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DINOSAUR is a four-minute dark ride: travel on a Time Rover back to the Cretaceous Period to bring back a live dinosaur ' just before an asteroid slams into the earth! To learn more about this remarkable mission, keep reading; but if you'd rather thunder on down to the nuts and bolts, here's your shortcut.
Your adventure begins by entering the Dino Institute, a paleontological research facility. The first portion of the interior queue area has several different exhibits displaying small fossils, animals of today whose lineage can be traced back to the time of the dinosaurs, and a wall highlighting several different theories for the mass extinction of dinosaurs.
The next part of the queue takes place in an octagonal room. The star of this room is the huge Carnotaurus fossil skeleton it the center. It dominates the room so completely that you may overlook the other interesting things all around you. (FYI: I've read that it's really a replica T. rex skeleton with a Carnotaurus skull; the actual Carnotaurus wasn't this large.)
Easy to miss is the globe suspended from the ceiling with a rod intersecting it. Keen-eyed observers will pause to note that the globe shows Pangaea, the supercontinent before it broke into the Americas, Africa, and Europe. The 'rod' shows the 'path' of the asteroid that smacked into Earth, marking how far it traveled before it wiped out the dinosaurs. Each of the eight walls comprising the room has an upper and lower portion, making sixteen displays worth a glance as you pass through on your way to the preshow film.
The pre-show film is hosted by Dr. Marsh (Phylicia Rashad). She outlines your adventure: a peaceful trip back to the time of the early Cretaceous Period. Dr. Seeker (Wallace Langham) interrupts to let you know that he's changed your time destination to the late Cretaceous Period so you can bring back an Iguanodon named Aladar, whom he previously tagged on an 'unauthorized field trip.' (Aladar is also the name of the dinosaur in the Disney film Dinosaur, by the way.)
The problem with this time destination is that you'll be arriving literally moments before the giant dinosaur-killing asteroid smacks into Earth! But no worries, Dr. Seeker is sure you'll have plenty of time. Dr. Marsh overhears his plan, and assures you this will not be the case. She leaves, but not before confirming that the coordinates for your Time Rover have been locked into the early Cretaceous Period. But this is a Disney ride after all, so you can kind of see what's coming. Seeker hacks into the system to send your Time Rover to the late Cretaceous where the asteroid threatens the Earth.
In addition to moving along a track, the Time Rover bucks and pitches in sync with the visuals and special effects (which are really quite spectacular). This means that the ride experience of DINOSAUR can be extremely rough, jerky, and even jarring. To add to the tension, the clock is ticking: you've got just under four minutes to accomplish your mission and bring back Aladar. And boy, do things go wrong!
You run into a variety of dinosaurs as you look for your Iguanodon, including the ferocious Carnotaurus (remember the skeleton in the queue?). As the asteroid draws closer and closer, the Carnotaurus chases you; there's darkness, flashes of light, and near misses all of which combine for a rough, jarring ride. Will you make it out in time? (Spoiler alert: yes.)
DINOSAUR opened with Animal Kingdom on April 22, . Its original name was Countdown to Extinction. When Disney released the movie DINOSAUR in , the was changed. Keen eyes will find a notice on the wall in the loading area that reads, 'SECTOR CTX_WDW_AK98' ' the CTX is a nod to the Countdown to Extinction name and AK98 is the year Animal Kingdom opened at Walt Disney World.
A few other changes were made to the ride at that time, allowing Disney to relax the original height requirement from 46' down to 40'. The audio-animatronics built for the ride were among the largest ever created by the Imagineering team. Instead of designing a whole new layout and ride system from scratch (and as a cost-saving measure) Disney utilized the layout and ride system already in place at the Disneyland attraction, Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye.
It's fun to know that McDonald's sponsored the ride at first and there are still red, yellow, and white pipes in the boarding station, which were meant to remind you of ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise. Most recently, at the Destination D23 Expo in September , it was announced that an Indiana Jones attraction may at some point replace DINOSAUR. But no closure date or any specifics have been announced at this writing.
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DINOSAUR is located in DinoLand U.S.A. at Disney's Animal Kingdom. Because Disney has placed Dinosaur in such a remote corner of the park, you really have to seek it out. Hint: it's just off the beaten path between Restaurantosaurus and Chester & Hester's Dinosaur Treasures and behind the Cretaceous Trail. The ride and most of its queue are indoors and area not affected by weather.
The Time Rovers for DINOSAUR look like large jeeps. Each accommodates 12 guests, 4 guests per row, in lightly padded seats with individual fabric belts. There's a grab bar for guests to hold onto for additional stability when things get bumpy. To get into the Time Rover, you need to take a small step up.
Guests need to transfer from a Wheelchair/ECV to the ride vehicle. Riders must be at least 40 inches tall, and like all attractions with a height requirement, DINOSAUR offers Rider Switch. For safety, you should be in good health and free from high blood pressure, heart, back or neck problems, motion sickness, or other conditions that could be aggravated by this adventure. Expectant mothers should not ride. Video Captioning and Assistive Listening are both available. Note that service animals are not permitted on DINOSAUR.
