Discussing the Closer of Dino County USA in Walt Disney World

[Winter]

I don't know if this is a hot take but I personally have never liked Dino Country USA in Walt Disney World. It was, IMO, the worst themed area of WDW ever and while several upcoming ideas to reshape the iconic theme parks of WDW are ones I think are not only odd but idiotic (getting rid of Tom Sawyer Island for a CARS themed ride in FRONTIER LAND is just stupid for an attraction that is still hugely popular) this one I don't care about and I don't know anyone who does car about it.

One of my friends often goes to WDW with her wife and son and she told me that DCUSA is the one place where she and her wife almost never go outside of the few times their son wanted to go and that was ONLY for Countdown to Extension (I refuse to call it Dinosaur) and he lost interest in the place.

The one attraction the place had going for it was CTE which lost a LOT of interest after the movie it was promoting went down hill and it never recovered from that. Even during the Holiday Seasons it has one of the shortest lines because so few people want to ride it, it's doing that poorly.

Part of the problem here is two fold. One Jurassic Park rides exist and two Disney has no real Dinosaur IPs out side of Dinosaur which, again, no one cares about. As such the attraction there have so little going for it. I loved Dinosaurs as a kid, they were a passion of mine and still are but Disney has pretty much nothing going for it.

CTE had potential, a ride where we go back in time to collect a Dinosaur as we race against the clock to escape the meteor that wiped out the Dinosaurs. Back when the park first opened they even had tire tracks on the ground next to dinosaur foot prints to add to the story and it leaves on a cliffhanger with use successfully getting the Dino we were looking for who is now lose in our time but nothing has ever, or will ever, come of this.

The Concept of CTE is great but the execution is poorly done. Really the whole area should have been themed around this idea. A place where we use time travel to go back in time to study Dinosaurs. You can even have fun with it like Portals that lead to the past that go haywire and unleash these creatures on the world which is tied to a roller coaster, a 9 screen theater that takes us into the past to observe different times in the past or even something silly where we've found a way to the past and can ride on or alongside Pterosaurs.

There's so much that could have been done but the actual place has no decent ride and place that feels like it's meant for young YOUNG kids where Parents are just meant to stand around and wait for them to be done.

Now the replacement for this area that will be called Tropical America looks like it will be a lot more fun. CTE will be replaced by Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Foliated Cross which will be the WDW equivalent of the classic ride Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye. Primeval Wheel will be replaced by an Encanto attraction and we'll also be getting something called Esperanza Character Carousel.

Not much on the whole but frankly just based on the concept art this looks like it's going to be a LOT more fun and, well, Disney.

The biggest argument against it is that the new area will not really be following the theme of Animal Kingdom which is all nature focused but personally I don't see much of an issue here. Yeah, it's odd but the overall theme of nature is still there as the location will still be covered in trees and plants and is a bit more fitting given the use of the African and Asia areas. And, well, we also have a whole place dedicated to preserving and trying to co-exist with a planet that isn't real, a place that deals with Encanto and Indiana Jones isn't that odd.

Also AK kinda sucked at the start as it seemed more interested in lecturing guests instead of entertaining use with fun attractions. I go to Disney to escape reality not be told how our world is dying and I could be doing so much more to help it.

Really I'm all for this change and again at least it makes some sense. To go over to Magic Kingdom they plan to make a whole new area that's based around villains which is a bit odd but fine but getting ride of two still fairly popular rides in place of Cars which most certainly do NOT fit the theme of the area is just bazaar. I understood why they changed Splash Mountain but that was still a change instead of getting ride of it.

Changing a whole area that never really did that well throughout the park's history makes sense and replacing rides that have never been really popular with rides based on popular movies or are different versions of high successful rides makes sense.

So on the whole I'm not against this change and I'm even looking forward to it.

[hammerofglass]

So instead of the dragon on the logo being false advertising the dragon AND the dinosaur will be? Shame on them.

I'm just funning, haven't been to Disney for twenty years.