any other Orlando ride (even if that’s gonna change in 2018 with Fast & Furious).

-There are BAD seats. You can clearly see the edge of the screens in some.

-The transition between the 360 room and the Kong scene is AWFUL and simply unacceptable.

-The Kong animatronic is incredibly detailed and easily the best animatronic I have ever seen. Unfortunately, the encounter is brought down by ridiculous narration by the drivers and just the awkwardness of the scene: Kong's just there and roar. It would have been cool if he interacted in some other way with the riders. The narration of the drivers also takes out the dramatism of the moment of entrance in the temple. The bad score and the way too high speed of the truck doesn’t help neither. I rode it three times: two with Jinks and one with Kalana. She's less annoying than Kinks but that's not a big compliment...

-The queue is good. I loved the podcasts, they were great. I loved the witch room too: the little effects used were nice touches and the witch itself was very detailed. I also liked the room near the end with the boxes with different creatures. The weird looking worm was very disgusting and awesome. They were moments in the queue were they weren’t many things to see though… The line moves pretty quickly and long wait times doesn’t seem so long as a result.

-The façade is amazing and I would put it in my top 5 at Universal for sure. It’s a shame that there are parts that are unthemed and just painted in black or not painted at all. Universal can be lazy sometimes…


My overall score for Kong is a 7. I mean, I still had fun… It’s a FUN ride but it could have been so much more. Oh, and I rode it at night one time. The scene is slightly better. This trip was kind of disappointing in terms of new rides: The "New" Hulk was just okay and Frozen Ever After was pretty mediocre (that ride actually made me MAD). Kong is easily the best of those 3 new offerings.


My new Universal Top 10 RIDES (not including shows):


1-Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
2-Revenge of the Mummy
3-The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman
4-E.T Adventure
5-Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts
6-Jurassic Park: River Adventure
7-Popeye’s and Bluto’s Bilge Rat Barges
8-Men in Black: Alien Attack
9-Transformers: The Ride 3D
10-Skull Island: Reign of Kong

If I had horrible grammatical mistakes I ask for forgiveness: english is not my first language.
For a large duration of the ride you are in 1 room, which is not convenient because you can only have 2 vehicles running max. It does fit a lot of people, but 2 cars is like what even. Also adding if it does take place in that one double screened room. That room should be spectacular. Which it isn't. Biggest complaint is that I can see the top and bottom of the screen. The screen should go from the damn roof to the floor. All that back and forth action should transition with something like curved or sphere walls coving a little bit of the roof.
 
For a large duration of the ride you are in 1 room, which is not convenient because you can only have 2 vehicles running max. It does fit a lot of people, but 2 cars is like what even. Also adding if it does take place in that one double screened room. That room should be spectacular. Which it isn't. Biggest complaint is that I can see the top and bottom of the screen. The screen should go from the damn roof to the floor. All that back and forth action should transition with something like curved or sphere walls coving a little bit of the roof.
They can run 4 vehicles at a time. Gives it a max of a bit over 1900 an hour, which is pretty high. ...But due to issues, they may not always be running the 4 vehicles.
 
It's not a matter of where I sit. It should be better for being more than 2 hours
The edges of the screens being visible are totally a matter of where you sit. Also there are very few rides that would be "worth" a two hour wait. Tower of Terror is damn near perfect imo and I still wouldn't wait two hours for it. It's the price you pay to get on a brand new ride. I waited 90 minutes when I went on Kong and was completely satisfied.
 
There's not a ride in existence that I would wait over an hour in line for. And I certainly would not rate a ride by how long the wait is. That has absolutely nothing to do with the merit's of the attraction. One reason I pay so much attention to the various good theme park sites is that there is plenty of info out there that will assist you in getting the shortest line times even if you don't have Express or Fastpass access for a ride. ...And Kong is the longest ride at Universal Orlando, not counting show type attractions of course. That's a fact.
 
You people legit catch one thing and pick at it. I'm not rating it on wait time. I'm saying that the ride isn't what the wait time should be. I'm rating the ride on how good it is. And the wait time shouldn't be what it is compared to the ride.
 
The edges of the screens being visible are totally a matter of where you sit. Also there are very few rides that would be "worth" a two hour wait. Tower of Terror is damn near perfect imo and I still wouldn't wait two hours for it. It's the price you pay to get on a brand new ride. I waited 90 minutes when I went on Kong and was completely satisfied.
Also everyone is complaining about seeing the edges the screen. Where I sat was on the edge, and so I saw the screen. I'm gonna complain about it. Other people who sit on the edge are gonna see it as well. All because you don't agree with the edges being a problem, doesn't mean it's not a problem.
 
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