"God creates dinosaurs, God kills dinosaurs, God creates man, man kills God, man brings back dinosaurs." - Ian Malcom, Jurassic Park
This summer, I have done a little traveling, but due to the fires in my backyard, I have not been as engaged in my travels as I would like. Good thing my friend Rachel, over at The Doctor Dances has been traveling! She is the contributor of today's post! Enjoy her adventure!
I never thought that I could ever be genuinely terrified of Dinosaurs. That is, until a recent experience I had with them.
My family recently took a vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We spent some time in Pigeon Forge, and my Mom, older sister, younger brother, and myself noticed a Jurassic Riverboat Adventure and wanted to go on it. After all, our favorite ride at Universal Studios is the Jurassic Park ride. Sure, this one wasn’t officially “Jurassic Park,” but how bad could it be?
Awful.
No. Let me amend that.
Horrendous.
The outside was innocently deceptive. Smaller, not-very-good-quality dinosaur animatronics stood outside to greet us. There were some explorer dummies observing the dinosaurs. Sure, there was a giant T-Rex head that popped out now and then, but even that wasn’t very scary. At least, the dummies didn’t seem to think so.
After we paid the ridiculous price of $50 dollars for the four of us to ride, we waited for the next boat to arrive at the loading dock. Although the people exiting the ride seemed a little phased, we were too excited and pretending to be scared that we didn’t really pay too much attention to them. We should have heeded the signs.
The four of us were the only passengers as we slid into the second row of the boat for what we thought would be a majestic journey. “Mom, can I sit next to you?” I joked. But when we entered, I had never been so glad to be sitting next to Mom in my entire life.
First of all, the ride moved painfully slowly. And the building was pitch-black. And you didn’t have seat restraints. And the door behind you was big and it shut tight when you entered. AND it was pitch-black. And there were really loud noises. And almost all of the animatronics could have been touched. And did I mention it was pitch-black?
Normally on rides like this I get semi-scared. In a good, fun way. On this ride, I was terrified in a horrible, I’m-literally-going-to-be-eaten way. Because it was so dark, we had no idea where the animatronics were going to come from. Sudden loud noises and a fake dinosaur jumping out of an unexpected place right near you where you can almost touch it might not sound scary at first, however, you know how in normal rides you are a good space away from the animatronics and they’re stopped before they come that close to you?
Not in this psycho-house. The boat would stop, the dinosaur would jump out. And then...then it would lower and come closer. And closer. And right when you think it’s stopping, it comes even closer. In an enclosed space where you are stopped and you have no hope of escaping! What are our first thoughts? Throw the 12 year old at it!
We seriously thought that one of us was going to get eaten at one point or other. You may laugh at this, but it’s true. I have never heard any of us scream that loud in my entire life. The animatronics weren’t even that good. But the atmosphere and the fear of being stuck on the ride because of how slow it moved were enough to brew nightmares. I’ll get to that later, though.
Then, as if playing the game of "How Long Can You Survive" wasn’t fun enough, we approached this cute little raptor. Don’t ever be fooled by the raptors. They always spit. The second, huge raptor that we encountered nailed Mom (who despises getting wet) right in the face. Bad experience, much?
After at least six minutes (it felt like an eternity) of torture (seriously, the government should consider using this to extract information from people), we finally reached the exit doors.
What have we learned from this ride? Don’t be deceived! Were we really about to exit? Oh, no. Not a chance.
The boat started lifting. Higher. And higher. And higher. And just when you thought it would stop, it kept lifting higher! I wasn’t even looking at this point. But the others said that we were facing another T-Rex. No hope of escape, fear of being possibly dumped into the water, and we were forced to face right at him. This is why I closed my eyes.
Was it over yet? What has the ride taught us? Yup, that’s right. Another T-Rex jumped out from the side. Finally, after all of that, the boat lowered and we were released from the horror movie prison. Never shall I ever step foot near that ride again. Any dream of wanting to see a real life dinosaur has been shattered.
Did the terror end there? Oh no, of course not. That night I had a hard time falling asleep and almost had nightmares because of it; Mom actually did have nightmares.
What has this ride taught us?
1. Look up reviews of rides BEFORE you ride them
2. Don’t trust anything Jurassic unless it is specifically Jurassic Park in Universal Studios.
3. Don’t be deceived by dinosaur rides.
4. STAY AWAY FROM THIS RIDE! DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY! PART OF YOUR LIFE IS SUCKED AWAY FROM YOU WHEN YOU DO! BEWARE!
And don’t even think that it’s so bad that it’s good. And don’t think that this is such a funny or mysterious blog post that you should ride it. Don’t support the ride, don’t waste the money, and don’t give into the temptation. It is not worth it. Go somewhere else that is more interesting and far better. If you really must see it, there are YouTube videos out there.
But whatever you do: DON’T RIDE THIS RIDE!
Jill's note: I CAN'T WAIT TO GO ON THIS RIDE!!!!! But, until I get back to Tennessee, I
Gotta Mosey!
