What the heck is Dinoland U.S.A?

Kate F

Kate F

Well-Known Member
I made a thread awhile back asking people what they’d do to fix DinoLand, but it didn’t get that much traction:

Fixing DinoLand U.S.A.

Ever since it first opened, DinoLand U.S.A. has been considered one of the weakest areas in the whole of WDW and a blemish on an otherwise beautiful park. Clearly Disney can do better than that. But the thing is, what exactly do you do with it if you were to scrap it and start from scratch...
forums.wdwmagic.com forums.wdwmagic.com
 
Little Green Men

Little Green Men

Well-Known Member
xdan0920 said:
Everything about it is cheap. The alien ride is an embarrassment. Like an Aladdins flying carpet level embarrassment. There’s no shade, there’s no real place making. It’s too small, it’s just cheaply done. Not to mention the finishes are already falling apart. I’d honestly expect to see a land like that at my local six flags. Not a Disney park.
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I think Alien Saucers is a great ride. Way better than the tea cups and as good as Maters.
 
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Vacationeer

Vacationeer

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
Dinoland works for me because it adds balance to the whole WDW collection, it's another flavor on the menu. There's the impression they phoned it in with a generic carnival, but there is a depth of Disney level details lurking in the background. The back story makes the land cohesive. I would like to see it get an update.

WDW is awesome for the assortment of choices. Many families with young kids have a great time in the Dino area. My son loved it so much as a pre-schooler we spent 3 hours watching him up 'real' bones. My favorite is the Cretaceous Trail.
 
michmickey

michmickey

Member
It would be cool to see them keep the Boneyard and Dinosaur and build off of those to create a more majestic dino experience. Maybe something similar to Jurassic Park in Universal but keep it relevant to Dinosaur? It could be cool to walk into an area like Dr.Marsh(the lady in the Dinosaur ride video?) and her team talked about, like a museum to the past.
 
FigmentJedi

FigmentJedi

Well-Known Member
The concept of a fossil town with a roadside dinosaur attraction is perfectly sound. There are places like that out west in Arizona, Colorado and Utah. The area surrounding Dinosaur National Monument with the towns of Vernal and Dinosaur even promote themselves as "Dinosaurland", with Dinoland being their domain name. But for some reason, Dinoland USA does that "This place was here before Disney and they just built a park around it" thing that Blizzard Beach and Pleasure Island did instead of actually taking you out west where there are bones in them thar hills.

The problem is that a carnival is a godawful, inauthentic way of doing a roadside dinosaur park. The dinosaur parks around America that still exist like Oregon's Prehistoric Gardens, Michigan's Dinosaur Gardens, that weird one near Natural Bridges with the wacky Civil War Dinosaur mashup story, Virginia's Dinosaurland (which comes complete with Disneyland-esque logo), are all folkart-meets-paleontology and are all about nice shady walks through a forest/garden full of sometimes wonky looking concrete dinosaurs. You don't translate that idea into a asphalt wasteland of county fair rides, what you do is a dark ride or Jungle Cruise-esque thing that embraces that offkilter silliness of pop culture's prehistoric monsters.

Anyways, here's a great old video from the 90s all about Roadside Dinosaur parks.
 
Cosmic Commando

Cosmic Commando

Well-Known Member
AimYourBrent said:
I believe Dino-Land was really the first time WDW did something that looked and felt cheap. The response was not overwhelmingly negative, and THAT gave them permission to do other things that look and feel cheap
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YMMV, but I think the original Dinoland nailed a cluttered, kitschy, run-down look without feeling cheap itself. Assuming you're just talking about Dino-Rama, it opened after DCA, so it was 773rd cheap-looking thing WDI built. :hilarious:
 
H

HongKongFu

Well-Known Member
Tom Morrow said:
. It(Toy Story Land) was never intended to be on the same level of Galaxy's Edge or Pandora.
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That looks like you're attempting to excuse the cheapness. As if you're using that as a justification for the what many consider a poorly executed land.

So Disney met its goal........whoopie!

Maybe next time choose a more lofty goal or endeavor.
 
Kate F

Kate F

Well-Known Member
The story doesn’t really matter much to me if the area I’m looking at is not aesthetically pleasing. Knowing the story behind the land doesn’t make it less of an eyesore in an otherwise beautiful park. I do like hidden details when they’re in nice-looking areas.
 
