My favorite dinosaur I saw on that ride was the Carnotaurus. It was surprising when he started to run towards the time rover at his second encounter! God I love Dinosaur! I really want to go back there sooooo badly

This is the only ride we went on twice out of any park during our last visit, we loved it!

I rode this ride when it first came out and it was one of the most violent rides I had ever been on. That turned me off immediately, and I haven't been on it since. My recollection is that it was also a very uncomfortable seat you have to sit in as well. For the young people this may be great, but for me, no thanks.

Countdown to extinction is a much better name. I remember being pleasantly surprised on this ride. I originally thought it was a children's ride with a big Barney type dinosaur for some odd reason.. but countdown to extinction is much more of what this ride is about.. it is by a kid section of the park and it seems like a barney ride...

Good ride but too short. That is the issue. Indiana Jones which uses the same ride vehicle is better as it is longer and tells a better story.

I totally agree that Dinosaur is incredibly underrated. It is such a thrilling and well done ride that it really should be in the top tier of everybody's lists. Add to the fact that it is in Animal Kingdom, a park largely devoid of thrilling rides and it is strange how it is often missed or forgotten about. I think it suffers from some lack of personality. The movie tie in is very weak at best and therefore it suffers from kind of an identity crisis. Similar, but not quite as bad, as how Kali River Rapids lacks any personality at all.

It's actually my second favorite ride in ALL of WDW, just behind Kilimanjaro Safaris and one ahead of my #3 and favorite ride in Magic Kingdom, Splash Mountain. I feel Dinosaur is highly underrated. I believe it's the closest I'll ever get to interacting with a real dinosaur.

I rode Dinosaur once and only once back in 2010. It slammed me so hard into the side of the vehicle that I ended up with a bruise across my ribs. Don't get me wrong I enjoy wild rides but this one was just a bit too much. So I have never given it a second chance.

Most people who don't like the ride tell me it is because it is so dark. You really don't even know what is going on. Just dinosaur here, dinosaur there. The running dinosaur is aweson when it is working, but the rest of the ride is too dark to really make an impression. While Indy has massive sets, Dinosaur has darkness. I re-ride dark rides like Pirates or Indy because of all he great details the experience provide. You can see something new every time on those rides with Dinosaur is is just dark. It is hard to see details in the dark.

my favorite ride at WDW! the use of the EMV and the amazing Audio-Animatronics still blows me away. everything i like about theme park rides is here in DINOSAUR.

its my favorite ride...i was there opening weekend and i remember going on it again!! bravo for a great recap on why it is a good ride!

The seats on Dinosaur are far from comfortable, especially if you are on the plus sized spectrum! That reason alone is why I don't ride this ride!

Perhaps I'm spoiled by living close enough to Disneyland to be more familiar with the California parks than the Orlando ones. But I had my first visit to the Orlando parks last year and went into Dinosaur knowing nothing about the attraction. It wasn't until I reached the load station that I said to myself, "Ah, Indiana Jones type ride vehicles." and felt I was in for a good experience. What a let down I had. It wasn't until I got home that I discovered that basically the track layout for Dinosaur is pretty much the same as Indiana Jones that I felt the Disney customers of Orlando would be far better served if they just gutted Dinosaur and replicated the Indiana Jones counterpart. But then you'd run into the problem of it being in the wrong park. Maybe the whole experience is cheapened by the fact the rest of the dinosaur themed land is filled with are dinosaur themed county fair quality attractions. In any case I did give Dinosaur a second go through last November before my bi-coastal annual pass expired and sadly it still felt like a cheap Indiana Jones knockoff.

I love this ride. I loved it more when it was called Countdown to Extinction because it did seem a little more sinister and wild. I heard when they changed the name, they also toned down the intensity of the ride. However, I still call it CTE when I go there.
I've been on Indiana Jones and think that's an awesome ride too. I love the detail and the story. What's kind of nest is to try to figure out in CTE where you would be at in IJ.
Overall though, this ride is one of the best at AK.

While I agree that this ride is underrated, and I always make it a point to ride it, I think the last point in the article is the main reason it doesn't succeed to the point it otherwise would. The choices of lighting seem overdone to me. I have always found that it is TOO dark to fully enjoy the ride. You can't see any of the details of the land that is created (and maybe they don't want you to see the plants and landscapes because they're not well done?) and that's part of the experience for me. In the end, I feel like I'm riding a loud, dark, bouncy ride and can't really get an appreciation for whatever details may exist. Using Big Thunder Mtn as an example, there are plenty of details that exist on that ride, and even though you're flying past them, you can still see them - even at night. With Space Mountain, the whole idea is to feel like you're flying around in the darkness of space, so there's no reason for it to have any light. I would think Dinosaur might be more successful if it had lighting similar to Pirates of the Caribbean, or even Haunted Mansion. As it stands, it's hard to really appreciate it as anything other than a loud, dark, bouncy ride with a neat story but little visual enhancement of that story. It's so dark, it's almost up to the rider to imagine what is happening.