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King Kong Ride Review

After a year of watching construction and speculating on what Kong may or may not be, I finally got to conquer Universal’s newest attraction, Skull Island: Reign of Kong.
King Kong Construction 036

I did not bring my camera along with me on either of my trips to the soft openings of Kong (June 9 & 10) so I am going to be narrating this post with pictures from my Twitter feed instead.

As soon as word came out that the Team Member previews were from 4-6 PM, there was speculation that Kong might soft open to the public for the first time at around 6 PM, there was confirmation from within the park that the speculation was true. Two other coworkers and I immediately packed up for the day and booked it over to the park.

By the time we got to Kong, the line had formed to about 75 minutes. A fourth coworker made his way to the park about 10 minutes behind us, but the line was cut off by the time he got to the entrance (Sorry, Stephen). As you can also see from this tweet, right after we entered the queue, a brief delay was announced. This would become a recurring theme throughout my two experiences in line for Kong… more on that later.

Walking through the queue was awesome, but the misters were not appreciated on an already ridiculously humid day! Still, it makes for a pretty damn cool looking queue.

The exterior queue puts you right in front of the main facade that represents the entrance to Skull Island. It is one of the most visually impressive facades I have been able to experience. Nassal did an incredible job on every inch of this ride, truly a masterpiece of beautiful rock work and sculpts throughout the experience.

The exterior queue is an assortment of winding queue, rock work, and skulls. The “hair” that ties together some of the scenic pieces is a wonderful touch and the hundreds of skulls each appear to be completely unique.

There are two main scenic elements in the exterior queue and they are both very intricate pieces.

When entirely full, the exterior queue section that is under the roof probably takes around 30 minutes without any break downs. Another thing that I like to do when I am in line and have nothing better to do is take ride capacities. When it was announced that each vehicle would hold 72 riders, I think most people were quick to assume this would be a high-capacity ride. However, from my small sample, vehicles were being dispatched at a rate of once every 3:23. This would put Kong’s hourly capacity at approximately 1275 people per hour. For reference, this is a few hundred people less per hour then both Spiderman and Transformers and nearly 1000 (!!!) less then Forbidden Journey! My point in this comment is that I think it is safe to expect Kong to have some LONG waits once it finally opens. Not a revolutionary statement by any means, but I think this ride will become the “do it as soon as possible in the morning” ride at Islands of Adventure. Minion Mayhem takes that award for the Studios.

UPDATE: A few weeks have passed and Kong operations have improved as one would expect. I have been timing dispatches at closer to the 2:30 mark, which brings Kong’s capacity to the 1700 people per hour range. This is a much better number for a brand-new, highly-anticipated attraction at one of the world’s most visited theme parks.

I would love to rant and tell you how impressive the interior queue is, but there are plenty of other bloggers who have full POV walk-through videos. As a brief synopsis, you enter the interior queue and immediately are confronted with two beautiful sculpts before being funneled through an equally as impressive archway. The archway leads into a room that has an excellent sense of compression and is lined with skulls on either side. You are then pushed through a corridor that has you come face to face with a Skull Island native on an integrated media screen. After this, you enter my personal favorite room in any queue I have yet to experience. I know this will not be popular opinion, but I personally enjoy the Witch Doctor room more then the Gringott’s Bank Lobby. The integrated audio and lighting makes this room extremely intense and completely immersive. In fact, this room of the interior queue is my favorite part of the entire attraction.

You are then forced through another corridor that features the scare actors before entering a smaller room with some aged timber supports and more queue. This room then leads you to the station of the attraction, where you wind your way around some artifacts, shipping containers, and an animatronic Carnictis. You are then given the option to either go to the left or right to pick up your 3D glasses. I personally advise you go the right because this line is assigned rows to the back of the vehicle which has MUCH better vantage points of the media then the front. From start to finish, the interior queue took about 45 minutes to meander through.

My first-time in the station was pretty uneventful (which is a good thing!), but the second time the vehicles were really struggling. To me it appeared to be a ride programming issue as opposed to an issue with the vehicles themselves. As the side doors closed, there would be the occasional issue of not allowing the operator to dispatch the vehicle (you can tell because the lights inside the vehicle will turn off if it is cleared). The vehicle had to be unloaded and cleared without any guests. I have no basis for this feeling, but I think Kong is going to have more then a fair share of technical issues each and everyday for the first few weeks/months that it is open. If you are going to get in line, be prepared for it to break down.

On to the actual ride experience. My first experience resulted in the ride breaking down after we entered through the main front entry. I specify this route because Kong has the ability to do an interior by-pass if the weather is not favorable (or if there is an issue with the massive doors). Anyway, we sat there for a good 15 minutes before going through the rest of the ride without any audio and the media working about half the time. The giant Kong animatronic at the end of the ride is as impressive as I expected. A marvel of an element and is hard to argue against the opinion that it is the most impressive animatronic at the park. When Mike West stated in one of the videos posted about this ride that you could feel Kong’s breath as you pass by, I personally was expecting either some type of hot-air effect or mister, but it was a deep vibration from the audio.

The second ride on Kong was much better since we experienced the ride as it was meant to be experienced without any break downs. You enter Skull Island and are met with giant sculpts of a skeleton on your left and giant bats (I believe they are called Terapusmordax) on your right. The first media scene is ahead on the left and basically sets the tone that danger is looming. You then make your way to the second media scene on the right where you get up close and personal with the dangerous creatures that inhabit Skull Island. After a few near misses, you make your way into the massive battle scene where you confront Kong. As reported by many others, this battle scene is very similar (if not identical) to the experience at Universal Studios Hollywood. This was a bit of a disappointment to me, but I understand that not many people will notice or care that it is the same. I have not been on the Hollywood King Kong 360 3D experience in a few years, but does it also feature water spritz and scent effects? After the epic battle scene, you are then led into the final scene where you meet the Kong animatronic and are advised not to make eye contact. The entire ride time feels incredibly short and if you asked me after the ride how long I thought it was, I would say no more then 4 minutes. Upon watching a full-ride POV, however, the ride time is approximately 6 minutes! I guess that is a testament of how lost in the media I was during the experience.

The ride experience is solid, but it does not top either Harry Potter marquee attraction, Spiderman, or Transformers in my opinion. For me, the interior queue of Kong is the star of the show. It is intense and immersive, which is a rare combination. I do not think the queue is scary enough to call it a year-round haunt like I have seen some call it, but it is definitely creepy.

Skull Island: Reign of Kong will be a hit for Islands of Adventure and fills a void of an intense experience at the park. It has been a really fun experience documenting the construction of this attraction (you can click here to see all of the updates) and seeing the individual elements come together. It is an extremely beautiful attraction, but I am nervous it will be plagued by technical issues with the complexity of the vehicles and ride programming involved in this type of attraction. Between my two experiences across two different days with Kong, the ride had 5 break downs. Hiccups are to be expected, however, and the ride queue is immersive enough to enjoy all of the different aspects of this world-class attraction at Universal’s Islands of Adventure!

An opening date has yet to be announced for Skull Island: Reign of Kong, but initial murmurs are suggesting June 29th as the official opening date. Stay tuned through Universal’s social media outlets. Thanks for stopping by!

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I am a huge travel and roller coaster enthusiast. I have ridden 504 unique coasters across the world and do not plan on stopping anytime soon. I graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and am now working with a creative firm in Orlando, Florida.

1 Comment on King Kong Ride Review

  1. Joey Schaefs
    June 13, 2016 at 11:37 am

    Great article, totally agree!

    Reply

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