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Skull Island: Reign of Kong or Fast & Furious: Supercharged; which 360° screen ride at Universal Orlando do you prefer?

Skull Island: Reign of Kong or Fast & Furious: Supercharged; which 360° screen ride do you prefer?

  • Skull Island: Reign of Kong at Islands of Adventure

    Votes: 28 87.5%

  • Fast & Furious: Supercharged at Universal Studios Florida

    Votes: 1 3.1%

  • Undecided

    Votes: 3 9.4%
  • Total voters
    32
Matt N

Matt N

CF Legend
Hi guys. I’ve been in Orlando for the last week, and since my last visit to Universal in 2016, the parks have built two new rides that are somewhat similar to each other in ride system; Skull Island: Reign of Kong at Islands of Adventure and Fast & Furious: Supercharged at Universal Studios Florida. Both rides involve riders being sat in a large truck and going into a large 360° screen for at least a percentage of the ride experience. Interestingly, both also seem to have had starkly negative reception. But I’d be keen to know; which of these rides do you prefer?

Having ridden both within the past week, I’d vote for Skull Island: Reign of Kong by some distance. Contrary to popular belief, I thoroughly enjoyed Kong and thought it was a fantastic ride! The 3D is brilliant, with the 360° screen being particularly impressive, the physical scenery is surprisingly nice for a mostly screen-based ride, with the Kong animatronic in particular being very impressive, and there are some excellent effects and action scenes! Overall, I thought it was a great ride, and I cannot agree with the overwhelming negative reception towards Kong; my family and I all found it to be a fantastic ride!

By comparison, Fast & Furious was a ride I was considerably less enamoured by. I feel that the lack of 3D makes it really lack something compared to Kong, and the ride overall feels a bit truncated and less impressive in terms of both scale and execution than Kong. Apart from a random projection mapped scene of people partying and some dialogue between the characters, and some nice physical scenery in places, the ride primarily consists of the 360° screen itself, which, while a clever illusion in a similar way to Kong’s, isn’t quite as impressive and feels less exciting and more confusing than the one on Kong. I didn’t really know what was going on other than that a barrage of overwhelming effects were squirting in my face… and then the ride ended. I don’t think that Fast & Furious quite deserves the sheer level of vitriol it often receives, but unlike Kong, I can somewhat empathise with the negative reception, and it’s a ride where the more I think about it, the less I like it. It just lacks something for me.

But which of these 360° screen rides do you prefer? Do you agree with the prevailing negative reception for them? I’d be interested to know!
 
Not only is F&F a terrible ride with awful video and a bad, out dated story, it is a little inappropriate for kids. Maybe I missed the warning and just am a terribly bad parent but it all seemed a little, I don't know, off? I only did it as it was a walk on and I wanted to see if it were as bad as I'd heard (it was).

On the other hand I quite liked Rise of Kong even if it did break down meaning that we wasted 15 valuable minutes at the end of the evening!
 
Munchy Road Hippopotamus said:
Not only is F&F a terrible ride with awful video and a bad, out dated story, it is a little inappropriate for kids. Maybe I missed the warning and just am a terribly bad parent but it all seemed a little, I don't know, off? I only did it as it was a walk on and I wanted to see if it were as bad as I'd heard (it was).
Click to expand...
There is a warning on the restrictions board talking about “mature themes”, saying that “parental discretion is advised”.

Away from the ride itself, I also vastly prefer the theme and pre-ride situation on Kong to that of Fast & Furious. The queue for Kong is absolutely stunning and wonderfully atmospheric, with some brilliant theming and animatronics, and I love the facade and tribal/exploration theme! Even though I know next to nothing about the IP, Kong has a fun theme that I think you can get easily invested in and enjoy without in-depth knowledge of the IP.

Fast & Furious has quite a nice queue, in fairness, with some really great details and all the cool cars. However, I don’t know if anyone else agrees, but I’ll admit to finding all of the pre-shows somewhat unnecessary. I don’t mind pre-shows when they’re fulfilling and add depth to the experience, but I didn’t think they added anything to the experience on Fast & Furious. I didn’t think they furthered the story at all beyond what the brief video in the queue set out, and I still found the attraction a bit confusing regardless. In many ways, I felt that the first scene on the ride almost felt more like a third pre-show; not a lot really happens there beyond more dialogue from the characters.
 
God, F&F. What a heaping pile of ****e. It’s only enjoyable because you can laugh at how bad it is while you’re on the ride. I think Kong is forgettable, and the automated trackless ride system is the most interesting part to me. At least it’s not actively bad like F&F is though.
 
F&F is extremely awkward. There is way too much ‘redundant set-up’ (i.e. needless pre-show) for a short and frustrating pay off.

Kong is fine/good - the F&F ride system done well, supplemented with outdoor elements and animatronics - but this sort of ride is never going to blow minds when you have the likes of Spider-Man in the same park.
 
Matt N said:
There is a warning on the restrictions board talking about “mature themes”, saying that “parental discretion is advised”.

Away from the ride itself, I also vastly prefer the theme and pre-ride situation on Kong to that of Fast & Furious. The queue for Kong is absolutely stunning and wonderfully atmospheric, with some brilliant theming and animatronics, and I love the facade and tribal/exploration theme! Even though I know next to nothing about the IP, Kong has a fun theme that I think you can get easily invested in and enjoy without in-depth knowledge of the IP.

