3 of the Most Popular Animatronic Dinosaur Attractions in the US
Dinosaurs might be ancient, but they never get old in the world of entertainment. Jurassic World: Dominion grossed more than one billion dollars from the box office alone in 2022, proving beyond all doubt that people still love seeing these true giants of the extinct era in action.
Outside of the big screen, realistic animatronic dinosaurs are as close to the real thing as people can see today and they love it. In fact, dinosaurs are the most popular animatronic attractions to have ever been created.
Go through the following to know where you can find the most popular animatronic dinosaurs on display in the United States.
DinoTrek in Nashville Zoo, Tennessee
Last year, Nashville Zoo incorporated 20 new realistic animatronic dinosaurs as part of their attractions. All 20 of them came in their approximated real life size too, which is quite impressive. The newly built DinoTrek now sports several carnivorous and herbivorous species of realistic animatronic dinosaurs.
Species such as the allosaurus, the suchomimus, the carnotaurus, the dilophosaurus, the pachyrhinosaurus, the amargasaurus, the megalosaurus, and of course, the mighty tyrannosaurus rex are just a few of the species visitors can see at Nashville Zoo.
The models have since been highly successful in boosting Nashville Zoological Park’s revenue. This only further affirms the fact that realistic animatronic dinosaurs are timeless attractions that people are not likely to lose their interest in anytime soon.
Jurassic World: The Ride at Universal Studios Hollywood, California
Jurassic Park: The Ride is just as old as the first movie, which is to say that it opened way back in 1996 to immense popularity. The ride was later upgraded in 2019 with more realistic animatronic dinosaurs and the name Jurassic World: River Adventure was changed to Jurassic World: The Ride.
There are plenty of dinosaurs along the way, but the show stealer on this ride is the hugely popular fight scene (from the movie) between the Indomitable Rex and the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
It plays out right in front of a live audience, giving them a reason to truly remember their experience. Despite not being one of the many adrenalin pumping roller coaster rides that dominate theme parks, Jurassic World.
The Ride remains one of the most popular rides at Universal Studios Hollywood, thanks to the epic fight scene played out by the two animatronic behemoths.
Dinosaur World, Florida
One of the best places to visit for dinosaur enthusiasts in United States, Dinosaur World in Florida is dedicated entirely to showcasing the prehistoric beasts.
The place has over 200 life-size models of the prehistoric beasts, but they are not all animatronic models though. Nevertheless, it has the highest number of life-size dinosaur models in the country, including that of the gigantic spinosaurus.
The animatronic models are mostly housed inside the indoor exploration adventures, complete with timely sound effects. While the animatronic dinosaurs in Dinosaur World are not the most realistic animatronic dinosaurs you can find, they are still enough to provide kids with a bit of thrill and a lot of fun.
Last but not least, Skull Island: Reign of Kong from Universal Studios Orlando also deserves an honorable mention because of the hyper realistic, giant animatronic bats and King Kong himself that they have there.
The only reason why it wasn’t included in the main list is because there aren’t any animatronic dinosaurs on that ride unfortunately.
