We have our very first ride of our trip as FOP and I just watched a youtube video of someone on it. How much does this ride drop up and down? Do you get that heart dropping feeling the whole ride? I am a bit worried if it is kind of intense, that my 8 year old might get freaked out if its the very first ride and he hasn’t had a chance to ‘ease’ into the rides. Is Dinosaur the same?
I think Dinosaur is worse because it’s terrifying. FOP is breathtaking. The ride doesn’t drop so much as it makes you feel like you’re dropping. If your son is afraid of heights, it might be scary.
You might find that the main problem is nothing will ever measure up to FOP. You’re starting with what some say is one of the best rides in the entire world. Not just Walt Disney World!
But I definitely think Dinosaur would be more frightening, it’s psychologically more frightening. It would have terrified my son as an 8 year old, but he’s a sensitive soul.
They’re very different rides in terms of what the “scary part” might be.
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Yes visually you do drop and turn very quickly. There is a screen that fills your entire vision. But you don’t really get that ‘heart dropping’ feeling because your banshee (ride vehicle) does not do much more than tilt and turn. My grandson who was just barely tall enough to ride, just loved it. (It took some convincing at first).
Dinosaur ride is quite rough and mostly in darkened areas, and of course has dinosaurs.
Your ride vehicle simulates a jeep on a very rough road.
Your son will have to decide if he wants to ride after hearing the description. He should be fine.
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Thank you to both for your input! Crud, I guess we aren’t saving the best for last then…I just looked to see if we could move our AK day to later in our trip but it doesn’t look doable. We are so close to our trip now, FPP left are not good. Oh well!
Do you think if I told my son to close his eyes on FOP if he got scared, it would help? Or is it the motion that is the worst?
My son is a very sensitive boy as well! I think we might look into doing something other than Dinosaur while the rest of the family hits it up.
i love FOP and all thrill rides but i no longer ride Dinosaur- it is terrifying to me! i know that is silly because its not real but my brain won’t accept that during the ride
yes, if he found it too scary during the ride in FOP he could just close his eyes. The ride vehicle you are sitting on does not drop or move, it is stationary. you sway a bit and it simulates feeling the banshee breathe and such. The real experience comes through the visual simulation.
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ohhhhhh! I thought FOP actually moved up and down some!
yes, I am adding something for my son and I to do while the others ride Dinosaur! So glad I asked about that ride!
I would suggest going to the Boneyard whilst everyone else rides Dinosaur. You’ll need something to lure him out though!
And if you want to do Dinosaur, then get him and you an FP for it anyway, maybe 30 minutes later, and you can swap with another member of your party to watch him and ride with someone else using your son’s band. (Get his band off him before he goes in to the Boneyard “in case you lose it in the sand” - actually, do that anyway, it’s not that unlikely it could come off).
And if you’re planning to do the Primeval Twirl ride, and he doesn’t like jerky or coasters, the rest of the group could do that whilst he continues to play.
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Sure, but does he seem thick-skinned? 
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Closing eyes would be fine. The motion of the ride itself is not particularly thrilling. It is the motion combined with the visual.
One thing to keep in mind is that all riders are on their own banshee. So, depending on how nervous, you will be able to reach out to touch hands, but you won’t be physically right next to each other like on soarin’ (similar ride).
Dinosaur does have a “jump scare” moment. As much as I’m not a fan of watching ride videos (spoilers). For a kid who might walk off scares, watching the video in advance and perhaps you too so that you can remind him on the ride the “here it comes” might make all the difference.
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Not in the least. And I can stand down wind of him pretty much anytime, now that he’s figured out he has to wash his socks on a regular basis!
You know, I probably got that phrase right out of that song, but didn’t realize it. That’s hilarious. I’m being assimilated by the Disney Borg.
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Well, I wasn’t going to actually admit it, but… me too.
I tell my family it’s because it’s to jerky for me, but that’s not really the truth.
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It is funny. I don’t think of Dinosaur as scary at all, but my wife found it terrifying. I think my engineering mind is too focused on how they pulled it off, etc. I was the same back with Extraterrorrestrial Encounter. My wife was terrified. I was amazed at the imagineering and how they pulled it off, so never found it scary!
Well, the sensitive soul is now a nuclear engineer.
But his whole career is based on avoiding armageddon. For all I know it’s the asteroid that scared him!
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I can endure it if I keep telling myself “Its not real, its just Disney, those aren’t real dinosaurs, they aren’t moving”. But then, I thought, what’s the point?! The rides are great because you believe in them, not to convince yourself not to!
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Yes, it absolutely does move up and down (or more correctly, down and up). The seating is attached to the solid floor, but the floor is in a moveable stack of 3 levels which moves about 3 feet vertically relative to the back wall with the storage bins for backpacks, etc. See this video for proof: Avatar Flight of Passage Ride POV From Behind - YouTube “Avatar Flight of Passage Ride POV From Behind.”
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I had no idea it moves that much. The ride is so immersive I’m just completely in the zone the whole time.
I agree that it’s a bad ride to start with because it’s the best ride at WDW and everything else will be a disappointment after it.
I don’t find DINOSAUR scary. I find it tedious and irritating. It’s like being dropped into a large trash can and then having four or five thugs beat the can with baseball bats.
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The only time I’ve ridden Dinosaur was with my daughter, who was 4 at the time. I had confused it for the Energy ride in Epcot (RIP). They are not the same ride.
She cried hysterically throughout the ride. Half way through the ride had an issue and the lights came up. The dinosaurs we were stopped by only had skin half way and their bottom half was a cage-type mesh. The ride being stopped was actually worse than the ride going.
To make matters worse, I told her we could ride triceratops spin after, and she was too short. (It has a ridiculously tall requirement). I took her on Everest instead. She loved it. I hate roller coasters and was miserable.
We suffered equally that day.
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I still ride Dinosaur, but I always look like a terrified child in the ride picture.
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Triceratops spin has a height requirement? Do you mean PW?
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