Jurassic Park River Adventure
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Overview
Jurassic Park River Adventure begins as a fairly peaceful boat tour through Jurassic Park, with large dinosaurs appearing around the river as you drift through the reserve.
Naturally, that doesn’t last.
Your raft is diverted into a restricted area where containment has gone rather badly wrong. The scenery becomes darker, escaped raptors start appearing and eventually you come face-to-face with a huge T. rex.
Your escape is an 85-foot plunge back towards the lagoon below, followed by the sort of splash that makes “I’ll probably stay fairly dry” a dangerous assumption.
River Adventure opened with Islands of Adventure in 1999, and its 85-foot plunge was the largest theme-park water descent ever built at the time.
Queue Details
The queue is mostly covered but open to the outdoor air, winding through a large Jurassic Park-style embarkation area before you reach the loading station.
Timber beams, ropes and expedition-style details make it feel like you’re waiting to board one of Jurassic Park’s river tours rather than standing in a plain switchback.
Overhead monitors continue the attraction’s story and include captions, so it’s worth keeping an eye on them rather than treating the queue purely as somewhere to wait.
Because the queue is open-air, it can still feel warm and humid even though much of it is under cover.
Manual wheelchair users can remain in a standard wheelchair through the queue until boarding.
ECVs and other powered mobility devices aren’t accommodated through the attraction queue, so you’ll need to change to a standard manual wheelchair before continuing.
There is no moving walkway at the loading platform. The raft sits lower than the station floor, so boarding involves moving down into the passenger compartment.
Transfer Info
Wheelchair users must transfer completely from their wheelchair into the raft.
The raft has bench-style seating arranged in rows, with a shared lap restraint across each row.
Boarding means moving down into the passenger compartment and onto the bench seat.
A transfer-assistance setup is available using a specially adapted seat in one of the rafts. The seat can be raised to reduce the height difference between your wheelchair and the ride seat.
A separate transfer bench can then be positioned alongside the raised seat, giving you an intermediate surface to move across rather than transferring directly down into the normal low raft seat.
You still need to transfer completely into the ride seat before the attraction begins. The transfer equipment helps with the boarding process but does not allow you to remain in your wheelchair during the ride.
If you need the transfer setup, tell a Team Member before you are assigned to a raft so they can prepare the appropriate vehicle and equipment.
If physical lifting or support is needed during the transfer, that help needs to come from somebody in your own party.
Your wheelchair remains at the loading area while you ride and is available again when you return.
Sensory Experience
What do these sensory tags mean?
- Darkness
- Substantial parts of the experience take place in darkness or very low light.
- Drops
- The ride includes noticeable downward drops.
- Flashing Lights
- Flashing, strobing or rapidly pulsing light effects are used.
- Heights
- The experience involves noticeable exposure to height.
- Loud Sounds
- Notably loud, startling or sustained sounds are part of the experience.
- Sudden Movement
- The ride vehicle, seat or platform makes abrupt starts, stops, jolts or changes of direction.
- Water
- Guests may encounter splashes, sprays, mist or other water effects.
Sensory experiences vary between people. These tags describe elements that may be present, not how strongly any individual guest will experience them.
Jurassic Park River Adventure changes quite dramatically as it goes.
The opening section is outdoors and relatively calm, with slow raft movement, daylight, water effects and large dinosaur figures around the river.
Once the raft enters the restricted area, the atmosphere changes quickly. The surroundings become darker, alarms and dramatic sound effects become louder and dinosaurs begin appearing much closer to the boat.
The indoor section includes periods of near-darkness, flashing or strobe-style lighting and large dinosaurs appearing with relatively little warning.
The final encounter with the T. rex happens shortly before the raft plunges down the 85-foot drop.
Water is a major part of the attraction throughout. You may be splashed earlier in the ride, while the final splashdown can leave you anything from lightly wet to soaked depending on where you sit, raft loading and conditions on the day.
The final lift and drop also create a noticeable sense of height before the raft accelerates rapidly down towards the water.
Practical Tips
If staying relatively dry matters, sitting farther back and away from the outside edge of the raft can help, but don’t rely on it. Water rides have an impressive ability to identify the one person who really didn’t want to get wet.
Protect your phone, camera, medication and anything else that really needs to stay dry before boarding. Lockers are available near the attraction if you would rather not take belongings onto the raft.
The shared lap bar closes across the whole row, so sitting with people of very different body sizes can affect where the restraint rests on each person.
If you’re riding with somebody who is nervous about dark rides or big drops, warn them that the gentle dinosaur tour changes considerably during the final part of the ride. The calm opening is not a very good indication of what’s coming.
If somebody in your group doesn’t want to ride, there’s a splashdown viewing area where they can watch the rafts hit the water without having to experience the 85-foot drop themselves.
Warmer parts of the day are an obvious time to ride if getting soaked sounds appealing. On a cooler evening, that same splash can suddenly feel like a considerably worse life choice.
Someone confidently announcing that the dinosaurs are all safely contained is usually your cue to stop believing anything Jurassic Park management tells you.
Attraction Gallery
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