Universal Studios Great Movie Escape (Jurassic) Review

Hey, writing from Universal Studios Orlando! I just finished the Great Movie Escape (specifically the Jurassic World experience) before coming back to the hotel, and I thought I'd give my thoughts on it.

Going into it, I did look up reviews of the experience, and they were REALLY bad. The average reviewer didn't rate it higher than 3 stars, and even a 3-star review was quite rare to see. However, a couple people rated it 5 stars in hopes of countering the review bombing. So, it seemed like kind of a gamble to me, but I figured I'd try it anyway since I am a pretty big Jurassic World fan (and people said the Jurassic one was better than the Back to the Future one anyway).

Spoiler-free review/addressing critiques

One of the concerns a lot of people had seemed to be that you could possibly get grouped with strangers, since the experience sends people in by groups every 15 minutes. I went into it solo because my mom really didn't want to do it, and I was fine with this. For better or worse though, nobody else got a ticket for the 2:15 slot (slow time of the day?), so I was instead accompanied by a very friendly Team Member. I feel that this changes my experience significantly.

First, I want to talk about the sets. Some people said they were boring, and to be honest... I can understand that a little bit. I personally felt like that was such a minor nitpick though, as I really enjoyed the environments. Some sets are better than others, though, for sure (I know I have a personal favorite). Overall, I think it does the job of feeling like the employee-only areas of Jurassic World. It ties into the first Jurassic World movie decently well.

A lot of people seemed to think the rooms were quite difficult, so I was worried about my ability to complete them, but honestly, I was fine. Though there were a few things that could be better designed and instructions that could be better explained, I had a lot of fun figuring things out in most of the rooms.

To expand on that point about the instructions: each room's puzzle is explained by the "lead geneticist" on the screen, and then an "AI" voice through the speaker (which repeats itself if you don't seem to understand what to do).

First of all, a lot of people said they felt bombarded by the instructions and couldn't follow. I understand and agree with this. For many of the puzzles, I didn't exactly understand what to do until I tried it myself or the Team Member explained or demonstrated how to do it. However, once I got the hang of it, it was really fun, and I can see how kids could use some things they learned in school (basic 6th grade biology and elementary-level math) to help them solve some of the puzzles.

Second of all, in addition to the instructions being a bit confusing (maybe they could do a bit more "show, don't tell" here?), sometimes the loud sound effects would make the instructions a bit hard to hear. It is possible to decipher what is being said, but still.

Unlike traditional escape rooms, the Great Movie Escape takes place through a series of rooms and allows you to progress even if you don't finish the puzzles or get all of them correct. It's based on time. A lot of people complained about this as well, but I think it all comes down to personal preference. If you love going to escape rooms, maybe you want the challenge of having to get the puzzles just right. On the other hand, for someone like me who has never been to an escape room before, this might be preferable, as it feels like a low-stakes family-friendly experience that people won't get too frustrated by. I do agree, though, that they could give better hints. The Team Member accompanying me gave me lots of helpful hints, but without her, I would just have the "AI" voice repeating the same instructions over and over again, as if that's going to help me.

Since it's all time-based and you may not solve all the puzzles, you get a score at the end. I'm proud to say that I got a score of 13 out of 20! Not bad! According to the Team Members there, most people get 6-8 or something. So, at the end of the day... those 1-star reviewers just need to get good. Skill issue. Just kidding, I'll go into the more specific critiques and reasons for bad scores in the spoiler section lol.

Last thing: is it overpriced? Unfortunately, YES. Look, I had fun, but $50 per person!?!? It's ridiculous. I really think they should lower the price, especially since, as many people point out, there aren't even dinosaur animatronics in the experience. You get some cool sound effects and partially obstructed screens, but that's about it. I think it could be a really fun family experience, if only it were cheaper.

Spoiler review

I think the design quality of the rooms is a little varied. You know, I can only say "skill issue" for so many of them. At a certain point, it's the fault of the design, not the guest. But in this section, I'll go through each room and my experience with it.

Room 1

The first room was all about matching DNA sequences of different dinosaurs. The instructions confused me a little, but once I actually looked at the screens and used the slider mechanism to reveal the letters, I understood very quickly. Essentially, one person stands by one screen and a second person stands by the other, and you slide a metal window over the picture using the handles, and it will tell you the letter sequence of each of the 4 sections of the DNA strand. Here's where your 6th grade science education comes in a little bit (or just basic pattern recognition). You and the other person have to have the matching codes highlighted and then someone pushes the button. Obviously, C is always opposite G, and A is always opposite T. The strings of letters start at 3 characters and move to 5 characters to increase the difficulty. Very fun, pretty easy to figure out.

