Honeymoon - November 1, 2002 - Animal Kingdom
Brians Photos - Roll 12

As we left Asia I recalled that we had taken a picture in front of Africa's entrance marquee earlier in the morning (or perhaps it was Carlene who reminded me and suggested this shot), so we stopped and took this photo above, and then of course it only made sense a few minutes later to take the following shot, below...

Carlene is not big on thrill rides, so I wasn't certain that she would take on Dinosaur, but when the time finally came to decide she did chose to ride it and was ok with it. As we left Dinosaur and headed into Chester and Hesters Dinoland I doubted we would do much here... Triceratop spin? not anything really worth my time unless I'm with someone else who wants to try it, carnival games...well they don't annoy me in the same way that the way they seem to affect so many other fans of the Disney parks probably because I think that the way it is tied into the pre-existing Chester and Hester and other buildings that make up the restaurant that all look like they could be somewhere out west where where Dinosaur bones might turn up is a neat idea. But, it could just be that I haven't spent enough time here to get sick of it. One thing that does seem a bit out of place is the music if we're in a route 66 type area of the 1960's or 70's why is the music here so 1990s? I'm guessing if I spent more time here I might find other details I don't like for instance if they really want to claim they are doing this carnival for the theme of the area, but are making an idealized carnival that is up to Disneys standards, then the prices of the games should be a token amount, just to keep the games from being to flooded with people, and the prizes should be real quality prizes that folks visiting the theme parks would want and even appreciate when they got home,one of those Mickey head shaped ink pens as a low level prize, a soft cover souvenir guide of Walt Disney World for mid level, and park CD,s, park souvenir Video tapes, and hard cover souvenir books as higher end prizes, a leather jacket with park logos patches as a super duper trade up prize that kind of stuff. But I digress, what I was getting at here is that I thought it quite likely we wouldn't ride anything here, and although Carlene isn't big on coasters she surprised me a bit by agreeing to go on Primeval Whirl. Later, she told me that having the track all out in the open were she could see all the track allowed her to make a decision to ride, which makes me think that a lot of her apprehension with thrill rides is simply fear of the unknown, what you can't see might be able to hurt you. Now in the photos above it's hard to see but we bought Bride and Groom pins, in a surprising number of the photos they seem to get covered up by the camera straps and such but the ride operators who loaded us noticed them and when we came back into the station they let us ride again, it helped that there was more or less no line. We enjoyed the ride together and that and the fact that the themeing is 1000% percent better than Mulholland Madness at Disney's California Adventure (the worst attraction I've been on in any Disney theme park, and much worse than most other rides I've been on in other parks as well.)and that the cars are much larger, and that the ride actually tells a story, one that you don't have to know before hand to "get it" makes this Dino-Rama ride at least to me a real winner, it's almost the exact same story as the Dinosaur attraction, only it's told in a style of a cheesy carnival, but the improved seating and well kept up sets make this an IDEALIZED carnival ride, this is the carnival ride carnivals would have if they really cared about their show quality the way Disney does. Perhaps the rest of Dino-Rama doesn't live up to this, but, I'd like to spend a bit more time there to decide for myself, I just might not want to do that badly enough to give up some of the other touring opportunities I might have.

After finishing our tour of Dino-Rama we headed out of Dino-Land, as we smelled Flame Tree Barbecues wonderful aroma, we decided it was time for dinner, but first I stopped to use the wash room across the path from Flame Tree (almost directly next to the Dino-Land Bridge)... Now that's a nice animal decor bathroom... I love the frogs on the floor!