Most events we attend are carefully planned or at least I have a vague idea of what I’m dragging Jay into. The key word being most. Last Friday, I happened to be on Twitter at the right time and saw an announcement for a “Social Media Meet Up” at Universal. Registration was opening the next morning at 8:00 am, and I knew I was going to be awake anyway, so I had it pulled up on my computer at 7:55 am. There weren’t a lot of details, I just knew it had to do with Jurassic Park and we were going to get into the park for free for a couple hours.
By 10:00 am when I checked it again, registration was full. I was extremely happy Jay and I were already in.
Instructions and more details came in an email on Thursday. They wanted us to download “Jurassic World Alive”, which is basically the dinosaur version of Pokémon Go. I had actually already downloaded it and deleted it, because I didn’t like the fact that it would take time away from Pokémon. So, I downloaded it again, and started trying to figure it out. Check-in for the event didn’t start until 9:00 pm, and it was scheduled to go until 1:30 am, so it was going to be a late night at Universal.
We might have made a last-minute Target run to get Jurassic Park shirts.
We wound up seeing a movie at CityWalk to kill some time, and we got to the front of Islands of Adventure around a quarter past nine. There was a check in table over to the left, and a line that wrapped around it. I had no concept of the capacity for this event, but this was more people than I expected for some reason. We jumped in line with our signed waivers and the printed tickets they had sent us, and it was our turn in about ten minutes. We got handed two lanyards and given the choice of being a “Paleontologist” or a “Doctor” depending on which name tag we picked. This led to me getting the song “I am a Paleontologist” stuck in my head, and annoying Jay by singing it for pretty much the rest of the night. Somehow, he had never heard it before!
We were admitted to Islands of Adventure with no real instructions, and the park was still open. We half wondered if we could make it to Forbidden Journey in time, but just headed in the general direction of Jurassic Park. As we went, we found random Team Members with signs that read “Private Event” with light wands that kept motioning us onwards.
We hit the Jurassic Park area, and it took us entirely too long to realize we were being sent to the Discovery Center. It’s the logical place for a Jurassic Park special event. Seriously Chelsea, you used to work at Universal, how did that not occur to you?
They directed us down and around the building, and Jay commented he’d never been down there. I laughed because it’s literally how I used to get to work at Kong.
We made our way behind the Discovery Center, down where the boats used to launch, and a gentleman dressed like a raptor handler asked if we were just arriving, then directed us towards food and drink. There were soda, beer, and wine available. I grabbed a soda for the caffeine and a Merlot, because even though I don’t really drink a lot of wine, I don’t turn down free alcohol. We then jumped in line for the snacks and eyed the two Jurassic Park vehicles they had on display. The food was basically make your own trail mix. They had little bags, and a bunch of different options in bowls with scoops. I loaded up on everything covered in chocolate and the roasted nuts, while Jay weirdly went for the dried fruits which is not like him at all.
Then we waited. Then we waited some more. I get the idea it was supposed to be a mix and mingle type of deal, but I’m not great at rubbing elbows with strangers. There was a tiny baby triceratops named Savannah out with a handler that we could take photos with, and I got to pet her so that was awesome! How often do you get to pet a baby dinosaur?
A bunch of people were heavily playing the Jurassic World Alive game, but my phone was already on 35%, and Jay’s was even lower. (We both were at work super early and hadn’t gone home between work and the event and guess what we’d forgotten! I have two fuel rods and a heavy-duty power bank, but I never have them on me when I need them.) So, there wasn’t going to be a whole lot of dinosaur hunting for us.
There were a couple of “characters” wandering about from the Dinosaur Containment Team, and a Jurassic Park “executive” who started the introduction a little after 10:00 pm. It reminded me very much of the old Terminator 2D preshow, where the lady is telling you how wonderful Cyberdyne Systems is. I didn’t catch her name, but she was a definite mix of Bryce Howard’s character with the Cyberdyne Systems hostess. Then there was McAlister, who was the head of the Dino Containment Unit, and I’m pretty sure he stole his outfit from Taylor at Poseidon’s Fury. His assistant looked like she was out of the Adventure’s Club, and I think her name was Phyllis. Then there was Todd, who kept getting called a variety of other names by everyone but Phyllis: Tim, Taylor, Trance, Tina, etc. They sent him off to investigate something with the raptor paddocks.