Most attractions have a short wait first thing in the morning or at the end of the day. But the location of DINOSAUR ' along with the popularity of other headliners in Animal Kingdom ' means that this is one the easiest big attractions at Walt Disney World to get on. So, you could and maybe should use those early and late hours of the day elsewhere. We think that lines should be relatively light through mid-morning. Alternatively, you can secure Lightning Lane entry via Genie+. Dinosaur is open for Early Theme Park Entry and Extended Evening Theme Park Hours.
We rate DINOSAUR as not to be missed. It offers nonstop action from start to finish, with terrific visual effects. Even by Disney standards, it's an elaborate attraction ' and the tense, frenetic ride is augmented by the whole lot of high-tech gimmickry only the Imagineers can deliver.
Have you been on DINOSAUR? What did you think? Let us know in the comments.
The perpetual addition of new attractions, rides, hotels, and 'immersive experiences' means the grand Disney park experiment will never end. Evolving theme park technology helps immersive experiences like Flight of Passage and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance blur the line between reality and the fantastical. Disney is and will always be in the business of topping its own game.
That's all fine and good, but when it comes to absolutely terrifying rides, Disney should just call it quits. The parks team already achieved the single scariest experience ever with its attraction Dinosaur. The first time I rode Dinosaur in the early s, I had a meltdown. During a recent trip earlier this month, I rode it again and can confirm: It is still the scariest ride in all of Walt Disney World.
There's a strong chance that even if you're a regular park-goer, it's been a while since you've taken a ride on Dinosaur, which lives in the shadow of attractions like Galaxy's Edge and Pandora: World of Avatar. The dark ride opened during the Animal Kingdom launch in and was originally entitled Countdown to Extinction. Aside from a minor update in , which changed the name of the attraction to Dinosaur and included a short clip of Al the Iguanodon from Disney's dinosaur movie (also entitled Dinosaur, believe it or not), the ride has remained relatively unchanged.
But the terror doesn't come from cutting-edge tech or immersive experiences. This ride cuts deeper.
Everyone's favorite Disney character: Al the iguanodon. Image: Walt Disney Pictures
Part of it lies in the setup. A fun, very stuck-in-the-s video introduces guests to the fictional Dino Institute and Dr. Marsh (Phylicia Rashād of The Cosby Show), who gives a speech about 'time rovers' and an upcoming trip to the past. She sends viewers to the eccentric Dr. Seeker (Wallace Langham from Weird Science) for a safety briefing. However, the man of science commits some major ethical violations, informing the crowd that he intends to send everyone back in time mere minutes before the dinosaurs' mass extinction in order to retrieve an Iguanodon. He does this while going behind Dr. Marsh's back, assuring the group that they'll be totally fine.
After guests board the time rover, the ride zips them through near-darkness. Dinosaur is faster than most Disney dark rides, which alone makes it scary. Plummeting in pitch-black darkness on a bumpy time rover is made all the more worse when there's a chance that the next turn will reveal a terrifying dinosaur glaring at you, illuminated by sharp red lighting. As a kid, it's terrifying because those dinosaurs could definitely, absolutely eat me. As an adult, it's also terrifying because even though I rationally know those dinosaurs can't eat me, I think, What if they did?
The fact that the dinosaurs are meant to scare you, that turning a corner could mean coming face to face with a man-eating Carnotaurus, separates Dinosaur from Disney's typical 'scary' rides. Haunted Mansion and Tower of Terror (and arguably the first moments of Pirates of the Caribbean) use creepy elements to create an atmosphere, but don't actually employ them as part of the ride's thrills. Haunted Mansion is a leisurely tour through a spoopy space, while Tower of Terror's excitement comes from the free-fall. The only other ride that does use scare tactics is Expedition Everest, with its terrifying animatronic yeti, but the ride is mostly outside in the open air, unlike the claustrophobic space of Dinosaur.
Not only is it dark and cramped with man-eating dinosaurs around every corner, but about halfway through Dinosaur, a meteor 'crashes' and the time rover starts jerking around. Loud sirens keep blaring as a voice counts down to the moment of extinction. It's dark, it's loud, and you can't leave! The truly unethical scientist urges us to press on and on, refusing to rescue the time rover, even in the face of certain death. There is no way out! I can't say no to this guy who's decided to abuse his position of power to send volunteers into a dangerous experiment, undermining his superior and violating basically every rule in the book.
Finally, when we're face to face with the dinosaur that we've been sent to find, Dr. Seeker decides that oh, maybe this is too dangerous, and yanks the time rover back to the present day.
(Don't worry: The Iguanodon somehow finds its way back to the present).
What park-goers will and won't see in the future
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Dinosaur rattled me, an adult, during my most recent trip. I went onto the ride certain that as with other rides that had scared me as a child ' Space Mountain, for instance ' I had grown into the experience, no longer afraid of dark drops and fast speeds. But oh no, Dinosaur still shook me up the same way, instilling the childish fear I had buried from my experience years prior.
Disney theme parks will continue to expand, opening new rides and revamping old ones. But for every addition of Jack Sparrow, for every opening of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, there is an old ride, yet untouched by Walt Disney Imagineers, tucked away in the corner of Dinoland U.S.A., with a line just under 20 minutes long, that will give you just as intense a thrill as whatever newfangled attraction with a two-hour wait.
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