On July 1st, the new King Kong 360 3D ride opened up at Universal Studios Hollywood and I went with my family to enjoy the day one comeback of the world’s largest gorilla.

Before the 3D fun inside, you must first enter Skull Island.

The ride is a part of the 45 minute tram ride that takes you through the Universal Studios lot. You get a look at different things on the ride, including a set tour through Wysteria Lane from ABC’s Desparate Housewives, Jaws, and other iconic Universal properties. The King Kong portion of the ride takes place early on and you first enter the newly created Skull Island.

Here’s a video of the ride, but it really pales in comparisson to the real thing.

From there and for the next few minutes, you get a cool 3D experience on large screens to your left and right, of King Kong fighting to protect you against a T-Rex.

Here I am in my cool, new King Kong 360 3D t-shirt.

My overall impressions of the new King Kong ride are very positive. In fact, the only drawback is that it’s over too quickly. It really is a fun and immersive experience, the visuals done by Peter Jackson and team are top notch, the 3D pop out effect thanks to the glasses is nice, the tram shakes and you get some additional special effects which are cool, etc.

I like the shirt enough that I took one more picture.

I do definitely recommend checking it out. King Kong is back and I really want Universal Pictures to make a new film…ideally a prequel to the 2005 hit. Imagine how cool it would be to see a Skull Island full of Kongs, other T-Rexes, more battles, etc! The only difficult thing would be dialogue, but I’m sure they could figure it out. Long live Kong!