Then McAlister and Phyllis led us through a series of “exercises” on how to defend yourself from dinosaurs if you encountered a loose one. One of the suggestions involved dancing to scare it off and I said, “No, that’s the wrong Chris Pratt movie.”
It was about then Todd came running back in screaming about the dinosaurs being lose, covered in fake blood. McAlister and Phyllis decided we had now had enough training to take on the dinosaurs and announced we would be equipped with fanny packs to help us handle the dinosaurs. The Jurassic Park executive lady then went through the last-minute details and reminded us to post using the #JurassicAliveMeetUp hashtag. Finally, we were free to explore!
Well, free to explore as soon as we picked up our fanny packs, which I totally thought were going to be a joke, but there were actual Jurassic Park fanny packs we got! Jay and I were so excited because we thought we could feel a power bank in them, and we were right! Except they only had android cords. No iPhone cables. We were still dead in the water, but now we had fanny packs, a keychain, a trading pin, and a power bank that at some point in the future could be useful.
We made our way into park, heading in the general direction of the rides with no real plan in mind. We got to the Raptor Encounter and found it with the shortest line I’ve ever seen there, so we jumped in. It’s a good thing we did too, because people piled in behind us.
I was super impressed with the handlers. They got the entire thing on video and took a TON of photos. The last time I met the Raptor, it was in 2016 and she was named Zulu. Now they’ve gone full Jurassic World, and we met Blue! She even sort of nuzzled up on me, so I got snuggled by a Velociraptor! Then she scared the daylights out of Jay, and we took off laughing.
We wandered down to Camp Jurassic, where one of the only rides I’ve never ridden at Universal is: Pteranodon Flyers. The reason I’ve never ridden it is you usually have to have a child under a certain height, but for the event anyone could ride! Jay and I raced to get in line even though it was only ten minutes, we were so excited!
In typical attractions people fashion, Jay and I were immediately involved in a lengthy discussion trying to figure out the operation of the ride. If it normally needed the weight of a smaller rider to operate, how could they run it without children now? The answer became obvious very quickly, Pteranodon Flyers has one of the lowest capacities I’ve ever seen for a ride! They only have three vehicles, the vehicles only seat two riders at a time and one of the riders has to be under a certain height. They were only loading one person at a time. The height restriction might be a necessary safety measure, but I feel a major part of it is cutting down on the amount of people who are able to get in line.
Jay let me go first, and holy cow I was so surprised with how fast this thing went! I’m curious what the top speed is. You soar over Camp Jurassic and there’s a really great view of Skull Island: Reign of Kong. I remember wanting to ride it when I knew I was going to be working Kong but hadn’t started there yet, and I spent so many days in front of that ride watching people soar overhead. I always wanted to ride it!
Honestly, it’s not that great a ride, but it’s now off the Bucket List!
I waited for Jay at the exit and he came in immediately after me. As you leave the path forks, one way says “Exit” and the other says “Explore Amber Mine”. Naturally I went to explore. I never realized Camp Jurassic is a giant playground, AND THERE WERE NO KIDS AROUND!
We walked down the path until we got to a bunch of bridges made of rope nets. Jay started to say something about taking the stairs, but I was already gone. He followed right behind a moment later, and we wandered all over, and climbed everything we could find. We were getting eaten by bugs, however, so we decided to head to River Adventure.
We managed to get a boat all to ourselves, and I realized I’d never been on it at night before. We noticed a bunch of little details we’d never seen before in the main building, like projections of raptors on the walls in addition to the animatronics and the burst pipes next to the T-Rex. (In my defense, I’m usually too busy laughing at the T-Rex that isn’t standing on anything.)
We got off River Adventure and realized we’d pretty much done everything. There was still more than an hour until we had to be back at the Discovery Center. We discussed leaving early, but we weren’t sure we could and I didn’t see how I could write a proper report if I didn’t see how it ended.
So back to Camp Jurassic we went! We were going to try to do Pteranodon Flyers again, but it was posting a forty-minute wait. It was fun, but it wasn’t that fun. We took off down a different path in Camp Jurassic and found a whole different set of trails. We walked through Raptor cages, found a place where you can have water gun battles, and discovered the actual amber mine. We never found a mosquito in amber like we were hoping to, but we discovered a bunch of beautiful caverns. I made Jay walk in front, having flashbacks to Kong’s scareactors in the queue. Thankfully the scariest thing were some raptor noises coming from the bushes.
