Memory 053 – DINOSAUR

Come and join us for another installment of the WDW-Memories podcast, where I try to make it possible for you relive your Walt Disney World Memories when you can’t actually be there.

** Binaural Audio **
** Stereo Audio **
Time: 31:49

I can’t believe what I just witnessed. I’m a huge sports fan, and in particular a baseball fan. Sadly my team, the Orioles have been out of it since opening day, but waking up this morning to find out they played spoiler, in addition to Tampa pulling off the comeback of the season to clinch the wild-card… just an awesome morning. But this podcast isn’t about baseball, it’s about one of my other great passions, Disney. And today, we’re going to be revisiting a polarizing attraction, one that seems to have many lovers and haters. We’re going to be catching a ride on DINOSAUR.

Now many of you might love this thrill ride, while others don’t enjoy the fear factor, or maybe it’s even the ride vehicle itself throwing you around. And the rquests alone were many and their reasons were varieed. In fact, our attraction today was requested by no fewer than 5 different people. It was originally requested by Mandy from Newcastle, UK. She wrote:

I would like to make a request for DINOSAUR at animal kingdom as its the best attraction at the Animal Kingdom and one of my favourite attractions. I love the audio, suspense and thrill of the ride. I would really appricate if you could do this.

Then Jared wrote in saying:

I have one request for a WDW Memory. Dinosaur. Whether you remember the old “Countdown to Extinction” or the current Dinosaur, this is one of my favorite attractions in Animal Kingdom.

Of course, there’s Mary’s reason for requesting it:

Can you make a recording of Dinosaur please? My family loves that ride and to this day, we still like imitating our friend’s face when we took her on it.

I also got an email from Jessica in Homestead, FL saying:

I was wondering if we can hear Dinosaur which I just love and remember when I was a kid it was called “count down to extinction”

And finally I got one last email from Brendan saying:

…I was wondering if you could do the dinosaur in animal kingdom.I remember my first time riding it.I was in the front row and was so scared because the big t Rex was roaring in my face and started chasing us and it banged us around so much my head was spinning by the time I got off and my heart pounding…so I sort of need this podcast to make me forget the time for when I go with Cameron in april so that I can ride it and not be as scared as I was.

So as you can see, even our thoughts and memories are pretty diverse. On Facebook I heard from Daniel who probably summed it up best by saying:

The first ride we ever rode at AK. Extremely loud, extremely Big, and extremely Fun!

I personally enjoy the ride. It’s not my favorite, but it’s definitely thrilling. That said, as a dad of 2 little ones, it will be a LONG time before we get to ride this as a family. In the mean time, there’s always child swap and fast passes.

So now let’s get to the reason we’re all here really, our memories. The memory today we’ll be sharing is from December 2006. It’s that anniversary trip again. Traci and I splurged and got a room for her parents who lived in Florida at the time but had never stayed in an on-property resort. So this morning, they were joining us for a bit of holiday fun in the parks. We started out our day at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and have done quite a bit already. I’ve been debating weather or not to take them on this, as I know they haven’t seen the movie, and the story or the thrill aspect might be lost on them, but we go on anyways. We had picked up Fastpasses earlier, and are now heading back to utilize them. We’re going to join this memory as we apprach the Dino Institute. You’ll hear us discussing the little red badge the Cast Member gave us. We make it up to the front of the fastpass wait area, and it appears the attraction broke down, so we’ll get to listen to a bunch of the queue audio. Finally they let us down the hall to the pre-show area where we finally our back story, and from here a short wait and we’re on the ride.

Now, if that’s not enough for you, I’m going to throw some bonus audio in also. In December of 2001, my family and I took a day trip over to the parks, and one of our early stops was DINOSAUR. The reason I’m including this memory is for what’s missing. As we pulled away from the loading area, it’s become pretty apparent that somethings missing. Apparently Dr. Seeker didn’t make the trip, so we’re left with no narration, and nothing but the attraction audio and our own fears. It was actually more intense in my opinion, but you’ll be able to tell from listening to everyone else on the ride what they thought too.

While the audio from 2001 is only in stereo, the audio from 2006 is in Binaural, so in either case, headphones on.