Fast & Furious has quite a nice queue, in fairness, with some really great details and all the cool cars. However, I don’t know if anyone else agrees, but I’ll admit to finding all of the pre-shows somewhat unnecessary. I don’t mind pre-shows when they’re fulfilling and add depth to the experience, but I didn’t think they added anything to the experience on Fast & Furious. I didn’t think they furthered the story at all beyond what the brief video in the queue set out, and I still found the attraction a bit confusing regardless. In many ways, I felt that the first scene on the ride almost felt more like a third pre-show; not a lot really happens there beyond more dialogue from the characters.
Click to expand...
So just a bad parent then? Oops
 
The clear winner is Kong, by a long mile too!

I honestly quite like Kong to be honest, it's a ride that I'll always like to get on at least once whenever I go to IOA. It's got great practical effects such as animatronics and fire. The 3D isn't too bad either and it actually has some bushes at bottom of the screens to help them blend in. And also that front facade is pretty awesome 😍

F&F on the other hand...the queue is great but I think that's where the positives of this ride end! 😂 It is pretty much just all screen based and the majority of that isn't executed well. And I don't know about others, but I honestly find the acting incredibly cringey 🙃

If Kong was announced to be leaving, I'd be pretty gutted. But if F&F was knocked down tomorrow, I wouldn't feel a flicker of emotion.
 
I'd have a chuckle when/if they replace F&F. Went in to ride and enjoy ironically yet was still dissapointed, almost indifferent. One and done just to know. Not interested in cars or the movies so it was going to be a struggle either way. Too much cringe for me.

I easily preferred Kong and went back for more. Didn't know it was disliked for more than being another screen based ride when physical sets are better received. And that queue is great. It's ok for a large ride to be a filler attraction.
 
Kong, but I'm less offended by F&F than most. I kinda liked the way the actors could riff off of the preshow videos, but your mileage may vary.
 
Kong, another easy poll to answer.
Weirdly, I could have sworn I'd ridden this before, but seeing as it didn't open til 2016 that's not possible. What was in this spot previously? Or does anyone know what King Kong based attraction I could be confusing this with?
Anyways, it's good. Great presentation, really loved the dark and sinister aesthetic. Enjoyed watching small children being carried out of the queueline in tears cos they found it too scary.
Really good, intense attraction.

Fast and Furious however was... well, it's pants isn't it? Absolute pants. Awkward and overly long preshows, bad acting, cheesy, unfunny, unexciting just.... pants. Me and Mrs Howie both declared it the weakest attraction at the entire Universal resort.
Pants.
 
^Yeah I think it must have been the King Kong 360 section of the Universal Tram Ride at Hollywood, thanks Dave.
My first trip to Florida was in 2003, and I remember Kongfrontation was in the process of being converted into Revenge of the Mummy at the time, so it couldn't have been that.
And the Hollywood Tram Tour thing looks pretty similar to Skull Island, yeah must have been that. I knew I'd seen it somewhere before. Blimey, even that was 13 years ago. Man I'm getting old. Comes to something when you start forgetting where you did stuff. 😔
 
When I was out there for Halloween Horror Nights recently we upgraded to the RIP passes (totally worth doing, but might come to that in another post). These tours you’re taken around by a team member and you skip queues, go through backstage areas etc. Anyway we’re going to the Chucky house and she says “and now for the scariest part of the tour, the fast and the furious building”. Even they know it’s crap. I do love that self awareness that Universal has. You see it at Velocicoaster as well, like any other park would just be “it’s a coaster through a dino enclosure” but they have that whole self aware video where they’re like “why have you done this, this is a really stupid idea guys”. But yeah, F&F blows and Universal know it
 
Matt N said:
Hi guys. I’ve been in Orlando for the last week, and since my last visit to Universal in 2016, the parks have built two new rides that are somewhat similar to each other in ride system; Skull Island: Reign of Kong at Islands of Adventure and Fast & Furious: Supercharged at Universal Studios Florida. Both rides involve riders being sat in a large truck and going into a large 360° screen for at least a percentage of the ride experience. Interestingly, both also seem to have had starkly negative reception. But I’d be keen to know; which of these rides do you prefer?

Having ridden both within the past week, I’d vote for Skull Island: Reign of Kong by some distance. Contrary to popular belief, I thoroughly enjoyed Kong and thought it was a fantastic ride! The 3D is brilliant, with the 360° screen being particularly impressive, the physical scenery is surprisingly nice for a mostly screen-based ride, with the Kong animatronic in particular being very impressive, and there are some excellent effects and action scenes! Overall, I thought it was a great ride, and I cannot agree with the overwhelming negative reception towards Kong; my family and I all found it to be a fantastic ride!

By comparison, Fast & Furious was a ride I was considerably less enamoured by. I feel that the lack of 3D makes it really lack something compared to Kong, and the ride overall feels a bit truncated and less impressive in terms of both scale and execution than Kong. Apart from a random projection mapped scene of people partying and some dialogue between the characters, and some nice physical scenery in places, the ride primarily consists of the 360° screen itself, which, while a clever illusion in a similar way to Kong’s, isn’t quite as impressive and feels less exciting and more confusing than the one on Kong. I didn’t really know what was going on other than that a barrage of overwhelming effects were squirting in my face… and then the ride ended. I don’t think that Fast & Furious quite deserves the sheer level of vitriol it often receives, but unlike Kong, I can somewhat empathise with the negative reception, and it’s a ride where the more I think about it, the less I like it. It just lacks something for me.

But which of these 360° screen rides do you prefer? Do you agree with the prevailing negative reception for them? I’d be interested to know!
Click to expand...

Definitely Kong, I actually don’t think that ride is nearly as bad as people make it out to believe and that animatronic at the end is a thing of beauty whereas F&F has nothing to it at all imo


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