Dinosaur's Lack of Lines
This ride hasn't had long lines the last couple times I went. They should go back to the more aggressive profile from the CTE days. Any chance they would ever do that?
Whether or not there was a profile change has
nothing to do with the (lack of) lines at Dinosaur.
Dinosaur's problem is its location and lack of marketing--making it in my opinion one of the most underrated rides on property.
Location:
Having worked in the parks I can tell you, a majority of guests don't sit down with their guide maps and plan out their day. (Many don't even bother to get a guide map in the first place.) A lot of guests simply roam the parks via the main paths, moving from land to land and if they see something that looks like fun or they heard about it somewhere, then they do it. (i.e. Guests walking by the Expedition Everest area see and hear the car of screaming guests come out of the front of the mountain and say "ooh! I want to do that!" Another example would be walking by the Kilimanjaro Safaris and saying "ooh there's that safari truck thing with all the animals they showed on that 'Top 7' show." (Safaris also has a huge word-of-mouth following from my experience. It's one of those rides that everyone "hears about" from there friends that it's a must-see.) Dinosaur's problem is that it is not on any main path. Not only does it suffer from being an indoor ride that doesn't have screaming guests to attract other guests, but its location just sucks (to be frank.) Unless you are actively seeking out Dinosaur, (hidden in the back corner of Dinoland) you're not going to walk by it. I'm willing to bet that countless guests come and go from the park each day without even knowing that Dinosaur exists.
Marketing
As if the location wasn't bad enough, Dinosaur also has very little marketing.(Besides this one billboard I can think of, I believe it's on 192...) There are some rides out there that are able to promote in the park by themselves like Tower of Terror, Splash Mountain, Test Track, Everest, etc. (You hear and see the guests having fun, and you get an idea of what the ride is like just by looking at it.) Other attractions--like the entirely indoor ones--are forced to rely on different forms of advertising. When you really think about it, pretty much all of the entirely indoor rides (with a few exceptions) suffer from the same problem as Dinosaur, simply because guests can't
see what it is that they're getting themselves into. Mission Space is another good example, they really have no idea what it's going to be like because they can't see anything just by standing infront of the building. Despite a loyal following, The Haunted Mansion also typically has a very short wait. Before all the pirates movie marketing, Pirates of the Caribbean (the ride) was another one of these and pretty much walk-on all of the time... Then came the new movie, new ride effects, and what-do-you know now the ride has billboards, is mentioned on the monorail, and is right there on the cover of your guide map. Now look at the lines. The exceptions I can think of off the top of my head are: 1.) Rock 'n' RollerCoaster--doesn't need much marketing since it says "RollerCoaster" in the name... already a crowd-pleaser. 2.) Space Mountain--nearly everyone in America knows that Space Mountain = Roller Coaster. Again, that's enough to get the people in the door. 3.) Soarin'--I'm not saying Soarin' wouldn't have been wildly popular if it hadn't been for all the marketing, but you have to admit they crammed Soarin' down our throat unlike anything I've seen before and we all knew it was the new must-see before any of us had even, well, seen it. It was all thanks to the TV ads, Billboards, Top 7, ads on the side of nearly every bus, monorail, and light post during the HCOE, and of course right there on the front of the Epcot guide map. I seriously think one of the most asked questions in Epcot history has to be "How do I get to Soarin'?" I know I used to get that question all the time... heck even international guests who spoke no English would walk up to me with a confused look on their face and point at the picture of Soarin' on the front of their map, then I would point them in the right direction. Soarin' turned out to be one serious entirely-indoor success story.
Basically, to sum it all up the 2 reasons I discussed above explain Dinosaur's lack of lines... Not only is it in a location that the mainstream crowds aren't going to walk by, but it's entriely indoors with very little (in or out of park) marketing. Something as subtle as a CTX/Dinosaur profile change (if there even was one) will not change the amount of people coming to ride.
