Scariest Rides for Kids at Universal Orlando

There are a few rides at Universal Orlando that may be scary to children. While there are some very thrilling roller coasters that have large drops, go upside down, have sharp turns, and fast speeds, those aren’t the rides that I’m referring to. Apart from the obvious, more intense rides, there are others that have different aspects to them that may be the scariest Universal Orlando rides for children.

Some of the scariest Universal Orlando rides on this list may be surprising. Overall, they may seem like completely innocent rides and ones that wouldn’t affect children. However, children feel things very deeply. It only takes one thing to scare or startle them in order to make the whole ride a terrible experience for them which is what we took into consideration when creating this scariest Universal Orlando rides list.

As someone who frequently visits Universal Orlando with children, I have firsthand experience with this. In this article, I’m going to go over all of the rides at Universal Orlando that may be scary to children. I’ll specifically pinpoint details about these rides that children may find frightening. Follow along to find out what rides you may want your little ones to skip on your next trip to Universal Orlando.

10. Fast & Furious – Supercharged

This ride on our scariest Universal Orlando rides list gives Universal guests the feeling of being in a Fast & Furious movie. Those who are familiar with the films know that they are full of action. This includes car chases, explosions, and weapons. Due to the immersion, all of those elements are a part of this ride.

Very early on in the experience, we see the use of weapons, including guns and a flame thrower. This can very easily be alarming and scary for a child. Especially for one who doesn’t regularly see these things on television and in movies at home.

During this ride, we also find ourselves in the middle of a notorious Fast & Furious car chase. The ride vehicle is made to feel as if it is going very fast, explosions are taking place, and Dom and Letty both climb out of vehicles and are seen doing dangerous activities. Feeling as if they’re in the middle of a car chase can be a very frightening thing for a child to experience. While we, as adults, can acknowledge that we’re seeing this all happen on a screen and with motion simulators, this whole experience feels very real to children.

9. Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon

During Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon, we take part in a friendly race against the comical Tonight Show host. Jimmy, who boards a go-kart style vehicle called “The Tonight Rider”, challenges us to race him through the streets of New York City.

This particular attraction isn’t an actual ride that takes place in a moving vehicle. The whole experience takes place in a theater through the use of motion simulation. Overall, this is a delightful, fun, and family-friendly attraction. However, there are some elements that may frighten children which is why I included it on our scariest Universal Orlando rides list. 

What's Scary About It

At the very beginning of the race, when we set out on the streets of New York City, we’re dashing through traffic, weaving in and out of cars, and hoping that we don’t crash. This of course is something that could frighten a child. Whether they’ve previously been in a car crash or not, the mere thought of it possibly happening is a very scary thing. As the race continues, we leave the streets and head underground to the subway. Here, we end up on the tracks and come face to face with a subway train that's heading directly for us. Again, the thought of crashing and getting smashed can be a very overwhelming thing for a child.

Later on, the race takes an aquatic turn as we dive into the East River. Very shortly after we’ve entered the water, a great white shark unexpectedly swims towards us and we’re made to feel as if we’re going right into its open jaws. As someone who was very terrified by the Jaws ride as a child, I can personally testify that sharks on theme park attractions can feel very real and scary.

Towards the end of the race, we are flying through the sky above New York City. At the top of the Empire State Building is a giant Hashtag the Panda. Hashtag is generally a very kid-friendly panda bear mascot. However, in this giant form, he may come off a bit more scary. Especially since he “grabs us” and throws us into space.

Up in space, we end up on a Space Train. This roller coaster-type of transportation is meant to take us back down to Earth. However, once we start our ride back, we find that the Space Train is incomplete. We then find ourselves falling through space back towards Earth. This, of course, would be very frightening for anyone experiencing it in real life and may scare children who are on the attraction.

What Could Make This Attraction Okay For Your Child

Luckily, all of these sequences take place very quickly. Because of that, kids may not actually have enough time to process what they’re seeing and then become frightened by it. As we quickly make our way through New York City, we just as quickly head from one experience to the next. This could help prevent children from actually finding this attraction to be scary.

8. MEN IN BLACK Alien Attack

READ MORE – Sadly Stolen Strollers Do Happen at Disney—Here’s How to Avoid It Happening to You

MEN IN BLACK Alien Attack is a simple shooter-style dark ride. For reference, it’s very similar to Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin at Disney World. During the ride, you’ll be tasked with the mission to hit as many aliens as you can with your laser gun.

As a whole, this ride isn’t necessarily terrifying. However, it is filled with many alien props and animatronics. These aliens also aren’t the friendly type that you’ll find over at E.T. Adventure.

The aliens in MEN IN BLACK Alien Attack have an overall scary presence including sharp teeth and creepy alien sounds. They also seem to be in every direction that you look. There’s even an ambush of aliens towards the end of the ride where there is a large number of them in a small area.

