That was a Bust – Tried to see the New Velociraptors at Universal Studios…

After Carson saw the video of the new Velociraptors at Islands of Adventure, he started begging us to go to Jurassic Park so he could see the Velociraptors. We of course agreed, because after reading the Universal Studios blog post and watching the video ourselves, we too agreed that it looked like a cool experience.

So we decided Sunday late afternoon, early evening would be the perfect time to go to see them. With yesterday being over 90 degrees, and humid, we prefer to visit the parks later in the day, and it helps that our express passes start after 4pm.

Come 5pm we loaded up the two kiddos and headed out to IOA. The temps were great, still hot but not unbearable. Carson was super excited and talked about seeing the new dinosaurs the whole way to the park.

After the debacle of the Guest Services horrible team member that I have ever met at any theme park, we started heading back to Seussland and Jurassic Park.

Timeline: Parked at Valet (Free for our pass) 5:30pm, 6:03pm Meeting with Security, 6:15pm Seussland, 7:15 Walking through Hogsmeade, 7:25 arrived at the Velociraptor enclosure. Of Note – Park closes at 9pm

Now the entire time we were in Seussland, letting Courtney do a few things, Carson kept begging to go to the Velociraptors. So when got close and noticed the ropes everywhere, my heart sunk. By the time we were all the way there, we confirmed that it was closed, and it had been closed for a long while.

Directly across from the enclosure is a gift stand, with an incredibly nice and helpful team member. She let us know that it had closed at 4:30 and it would open the next day (Monday, Memorial Day) at 11am. I asked where was this posted so we could see what the times were for when we come back. She said there isn’t any place where she has found that has them. She also let us know that by 1pm that day the line was really long and out of the queue.

A few other details we learned: There are two Velociraptors that go out in 15 minute intervals. In the case of rain, they are immediately brought in.

To say I was disappointed that Carson didn’t get to see the Velociraptors in an understatement. I am very disappointed that Universal Studios didn’t see fit to post more information about this experience on their site or blog post. We read that it was open this weekend, so to us, that means it is open as long as the park is unless otherwise stated. Apparently the Velociraptors are not, and there is currently no way to know what their schedule is.

We could have forgone this entire terrible day at Islands of Adventure if we had known that this wasn’t even going to be open. Heck it had all ready closed by the time we left our house….

I am not sure when we will go back to IOA to see the Velociraptors, but I don’t see it in our near future. Maybe by the time we decide to go back, Universal will have posted times so we can plan accordingly.