Quite a few years back in 2008 I visited the Universal Studios park in Hollywood. I had been to the Orlando resort before and quite a few times after (last time was last year).
But there’s something special about the Hollywood park: first it’s an actual movie studio with a great tram tour riding past props and actual movie sets and second it features the first ever Jurassic Park attraction.
Like most themed areas in the park, the Jurassic Park area is quite small (especially compared to Orlando) and features just the attraction and a few themed shops and restaurant.
The Jurassic Park gate stands at the entrance of the attraction along with a prop Velociraptor from the first movie (or so they say…) In the attraction you’re supposed to take a scenic ride on Jurassic Park’s river adventure.
There are plenty of dinosaur animatronics throughout the ride including the Parasaurolophus, Compsognathus and Stegosaurus. The ride starts gentle, intended to be a scenic ride through Jurassic Park. But then something goes terribly wrong as your boat gets bumped into a Raptor infested section of the ride. Suddenly your boat enters the water treatment plant where you encounter Velociraptors, Dilophosaurus and the mighty T-Rex before plunging down to safety.
