Dinosaurs Alive!: My Review

[jdawg1998]

There have been many reviews about DA! - I know, I know - but this is my review! I have a few pictures to show but they are rotated (because of the way my phone takes them) but they are good quality. I went to DA! back on Sunday, but just thought about posting a review now!

REVIEW:

Heading into DA! I thought it looked pretty cool, with the start dinosaur "The Irritator". But I went straight into the park and was told to buy the tickets in the big tent. In my opinion, they should make a sign that says "Buy Tickets Here". After we bought the tickets (no movie) we went straight in. For the first few dinosaurs you pass, it's not that great. You can still hear the amusement park, and the dinosaurs were pretty small. Most of the "make it move" podiums were broken, and there weren't much trees or grass. Eventually, though, you come across the major scenes, which are really cool!

The dinosaurs' animatronics were really good, almost as good as Disney World. Every part of their body moved. You can even see the dinos breathing. Sometimes, a dinosaur's tail would whack a tree - making it that more realistic. Once you get far into the park, all noise is quiet and all you hear are dinosaurs roars....and a tiger and an elephant. BAD BAD move Kings Island. Only one though (which is good) has this. A dinosaur sounds like an ELEPHANT. And one sounds like a TIGER. Really? It kind of gave away the whole ancient dinosaur atmosphere and made it feel more like the African savannah, but oh well.

Some scenes showed dinosaurs eating other dinosaurs, with blood and everything. These were my favorite parts of the walk. The T-Rex fight wasn't really as good as thought it'd be, because all there was was a bunch of dinosaurs lined up in a row. But they were ginormous and I just had to say, "Woah." Throughout the park there are signs full of a ton of info talking about each and every dinosaur. There are stats about its weight and height, its location, and what it eats (carnivore, herbiove, omnivore.)

Suggestions for future expansions:

• If they expanded, they need to add more dinosaurs in between the spaces of other dinosaurs. There is plenty of feet to walk from one dino to the next.
• Add jungle-type music in the background or maybe even some jungle birds. That would make the theme even better.
• Dig some fake lakes/ponds and maybe even possibly add a water dinosaur.
• Fake palm trees, tropical plants, vegetation, etc.

Overall, Dinosaurs Alive! was a great experience and would be even better for my five year old sister. Yes, there is room for more, and some changes should be made, but overall I would give it a 9/10.

Edit: for some reason, I cannot post pictures and whenever I try to post the topic, it says "You are not allowed to use that image extension on this board." What does that mean?!?

[bkroz]

Very nice! I also visited and agree with much of what you have to say. The elephant sound (I also heard a sheep) was distracting, but can either of us be sure that that isn't the real, hypothesized sound made by that particular dinosaur species? Perhaps those noises are about as close as they can get to what they expect their calls really were. I wouldn't call it a "BAD BAD move." I hardly think that they randomly decided to be "cheap" with two of the figures...

I thought the setting was beautiful and that there were plenty of figures spaced out well. It's a long walk that uses the natural terrain very well. I also laughed when you mentioned how you liked how some of their tails ruffled the foliage, because I noticed that, too, and really liked it.

Truly the only thing that I would say could majorly improve the exhibit is to have the figures move continuously, or at least more often. Each moved for probably 10 to 12 seconds, then remained still for 20 or so. We happened to reach pretty much each one just as it stopped moving, and had to literally stand and wait for it to start again. Obviously, that sort of destroyed the illusion of reality far moreso than the elephant noise, and it was a little bit silly. Sure there weren't many people back there, but I don't think this is a "B mode" for the animatronics or anything - I think they're just set to repeat the same 10 second loop every 30 seconds. So that was a little annoying.

It was a little strange to me that the audio couldn't come through a speaker placed in the mouth of the dinosaurs. It really wasn't too terribly distracting that their voices came out of a giant speaker-rock placed at the foot of each of them, but it was a little silly on the taller ones... And the volume seemed much too quiet on them. Perhaps that's to help from startling children, but they bill the 3D movie as appropriate for all ages, and it's very loud, so I can't understand why the dinosaurs can't make realistic noises.

A really really nice exhibit though, and I'm happy with the up-charge. There were maybe 30 people spread throughout the trail when I visited, and it took a good 45 minutes. I would agree with your 9/10 rating.

[beastrider97]

I'm pretty sure that the dinosaurs are operated on motion sensors. At every dinosaur there was a little black standing thing that looked to have a camera on it. I think this is a motion sensor to trigger the dinos.

[jdawg1998]

It was a little strange to me that the audio couldn't come through a speaker placed in the mouth of the dinosaurs.

I forgot to mention that in my posts. Instead of the noise coming out of the mouth, you see a huge surround system (exaggeration) disguised as a rock.

A rock.

[CoasterGeek101]

Thanks for sharing, I will be posting my review with pics and videos soon.I liked most of it except the sounds could be better, some of them sounded like elephants and sheep, like the tiny one at the front!

[jcgoble3]

Most of the "make it move" podiums were broken,

Were they broken, or were you just trying to operate them too fast? You can only operate one "system" at a time. Once you press a button, you have to wait until a couple of seconds after the light on that button goes out before any of the other buttons will work.

[jdawg1998]

Most of the "make it move" podiums were broken,

Were they broken, or were you just trying to operate them too fast? You can only operate one "system" at a time. Once you press a button, you have to wait until a couple of seconds after the light on that button goes out before any of the other buttons will work.

That may have been what the problem was!

[BoddaH1994]

I think they were trying to go through a diversity of sounds rather than every dinosaur making a generic roar. I've noticed that in a few aspects. Did you notice how a lot of the same dinosaurs are different colors? I think this was done intentionally since we really don't know which color they were. We can make educated guesses about a lot of things, but nothing is certain.

[KIfan73]

Good review of DA. I went through it last Monday, and watched the movie. I really enjoyed it and thought it was a good complement to the park. I really thought they did a good job of re-purposing Action Theater for the Dinosaur Movie. Although I still miss Days of Thunder and hate they took out the motion seats, I took the experience in for what it was, and thought they did a good job.