Ride Showdown: Indiana Jones or Dinosaur?

[disneygeek90]

Yes, but it still pales in comparison. Disney World’s Potc is great, but Disneyland is is another league. The exact same comparison relevant here. Indy is by far the superior attraction in the same way Disneyland’s POTC is. You of course can like one more than the other, but there is a clear superior and higher quality attraction.

The past 2 times I have been to DL that I could actually remember, Pirates has been getting refurbed. Hoping to finally hit it the right time November.

I'm okay admitting Indy is an overall stronger ride. I'm also okay admitting I love Dinosaur a little more.

 

[flynnibus]

Have you been on it since the refurb? The lighting is much better, imo.

Oh look... jungle leaves in the dark... more jungle leaves in dark.. There isn't anything there to actually see or establish anything except BUMP SWING BOUNCE.

Contrast that to Indy where you can actually see sets that look like the temple you are told about... physical effects at the stops... DIFFERENT things to see at each of the stops.. You can actually identify the reason for each stop and there are things to see and scare you... and then there are actual huge sets with things you get to see for more than 3 seconds.

Put it this way... you could take the narrator out of Indiana Jones and you'd still have an amazing attraction experience. Take the narrator out of Dinosaur and you'd go 'What the hell just happened?'

 

[thomas998]

From a story standpoint Indy wins... but from a implementation of the story Dinosaurs wins. Indy has gotten too much of a carnival spook house vibe to it especially with the use of florescent paint throughout the ride. Dinosaurs seems to be the better implementation of simply a poorer story. A shame they couldn't have put the same level of ride development into Indy that they did Dino. I think the only place Indy really trounces Dinosaurs is the queue where Indy is a much better ride queue.

 

[OliveMcFly]

I could ride Indy everyday. I don't even bother riding Dinosaur when I'm at DAK.

 

[danlb_2000]

Indy, no contest.

 

[Dapper Dan]

The only time you can see other cars are in the big room, and that was done on purpose. It literally adds to the experience. Different cars going on this ‘mission’. It’s fairly obvious that the ride’s intention storywise is more than 1 car.

That's why I don't understand why they have the same layout (other than to save money). The whole point of it is to have that large central room that you enter and exit multiple times. On Dinosaur, you'd never even know you were in the same room.

 

[MichRX7]

Indy hands down. It even get a thumbs up from my father who is the world's largest Disney skeptic.

 

[correcaminos]

I cannot vote as both are pretty much the same to me. I mean they are not identical but neither stood out as superior even riding them a few months apart.

 

[yeti]

It hurts to say it but I always find Indy a bit of a let-down despite having more thought and money put into it. The "big room" is a neat idea but feels like one scene eating up half the ride, so I wish it was about a minute or two longer. I find Dinosaur works better with the ride's length, and I love it as sort of the Jurassic Park ride we never got.

 

[cheezbat]

I enjoy both, but Indy is far superior. The soundtrack, the firs effects, the storyline, the queue, the use of the EMV capabilities...Indy's only downfall to me is the room with the 'shooting skeletons'....why not use skeletons instead of just painting them on the wall?

Dinosaur has awesome animatronics in it. The narration is somewhat annoying. The lack of a soundtrack also hurts it. Too much darkness. And we're there to catch a dinosaur? How come we need to go to get it? We don't do anything but sit in the vehicle and look at Dino's the whole time. How do we catch it? It gets in the Time Rover's time traveling field? If that's the case, then they could've just sent the darn rover on autopilot(which is what it basically is doing anyway with us on it)to the past on its own and not endangered twelve people's lives.

 

[FettFan]

Temple of the Forbidden Eye is set to the the John Williams 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' score, including the beautiful "Map Room: Dawn" as the main theme for Mara.

Therefore TotFE wins by default.

 

[grim-grinning_toast]

I have been a Dinosaur fangirl since the first time I rode it. There are so many pictures of us riding it multiple times in a row on slower days. That said, we went to DL for the first time in November and WOWZA. Indiana Jones is a much better experience, in my opinion.

Still love Dinosaur, though! I would just prefer to ride Indi - if I had the choice

 

[worldfanatic]

The giant open area at the center of Indy makes it feel like a more substantial attraction.
It's pretty jaw-dropping to go through the middle of that.
Dino is more focused on what's immediately around your Jeep's track.
It's still a fantastic ride, but doesn't feel as Grand.

 

[FettFan]

I enjoy both, but Indy is far superior. The soundtrack, the firs effects, the storyline, the queue, the use of the EMV capabilities...Indy's only downfall to me is the room with the 'shooting skeletons'....why not use skeletons instead of just painting them on the wall?

Dinosaur has awesome animatronics in it. The narration is somewhat annoying. The lack of a soundtrack also hurts it. Too much darkness. And we're there to catch a dinosaur? How come we need to go to get it? We don't do anything but sit in the vehicle and look at Dino's the whole time. How do we catch it? It gets in the Time Rover's time traveling field? If that's the case, then they could've just sent the darn rover on autopilot(which is what it basically is doing anyway with us on it)to the past on its own and not endangered twelve people's lives.

One of the effects that has since been removed was a net projection that would appear on the Iguanadon as you drive past and Seeker would shout out that the capture was successful.

It was taken out when Countdown to Extinction was converted to Dinosaur.

 

[Thaddeus Oswald]

Dinosaur could be described as having everything I like (and I'm sure many of the members on this forum) in an attraction. An original story, great ride system, good amount of animatronics, and nearly all physical sets. While if described this way Dinosaur sounds like it would be the better attraction but alas it is not. Indy has superior sets, story, audio/score, lighting, and a grander sense of excitement and adventure.

After having been on Dinosaur many times before first going on Indy I was blown away by how much better Indy was. To be fair Dinosaur is looking quite a bit better after it's refurbishment but still pales in comparison.

 

[Weather_Lady]

If I have to go solely by what I've observed and not what an attraction is supposed to be, then Indy wins for me.

Every time we've visited, Dinosaur has either been down for refurbishment, or had several effects conspicuously turned off and/or unlighted in a poor attempt to hide that they weren't working. As a result, each experience was a herky-jerky journey through near-total darkness, hearing sounds that were supposedly linked to the actions of animatronics that were not, in fact, moving at all. It was like a loud, obnoxious trip through a stationery museum exhibit on a runaway janitor's cart, capped off by a blurry photo of my bored face at the end, which Disney then, in a callous attempt to insult to injury, offered to sell me.

In contrast (I can only testify as to what I've seen in Youtube videos), Indy looks like it works.

 

[Daveeeeed]

One of the effects that has since been removed was a net projection that would appear on the Iguanadon as you drive past and Seeker would shout out that the capture was successful.

It was taken out when Countdown to Extinction was converted to Dinosaur.

They brought it back as well as other effects in the latest refurb, but it still is the inferior attraction.

 

[shortstop]

Indy might win based on the queue alone! That thing is an attraction in its own right. Which is good, because even with Fastpass, you still end up waiting about 20 minutes

 

[worldfanatic]

A great thing about Fastpass at Indy is you still get to experience the best portions of the line.

 

[_caleb]

...Indy's only downfall to me is the room with the 'shooting skeletons'....why not use skeletons instead of just painting them on the wall?

This always bothered me, too. Skeleton warriors painted in glow paint (another comment mentioned the fluorescent paint). I imagine they went with painted walls rather than skeleton set pieces in order to keep maximum clearance from the ride vehicle and to ensure that there were no parts that could become projectiles if they got in the way of the compressed air shots.

I always thought it would be cool if they had actual skeletons hiding blow guns- that seems like something you'd see in one of the booby traps in an Indy movie.