If your child happens to be afraid of these aliens, they’re going to be pretty miserable throughout the whole ride. The dark setting of the ride also won’t be helpful to any child who is already feeling scared which is why I included it on our scariest Universal Orlando rides list.

7. The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man

In my opinion, the next two rides are tied in regards to their scare level. Not only are the ride styles the same, but the frightening factors are pretty close to the same as well which is why I included them on our scariest Universal Orlando rides list. .

We start The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man by driving through dark city roads and alleys. This can immediately give off a chilling feeling. Going through the city at night, hearing sirens, dogs barking, and cats screeching… It automatically gives an unsafe feeling that may be scary for kids. This feeling only intensifies when Spider-Man comes along and warns us of danger.

Almost immediately after Spider-Man gives us his warning, we start speeding through the city. At one point, it seems like we’re about to get hit by a garbage truck. This portion can understandably be unnerving to a child.

As we continue our journey, we come up on a group of villains. It only takes a short amount of time before they realize we’re there and then come after us. There is then a series of events that could easily scare a child – Electro electrocutes the ride vehicle, Scream tries to attack us, Doc Ock breaks through a brick wall and starts to shoot fire at us, a flaming pumpkin almost hits us thanks to Goblin, and then we get levitated into the sky.

When things seem like they can’t get much worse, Spidey comes along, webs us, and carries us through the sky. While it’s comforting that our hero has come to help, the fact that we’re being swung through the sky by a web may be scary for a little one. Shortly after Spidey sits us down in a presumably safe spot, amongst all the fighting, we get pushed from the building and start to fall. We’re heading towards the ground, face first, and almost hit the street. Again, Spider-Man is there to save us before it’s too late, but the fall itself would be enough to frighten a child.

6. TRANSFORMERS: The Ride-3D

This ride also starts off in an immediately creepy setting. It’s dark, guns are shooting, and it can be unnerving. Before we get too far into our journey, a robot dog surprisingly comes out and jumps onto our car. Our ride vehicle shakes when this happens and it could be startling for a child.

As the ride progresses, we end up in the middle of a fight between Transformers. Imagine being stuck while giant robots are fighting all around you. The fight in itself could be frightening. Then add in the fact that things are crashing all around us and debris is flying towards us as well. This ride also has explosions with one bomb that almost hits our ride vehicle.

Afterwards, we come in contact with Devastator. This Transformer comes equipped with the Vortex Grinder. This makes this Transformer extremely terrifying. Not only can he vacuum up everything in his path, whatever gets sucked in also gets ground up by a multitude of metal pieces. We go through a scary experience of almost getting sucked in. Then, not long after escaping, we DO get vacuumed up and get a first hand look at the frightful Vortex Grinder. As a child, this would seem like going directly into this robot’s “mouth” full of dangerous machinery.

Towards the end of the ride, we have another instance where we end up falling face first towards the ground. Again, this would be very frightening for a little one which is why I included it on our scariest Universal Orlando rides list.

5. Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts

As part of the pre-show for this ride, guests go down on an elevator to the deep vaults of Gringotts. Even though this isn’t an actual elevator, it is very convincing. The video on the ceiling of the room, vibrations, and elevator sounds all make the impression that you are indeed taking a dark, creepy elevator ride down to very deep depths. This in itself can be a scary experience for children. Even though the elevator feels dark, the ride only gets darker from there. This whole experience takes place in almost complete darkness.

Towards the beginning of the ride, we come across Bellatrix. The crazy madness of this witch makes her quite scary on her own. It doesn’t take long for her to cast a spell which causes our ride vehicle to fall and start speeding off down the tracks.

Once we slow down for a bit, it’s not long before a couple of trolls who are guarding the vaults come after us. One of the trolls grabs our ride vehicle and sends us spinning. We then end up falling down a waterfall. 

Not long after that, we see a fire-breathing dragon. This is a very realistic dragon and may be frightening for children. Afterwards, a giant snake (Nagini), Voldemort, and Bellatrix appear. Of course these faces of the Dark Arts are naturally frightening. However, it only gets worse when Bellatrix casts another spell on us which sends us flying. Immediately after, Voldemort breathes out a Fiendfyre curse. To intensify the scariness, we then see a battle between Voldemort, Bellatrix, and the dragon.

Even though comforting characters such as Harry, Hermione, and Ron join us on this adventure, it seems like one scary situation after another that children may be scared by.

4. Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey

In order to get to this ride, guests must first wind through dark, creepy castle halls. The queue is also filled with items that may be frightening. Such as the dragon skeleton that hangs from the ceiling in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

To start our journey, Hermione sends us on our way with some floo powder. This may be a bit disorienting and scary for children. Especially if they aren’t familiar with the books or movies and don’t understand what’s happening.

On Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, you are able to get firsthand experience at what it feels like to fly on a broomstick. While many guests enjoy the flying effects that take place on this ride, others don’t. Some become nauseous. Others, who are afraid of heights, genuinely don’t enjoy this segment and the realistic feeling that they get from being high up in the sky. If your little one is afraid of heights, they most likely won’t enjoy this.

Of course, Harry Potter is filled with mythical creatures. Dragons being one of the most popular. On this ride, when we first see Hagrid, he holds up a chain with an empty collar and asks us if we’ve seen a dragon. Later on, we find the exact dragon that he’s looking for. This dragon blows fire at us and seemingly chases after us. After we take cover, we can hear and see the dragon walking on a creaky roof above us. Then we come face to face with a lifesize dragon animatronic. This dragon animatronic could easily frighten kids. It’s big, in your face, and is of course scary. Especially with all of its sharp teeth in plain sight with its open jaws.

The Scariest Parts of the Ride

The next few scenes are probably the scariest. It also doesn’t help that we’re put in scary situations back to back. First, we enter the Forbidden Forest and encounter Acromantulas. Or, in other words, giant spiders. For anyone who is scared of spiders in general, this part of the ride can be terrifying. We’re quite literally surrounded by these spiders as well as their webs. They’re also accompanied with flashing strobe-like lightning effects and creepy spider sounds. Many guests (even adults) can’t wait to get past this part of the ride.

Almost immediately after, we come up to the Whomping Willow. Unsurprisingly, this great tree takes swings at us and almost hits us.

Continuing our journey of unpleasant events, we witness Harry getting chased by Dementors. These frightening creatures can undoubtedly frighten even the bravest children. After we see one of our favorite characters get chased by these beings, we find ourselves surrounded by them. This scene includes Dementor animatronics, bones, and smoke. It can be an extremely fear-inducing scenario for kids.

Before our journey takes a heroic spin, we find ourselves having to dodge falling rock. A situation like this, where you feel like you may get squished or injured, may cause a child to become frightened which is why I included it on our scariest Universal Orlando rides list.

3. Jurassic Park River Adventure

Jurassic Park River Adventure starts off as a nice peaceful raft ride. Around you, there is a variety of peaceful plant-eating dinosaurs. However, it’s not long before things start to turn scary. Our raft drifts off into the wrong direction and we find ourselves entering the Raptor Containment Area. We’re clearly not supposed to be here – the gate is broken, there’s an alarm going off, frantic messages are coming over the radio, and lights are flashing. This genuinely induces a state of panic. Especially among the younger riders.

As we continue through this area, we start to see signs of danger. Bushes are rustling, we see a wrecked boat that took damage from dinosaurs, two Compys are fighting over someone’s shirt… Children are very curious and they’re most likely going to wonder where the person who was wearing that shirt is.

The ride only continues to get scary from this point on. We then see a Raptor cage that’s elevated in the air. We can hear the Raptor’s angry noises and see the cage shaking as it’s trying to escape. Our raft’s path goes directly under this cage. Right as we start to go under it, the cage starts falling. The possibility of a Raptor escaping is a fear of its own, but then there’s the additional fear of being squished.

The Scariest Parts of the Ride

Our journey then progresses into a factory-like building. It’s a very steep climb into this dark building with dim lighting, visible pipes, more alarms going off, and smoke. We can see some once enclosed areas where workers should be, but instead, the glass is broken and everyone is missing. In one of those areas, instead of seeing workers, we see a big Raptor.

As we continue through the ride, we pass a variety of dinosaurs, but this time, they aren’t the kind that eat plants. These ones are a  variety of carnivorous dinosaurs. We then come up to  a set of large metal doors that are clearly forced open. Along the doors you can see BIG claw marks. Looking on, we can see a cloud of fog. Before too long, a T-rex emerges from the fog. Our raft is heading directly towards this huge dinosaur. We get extremely close to the T-rex who starts to lean in towards us, with jaws open wide. All you can see are big teeth before we abruptly escape by going down an 85-foot long hill.

This ride personally terrified me as a child. I wasn’t only scared of this ride while it was on it, but I also had nightmares about it afterwards.

2. Skull Island: Reign of Kong

This ride can be scary for kids even before they get to the ride itself. Actually before they even enter the queue. Right out front at the entrance sign, there are numerous skulls, torches, and you have to walk through rockwork that look like the jaws of Kong. The queue itself is dark, FULL of skulls, skeletons, and random bones, and has a scary woman shaman.

Once we’re in the ride vehicle, which is a safari-style truck, we drive straight into a dark cave. The first thing we see when we enter the cave is a giant skeleton that once belonged to another Kong. This continuing experience of darkness and bones can be especially scary for children.