Tom Morrow

Tom Morrow

Well-Known Member
HongKongFu said:
That looks like you're attempting to excuse the cheapness. As if you're using that as a justification for the what many consider a poorly executed land.

So Disney met its goal........whoopie!

Maybe next time choose a more lofty goal or endeavor.
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Your fallacy is in thinking everything Disney builds has to be a showstopping land with at least one E-ticket, but smaller, "cheaper" things are needed for padding and balance. Toy Story Land at DHS is just one part of what has been a multi-step, multi-year massive overhaul of DHS. In losing other smaller scale and/or all ages attractions, the park needed something to appeal to families with young children. Toy Story Land is far from my first choice, but it looks quite a bit better than every other Toy Story Land. To reiterate, I'm not arguing that DHS TSL is great, but it turned out better than I expected, and it's passable. It is not "Six Flags cheap". Six Flags would never, ever go to the effort to ensure that nearly everything you look at is constructed of toys, nor would they ever commit to the lush landscaping around TSL. Half of Six Flags' rides are literally over plots of concrete.
 
Tom Morrow

Tom Morrow

Well-Known Member
FigmentJedi said:
The concept of a fossil town with a roadside dinosaur attraction is perfectly sound. There are places like that out west in Arizona, Colorado and Utah. The area surrounding Dinosaur National Monument with the towns of Vernal and Dinosaur even promote themselves as "Dinosaurland", with Dinoland being their domain name. But for some reason, Dinoland USA does that "This place was here before Disney and they just built a park around it" thing that Blizzard Beach and Pleasure Island did instead of actually taking you out west where there are bones in them thar hills.

The problem is that a carnival is a godawful, inauthentic way of doing a roadside dinosaur park. The dinosaur parks around America that still exist like Oregon's Prehistoric Gardens, Michigan's Dinosaur Gardens, that weird one near Natural Bridges with the wacky Civil War Dinosaur mashup story, Virginia's Dinosaurland (which comes complete with Disneyland-esque logo), are all folkart-meets-paleontology and are all about nice shady walks through a forest/garden full of sometimes wonky looking concrete dinosaurs. You don't translate that idea into a asphalt wasteland of county fair rides, what you do is a dark ride or Jungle Cruise-esque thing that embraces that offkilter silliness of pop culture's prehistoric monsters.

Anyways, here's a great old video from the 90s all about Roadside Dinosaur parks.
Click to expand...

Great point. The only reason Dinorama is a carnival is because the park needed another thrill ride and all ages ride, and this was off the coattails of Eisner's cheap-out era with original DCA, and they realized they could get two standard spinning wild mouse coasters for cheap. They then built the theme and backstory around that.
 
rk03221

rk03221

Well-Known Member
There are a few reasons why a lot of Disney fans hate dinoland. One of them being when Walt was designing Disneyland and WDW he did not want them to feel like a “cheap carnival”-that’s exactly what dinoland is. Another is because it perfectly represents what Eisner turned the Disney parks into, creative but really cheap and tacky looking.
 
cjkeating

cjkeating

Well-Known Member
My perspective on this is I think if you lived in the areas of Africa or Asia represented in Animal Kingdom I'm sure you would be thinking 'Why on earth have they built this and why do people like it?' but over 99% of AKs visitors have never been to somewhere like Africa or Asia so don't think that.

Whereas the area represented in Dinoland is very Western so 99% of guests are thinking 'And this is cool because...?'

Personally I think it provides a nice fun balance to Animal Kingdom, on my recent trip I really enjoyed the character M&Gs for Dino-Bash and Dinosaur is one of my favourite attractions.
 
Tegan pilots a chicken

Tegan pilots a chicken

Sharpie Queen 💜
Premium Member
I do want to say that the “it looks like Six Flags” meme on this forum is ridiculous. Six Flags/Cedar Fair parks are iron rides with minimal theming on top of pavement. The worst rides/lands in any Disney Park are more elaborately themed than the best that Six Flags/Cedar Fair have to offer. Which is fine because that isn’t what those types of parks were built for anyway.
 
Incomudro

Incomudro

Well-Known Member
I got Dinoland immediately, and actually liked/like it even though I've never engaged in the carnival like attractions or ridden Primeval Whirl.
I've always liked Dinosaurs since I was a kid in the 60's (well before liking Dinosaurs was cool) and I liked the way the roadside attraction was done in Dinoland particularly taken in conjunction with the quick serve, and the bone yard climbing attraction.
 

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