At point we were on a rope bridge in the caverns and I realized it was soaking wet.
“Wait, why is this wet?”
Jay proceeded to stop and trap me on the bridge.
“If we get wet, I will so hurt you.”
We saw the geyser go off later and we wouldn’t have been wet, we would have BEEN SOAKED.
There were so many cool picture opportunities, I found myself wishing I had my camera but being happy I didn’t at the same time. I couldn’t have scurried through the rope courses with it on my neck. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I kind of loved the fanny pack. Unlike my usual bags, it never once got in my way. We passed a couple of the slides but weren’t entirely sure we could fit so we decided not to try them.
We had once again reached our tolerance for bug bites, so we decided to ride River Adventure again. This time we were joined by one other family so it wasn’t quite as cool, but it’s still an amazing ride. I honestly wish there was more of the driving by the dinosaurs on the boat before the big drop.
We made another stop for more drinks and another round of snacks since now I could stash my trail mix in my fanny pack for later. We happened to encounter Phyllis and McAlister at this point and got our picture with them. I also showed them the type of dinosaurs I was hunting on my phone, via Pokémon Go, and they had some great reactions.
We wandered back up to the Discovery Center and decided to check out the lower level. I’ve been down there a handful of times, but there’s never been anything going on. We were pleasantly surprised to find all sorts of interactive stuff happening, including a baby raptor that was hatching!
They offered to let the people watching name it, and I couldn’t think of anything clever, but the guy next to us shot his hand up. He named it Jasmine, and one of the lab techs presented him with a birth certificate. My face fell and I looked at Jay.
“You want a birth certificate, don’t you?”
“Uh huh!”
We walked up to the lab tech, whose name was Brittany, and Jay asked her if there was any way we could beg a certificate.
“You don’t have to beg, just ask politely!”
She went to retrieve the certificate and clipboard and came to ask me what I wanted to name it.
“Fluffy-a-suraus!”
Jay face palmed.
After presenting us with the certificate, Brittany explained if we came back next year and could remember the name and date, they do a little check up on our baby raptor.
“It’s really helpful if you can remember the exact name and date, because everything’s hand written here. It’s like we’re stuck in the nineties.”
She broke me with that joke. Jurassic Park the movie was released in the nineties, Islands of Adventure was built in the nineties, and I have a Skipper’s sense of humor. I was laughing so hard I’m pretty sure I embarrassed Jay.
We talked to Brittany a little longer, then we wandered out the back doors to where the event started. They had told us to be back by 12:45, and it was almost 12:30. We were having fun, but we were tired and ready to go home.
Right around 1:00 am, the Jurassic Park executive and McAlister were back. There were a few more jokes, and general congratulations on surviving the night and the dinosaurs, although they were very concerned at how much the group had shrank. Clearly leaving early was an option after all. They then turned it over to the two social media heads that put on the whole event, and they gave away a few prizes based on the best Jurassic World Alive photos they saw posted on social media. Had I known prizes were involved, I would have tried harder!
The only Jurassic Alive photo I took.
They dismissed us with one final parting gift, a raptor claw doughnut from Voodoo Doughnuts!
The Social Media Meet Up was a ton of fun, and a complete fluke I saw it in time to sign up. Apparently, this isn’t the first one they’ve done. Some Googling led me to a Fast and the Furious event back in April, and there’s been HHN events in the past. You can only sign up once every six months according to their guidelines on the registration page. If I had to guess it was somewhere between 150 to 200 people, but I don’t know what the official cap was. It was basically a miniature version of the Disney After Hours event, except it was free and confined to a single land. I already can’t wait to try to do another one in six months! We also got a ton of stuff: free drinks, free snacks, a name tag, a lanyard a fanny pack, a keychain, a pin, a power bank, and a doughnut, plus I got a raptor birth certificate. I’m really surprised how much I loved the fanny pack. I probably won’t use that exact one, but my mom has one that I think I’ll be borrowing whenever she’s not here.
Cost: FREE!
Duration: This one was about four hours. I’m guessing they could vary in length. I wish it had been a tad shorter, but if I’d been able to charge my phone it would have been fine.
Value: 10/10, can’t wait to go again.
Add Ons: None really? They had the Jurassic Games open that we could have paid to play, but I’m really proud to say I spent absolutely no money on this adventure!
