Eh, I think this is just assuming (or wishful thinking? Unsure of Dan's opinion on Dinosaur) that Disney upper management gets bitten by the lazy/cheap bug again. That being said... for a ride they apparently really want to replace, its closure keeps getting pushed back from what people expected. I swear there was one point where someone said it'd be closed by the end of 2024, and I know for a fact a few insiders here said they heard it'd close around when Dinorama would be closing. Now it's staying open until 2026.
Maybe we do get, to paraphrase Podcast the Ride, "Indiana Jones versus the dinosaurs" after all, lol. Not like they really committed that much to what's in the Indy refresh, and the lore we do have is permissive to making the "legendary creature" turn out to be a living dinosaur or living dinosaur(s), hidden within an underground forest grove beneath a temple. The biggest roadblocks are the Carnotaurus, raptor, and Iguanodon designs, which while not 1:1 to the Dinosaur movie designs are quite similar. I do think it's more likely they go through with the original plan, ditching all dinosaurs completely. But I can see why one might get that feeling, and even how it could be a halfway correct gut check.
I would like to mention “tough to be a bug” as this attraction is part of the upcoming planned Animal Kingdom changes (along with Encanto, and Indiana Jones). We visited last week so we could enjoy the Christmas holidays and say goodbye to attractions that are to be revamped.
Tough to be a bug was in bad shape. The effects were not working - no air jets, stinger, bugs exiting the theater under your butt, spiders only partially worked. Extra fog used to cover up the broken effects.
As a fan of the show, I now wish I did not have this as my last experience. Same feeling I had when we rode Splash before it closed. Splash was a shell of its former self. Riding the new Tiana’s was better than I expected. There is a real lack of show scenes but the new figures are impressive. I hope the new Zootopia overlay comes out a winner.
It feels like only a few select attractions get the real "last sendoff" they deserve, like Dinosaur kind of is, and I think it might depend on in-the-moment fan reaction - do wait times skyrocket after the closure announcement, thus making maintenance meaningful? I don't think people are running to go see ITtbaB like they are Dinosaur, which now sees 45 minute to hour long waits, something it hasn't had in a decade. Splash of course is an exception, given the unique reason it was tapped for closure (it was still popular, but perceived as controversial or potentially controversial).
Question: Does anyone have further examples of this? I swear I remember GMR being better treated during its last stretch than it had been in a while but that might be a false memory. Maybe Dinosaur is unique...
And yeah, I'm in a similar boat. I definitely wish I hadn't gone to see Bug the last time! Some of the stuff you mentioned not working did work for me, but dang, if Flik wasn't a mess. One of his eyes wasn't working at all, stuck half-open, half-closed, and he didn't fully retract into his hole.