The first bit of action that we see is when giant bat-like creatures emerge from the cave. They pick up and fly away with a grown woman. If children see these creatures carrying off adults, they know for sure that they aren’t safe. The theme of dangerous creatures continues throughout the ride.

After the bats, we come across giant worms with expandable, teeth-filled jaws that seem to come directly for our vehicle. We then see a variety of giant bugs. This then leads to the use of guns to try to fight off these creatures. The final bug that we see is a giant scorpion. This one, is again, another creature that grabs an adult woman.

We're Put in the Middle of the Action

As we move on, we find ourselves surrounded by multiple dinosaurs. From a quick glance, this seems like a group of T-rex. Shortly after, a group of Vastatosaurus rex, show up. Being gigantic in size compared to the T-rex, these dinosaurs eat the T-rex right in front of us. This could be a particularly scary thing for kids to experience. Especially with the visuals and sound effects that are used. Kong then shows up and starts to fight off the V-rex. He starts solving the problem by eliminating these dinosaurs. He gets rid of the first one by breaking open and snapping its jaws. The sound of bones cracking is very evident and then the dinosaur falls limp in its dead state.

During the brawl with the rest of the V-rex, our ride vehicle often gets hit, bumped into, and climbed on. Of course, for effect, our vehicle gets moved and shaken every time we’re hit. Eventually our vehicle falls off a cliff. Luckily, thick vines stop our fall. However, even though the vines stopped our fall, one of the V-rex also falls into the vines and continues to try to attack us.

Kong shows up and attempts to save us again. Even though he’s there for our benefit, it can still be scary for kids. Kong obviously doesn’t look like your standard hero. He has a large mouth and teeth and is huge overall. On top of that, he’s very loud.

At the end of the ride, once we’re safe, we drive past Kong. This experience is as if we’re driving right past his face in real life. Rather than a screen, this Kong is an actual animatronic. Although he’s kind, and we know he saved us, he can still be frightening to little ones due to his size.

1. Revenge of the Mummy

This ride is another one that has a queue that may spook children. It’s dark, has Egyptian artifacts, spiderwebs, and skulls.

The ride itself is also extremely dark. As we start our journey, the first thing we see is a mummified boy telling us that we need to get out. He warns us that we’re entering a trap and that our souls are wanted. Before we even get past this warning, the evil Mummy, Imhotep, steps out. He has a very scary appearance and confirms that he is indeed planning to seal us in the tomb and take our souls.

We’re then taken to a treasure room. Here, in spirit form, Imhotep appears and tries to bribe us with treasures. In return, we must agree to be his servants. When we don’t agree, the room fills with fire and scary, mummified guards pop up out of nowhere.

As we continue, we come to a stop in front of a brick wall. Shortly after, scarab beetles break through the wall. You are then made to feel like you can feel the beetles crawling all over you. For those who don’t like bugs, this can be a very frightening thing.

The Fear Doesn't Stop

In the ride, we also experience a backwards launch. This then leads us to a curse being cast by Imhotep as he continues his attempt to capture our souls. We then speed through a spirit’s mouth. We’re now going extremely fast, lights are flashing, we’re twisting and turning, and fast-paced pensive music is playing. When we finally slow down, it’s only long enough to see a “worker” get attacked by Imhotep. We’re then trapped under a ceiling of fire.

On our escape, we go through smoke into total darkness. We zip by flashing lights, Egyptian symbols, and a scary visual of Imhotep’s face. His eyes are wide open and his mouth fills with smoke and fire.

This ride is essentially a continuous nightmare from beginning to end. If your child is frightened easily, I would suggest having them skip this ride.

Universal Orlando's Child Swap

With the help of this guide, you should be able to depict which Universal Orlando rides will be too scary for your kids and which ones you think they’ll be able to handle. If you’ve decided that your child won’t be riding one of these rides, but you would still like to experience them, you can always take advantage of Universal’s Child Swap.

By using Child Swap, you and another adult will essentially be able to take turns riding the ride. One adult will sit out with the child while the other goes and enjoys the attraction. Once that adult takes their turn on the ride, they will simply swap places. This system allows adults to enjoy rides that children may not while still making sure the child is with a trusted adult at all times.

READ MORE – SECRET Targets to Get High Score On Toy Story Midway Mania

There are some secret targets you may not know about that can help you get your highest score yet on the popular shooting ride Toy Story Midway Mania! See our top tips and tricks for this interactive ride and the SECRET Toy Story Midway Mania targets to aim for.

READ MORE – 20 Secret Disneyland Quiet Spots Many Regulars Don’t Even Know

Disneyland is filled with so many magical experiences, but all of the action can easily become overstimulating, and sometimes you just want a quiet spot to relax. We've compiled 20 of our favorite secret spots around the Disneyland Resort that you should check out, including quiet places to rest, underrated attractions, hidden gem spots, and more.

Frequently Asked Questions