Jurassic Park River Adventure Back Open After Refurbishment

The Jurassic Park River Adventure at Universal’s Islands of Adventure is back open after being down for seasonal maintenance from February 17th to March 12th! The waterfalls and rockwork are looking gorgeous and the dinosaurs skins have never looked better, with no holes or unsightly patchwork visible. And it’s just great to have all those construction walls finally down around the area. I took some pictures as well as some on-ride video to show off the cleaned up attraction.

While everything looked great, I did notice a lot of the dinosaurs eyes were closed during the ride, and the gate doors did not open as the boat passed through them in the beginning. Other than those small items though, everything else was in perfect working order. Watch the video to see for yourself and check out the images below as well.


Water effects are back on and the rockwork is looking immaculate!

Water effects are back on and the rockwork is looking immaculate!

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It's nice to see the construction walls finally gone.

It’s nice to see the construction walls finally gone.

While it's nice to see the Ultrasaur with no water stains, it's a shame its eyes remained closed the entire time.

While it’s nice to see the Ultrasaur with no water stains, it’s a shame its eyes remained closed the entire time.

Baby Stegosaur looks great, but too shy to open her eyes for us.

Baby Stegosaur looks great, but too shy to open her eyes for us.

Mommy didn't want to open her eyes either.

Mommy didn’t want to open her eyes either.

The Stegosaur's tail skin is notorious for splitting, but was looking great today.

The Stegosaur’s tail skin is notorious for splitting, but was looking great today.

The Parasaurolophus is sporting some bright colors today.

The Parasaurolophus is sporting some bright colors today.

Compy's Fighting

Compys Fighting

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The big guy is looking good and working perfect!

The big guy is looking good and working perfect!

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The grand finale.

The grand finale.

That’s all for now!

Check out both of the previous updates from Jurassic Park’s Refurb: Part One and Part Two.

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3 Comments
  • J. R. Pastor

    Reply

    Another Alicia masterpiece.

  • Seth Kubersky

    Reply

    Nice update, I’m too chicken to take my camera on the ride!
    However, there’s a lot more than some closed eyes that’s still broken with the ride. The baby stegosaurus still doesn’t shake like he used to, the 1st Hadrosaur isn’t raising & lowering properly, the sparks aren’t working, the shadow projection was off, the jumping raptor is stuck in the off position, and the lovely fog is hiding the fact that the T-Rex isn’t moving her legs correctly. The new skins are nice and bright but otherwise this refurb was a big bust.

    • Alicia Stella

      Yea, I think this rehab was mainly focused on up-keeping visual elements like the waterfalls rockwork and removing water stains from all surfaces. It doesn’t seem like any mechanical or technical work was done. I think the sparks were on, I just missed them with my camera. And I haven’t seen the first Hadrosaur rising and lowering in years, so I assumed he’s just a snorting head forever now. The raptor shadows did seem to be missing now that you mention it though. Maybe these are things they can fix without taking the ride down and will be corrected before the summer crowds. At least everything *looks* good.

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