Room 2

The second room was all about feeding the right nutrients to Bravo, a raptor. Okay, this one took me a little while (and help from the TM) to understand, and I think it has a couple flaws. The instructions are a bit fast and confusing again, considering this one has a lot more components than the previous room. Bravo has 4 nutrients you have to feed her. Once you see the nutrient containers, they have two rows on them: one with the numbers of the feeding machines, and one for the amount to administer. This was super confusing to me, because I was under the impression that the feeding machine numbers were the serving amount. I thought we'd have to feed more than one dinosaur and the recipe would be different for each one. But no, you have to mix each nutrient one by one, and then you have to administer them in the right order.

So, for that second room, I think there are a few design flaws here. First of all, I would like more of a visual explanation because there are so many visual components here. Second of all, the UI of the tablet was confusing, even after I understood everything else. I think the nutrients could at least be numbered on the screen displaying the order. What I really feel like is a cheap mistake is the feeding screen. It feels so easy to fix from a UI/UX design standpoint that I feel like I could fix it, and I am literally just a student. It's probably not even that bad, but if I can't understand it, that probably means someone else can't either, so...

Okay, basically, there's a window on the screen that says you have to administer the nutrients in the correct order, and then it shows the 4 nutrients next to the text. There was no button to order them and feed her, so I was very confused. Since the nutrients were displayed in the same window as the instructions, I didn't realize they were interactive. But they are -- you're supposed to tap them to administer them. Maybe have the instructions above in a separate window and the nutrient buttons below that in a bigger size, to indicate that you're able to tap them.

Room 3

I believe the third room was the one where one person has to swap the cylinders (to make all the lights green) while the other person looks for the DNA samples of the dinosaur displayed on the screen and puts the corresponding code from the label into the proper keypad (separated into "carnivore" and "herbivore"). This one was fun, though I wasn't able to finish it because one of the labels was (perhaps intentionally) a little faded and difficult to read, and by the time I was about to put it in, we were rushed to the next room. Also, the whole thing with the cylinders probably could have been better explained.

This is when the Indominus Rex gets loose, and now you have to escape. The power gets all wonky, too. Bravo escapes and you get a cool mix of lighting and sound effects to illustrate that. I was looking around for a hinge on a ceiling panel because I thought that was a good opportunity to have a raptor poke its head out into the room or something (especially since it's almost when you're supposed to exit), but this doesn't have anything that fancy, unfortunately.

Room 4

After that is the room where you have to get the power working again. This one was a little hard to understand, but I think it might have been mostly on my part there. Once I figured it out, this one was super fun. I just ran back and forth from the diagram to the actual console instead of memorizing all of the switch numbers at once. The thing with the power cables was very easy to get the hang of. The hardest part is probably just looking for the specific directions for each switch number, but that's a reasonable challenge that doesn't feel confusing. Similar to the dinosaur species labels in the previous room, it all comes down to how quickly you can find the right thing.

Room 5

I think the control room is after that, where you have to find the symbol displayed on the big screen on your control stations and figure out what codes to put in to solve the problem in that area of the park. This is my FAVORITE room. I think the set looks the coolest (obviously referencing the control room from the movie), and the instructions are the easiest to understand, since all of the screens are utilized here. It was super fun. This might be a niche reference, but since this one is largely about inequalities-type math problems, it felt like such an Odd Squad type of experience (same could be said about the feeding room as well, but this is reminiscent of the tubes and security system areas), especially with how I was able to break down the information. To figure out which code to enter, you have to look at the stats on the big screens on the walls, and it'll say stuff like "if (this stat) is above (this number), enter code A" or "if (this stat) is an even number, enter code A". As the room went on, the number of codes increased and requirements for each one became more elaborate and challenging in a way that made sense. I felt so cool playing this room lol.

Room 6

I think after that is the room where you have to follow the pipes and turn all the dials to the corresponding symbol on the screen they're connected to. This one can be a bit challenging, because it's just a little hard to follow the pipes when they're so close together, but I think the difficulty is within reason. Decently fun.

Room 7

The final puzzle is the monorail one... oof, okay, so according to a TM, people don't usually get this one. It marked that I did get it, for some reason, on my breakdown, but I actually didn't lol. You have to figure out which station you're in and the closest one to you so you can call it. I think this might be a skill issue on my part, but I could not find the station number in the room until the time ran out and they just let us move along anyway lol. But I also think they could probably display it a little more frequently. Whatever.

After that, you just get on the monorail and go free. Like, you're safe now. Some people found this disappointing because they felt there should have been some kind of final battle, and I can definitely see that, yeah. I feel like I can overlook that because I had fun solving many of the puzzles, but I can see how it wouldn't be a satisfying ending.

Overall, a really fun, but overpriced experience that could be tweaked a little bit more. The Team Members were really friendly and said they actually don't often have to go in with a guest, but it's always fun when they do. There's so much potential here. Maybe TMs should go in with every group and help a little bit lol.

Published by Suzettey