The Awful Universal Rides That Nobody Talks About

We live in a time line where the Secret Life of Pets ride is better than the Kung Fu Panda ride. What a time to be alive.

I never understood why they never made a How To Train Your Dragon Ride similar to the Simpsons. I feel like its a missed opportunity not getting to ride TOOTHLESS

The saddest part is that most of these franchises have AMAZING potential for attractions, imagine a story coaster where Po attempts to stop the "clash of two dragons" obviously a dueling dragons style coaster but only in the later portion, perhaps even offering a more forgiving ride experience in one of the queues and one for more seasoned coaster enthusiasts in the other queue, that way they achieve a dual purpose of creating a new headline attraction that appeals to families, but also an intense thrill ride for older guests

I think one key thats missing from Kung fu pandas dark ride is height, and multiple levels of action. Both life of pets and pirates of the Caribbean have multiple levels with action and figures, which causes the rider to have to shift their eyes up and down searching for detail. When all of the detail is right next to each other it’s easier to see all of it in a shorter period of time, thus making it seem like less.

It seems that most of universal’s lesser quality attractions are from their oversea parks rather then their main ones in Hollywood and Orlando. Compared to Disney’s oversea parks, I think universal in the future should put more investment into these other markets. There still is quality there, but these parks could definitely use the extra care to really be incredible parks. With inclusions of stuff such as Super Nintendo World and minions to Singapore, I trust that this park will soon stand out as it’s own and be a better experience then it currently is.

"Boats are one of my favorite attractions." We know, Poseidon. 😭

Another banger! It's probably a licensing issue, but the boat system coupled with slower-moving animatronics and highly detailed scenes, seems like a great opportunity for an interactive Pokemon snap dark Ride.

I feel that Universal Hollywood in particular suffers from Motion-Simulator-Syndrome in the main area of it's park even with all of the advantages it has. The Upper Lot is rife with these rides, and given that the park in general isn't very huge since it's an actual movie studio, things can feel limited at times. The park is still well-supplemented with things like the Wizarding World and the Lower Lot, and with Super Nintendo World coming there very soon, I feel that there's a lot of good opportunities for the park to shine in the future.

To me the worst rides would definitely be Fast and Furious, the Kung Fu Panda ride in Beijing and Hollywood (the franchise deserves so much better 😭), the Madagascar one, which just looks like an earlier version of Kung Fu Panda, and Kong Skull Island to an extent imo. Even if it is one of my favorite dark rides, The Cat in The Hat has seen better days. Now it’s just a shell of its former self 😢

Something I’ve noticed ever since i first saw povs of madagascar/puss in boots in singapore a few years ago that applies even to secret life of pets is that the animatronics of universal’s animated characters always manage to look off model. Disney has found a way to make their animated characters translate perfectly into animatronic form (beauty and the beast in tokyo, for instance) but with universal, something about the fur or the limited motion tends to look consistently off. Even cat in the hat back in 1999 had this issue to some degree.

Aw man, how do you botch a ride based on Kung Fu Panda? It's such an awesome franchise, deserving of an equally awesome ride!

What's interesting is that the Kung Fu Panda land and ride were originally supposed to be based on SpongeBob Squarepants, but plans for that were canceled for some unknown reason. Maybe because they didn't have the rights to use the SpongeBob franchise in China or that they found it isn't that popular in China. Either way, they were in the middle of building the SpongeBob land when they decided to cancel it, so it was too late to tear down and rebuild from the ground up, they had to put in a different franchise for an area that was built for SpongeBob, including the boat ride. When Comcast bought DreamWorks, Kung Fu Panda was the answer to take over this area, but honestly if Universal chose to build a Kung Fu Panda land from the ground up, I doubt they would have gone with the choice of the boat ride.

New Poseidon video = great day

The biggest issue is universal rides are pretty against big people

I totally agree with where you're coming from; another issue I see with these pretty lackluster boat rides is how there's no sense of discovery in any of them. Even with pretty minor movements, rides like it's a small world are so fun to go on because you get to see representation of every culture, and go "oh, is that Singapore? And that one might be Thailand!". The population of the ride, and the knowledge that every animatronic was put there with representational intention makes it so fun to go on again and again. For those universal rides you showed, they feel so dull because there's no further interaction with the scene - you're not going to find anything new, so what you see is just what you get. This problem has aso effected some of Disney's newer rides, like the Frozen one in EPCOT. It's not very fun because it's just made up of barren scenes with one single animatronic. It might just be that maximalist design choices could be seen as kitschy or out of date by ride makers, but honestly they're the designs that work best. Excessive, over the top theming is one of the biggest draws to theme parks, so being too conservative with ride design just backfires and makes it boring.

I would love to hear you touch upon the Sinbad attraction found at Tokyo Disney Sea, as I believe it to be a perfect example of what modern-day imagineering can achieve with the same formula that produced classic attractions like Pirates. It’s a slow moving boat ride with tons of dynamic figures to look at, and a wonderful soundtrack to tie it all together. For Universal, I too hope they continue to listen to feedback and create future attractions more like Secret Life of Pets rather than screen-heavy.

Even as someone who has no intrest in the F&F movies, the queue and the way the line works in Orlando is pretty cool and intresting. There's just no reason to stay for the ride.

I think Universal is finally learning their lesson about what works and what doesnt, it took alot of trial and error but if they keep the theming like with nintendo for all their future stuff, they may take Disney' spot.

I was at the Singapore Park in December. The JP ride is still fun, but in serious need of upkeep. Hopefully they'll revamp it when Super Nintendo World (taking up the entire left side of the park) starts construction. Puss in Boots Giant Journey is actually a pretty violent experience for a kids ride and the queue is surprisingly well themed. You get tossed around a far bit. Also I could not find any toys of Evac at the gift shop for the Transformers ride.

Nobody better even think of saying one bad thing about ET