![]() It happened several times during our dinner and it got kind of old after the first couple. I did think they did this perhaps a bit too often, though. It is kind of silly, but also a bit amusing. The animatronics are all programmed to become very agitated and go into lots of motion while this happens. We were seated at a fairly large booth that was located right in front of a stegosaurusĮvery once in a while, the lights dim and various lighting and sound effects are used to simulate a meteor shower taking place (this is similar to the occasional thunderstorms at Rainforest Cafe). The range of motion on them is somewhat limited compared to what you would find in the World of Energy attraction at Epcot or the Jurassic Park ride at Universal, but they certainly are pretty impressive for a restaurant. The animatronic dinosaurs are pretty impressive looking. ![]() The restaurant really is rather impressive in person and I definitely think that they have taken the theme a few notches beyond Rainforest Cafe. It is pretty hard to do the restaurant justice in text, so I’m going to let the photos do the majority of the talking here. As the name suggests, the restaurant is decorated with a variety of prehistoric tableaus, including quite a few animatronic dinosaurs. Having dined at the Rainforest Cafe location at the Disneyland Resort on several occasions (we’ve actually never been to either of their locations at Walt Disney World), we did have a pretty good idea of what to expect.Īs with Rainforest Cafe, the elaborate theme and decoration is the main reason for a visit. The largest and best known of their chains is Rainforest Cafe and T-Rex is actually somewhat similar both in its menu and the overall atmosphere. In fact, the Downtown Disney location is actually their second T-Rex Cafe, with the first one having opened in Kansas City almost a year earlier. The restaurant is owned by Landry’s Restaurants, owner of a number of specialty chains. We finally found it by simply starting to walk across the complex until we spotted it in the distance. We even asked a couple employees for directions, but the ones we asked didn’t really seem to know the answer. ![]() With the restaurant not yet having "officially" opened, it wasn’t yet on the maps or most of the directional signs. Even though the building is rather distinctive and rather hard to miss, Downtown Disney is pretty tightly packed which means that individual buildings aren’t visible from everywhere. One other effect of the restaurant being in soft opening (and so new) was that we actually had a little bit of trouble finding it. This resulted in us getting a table almost immediately after we got there. In addition, my sister just met us there instead of coming over to the hotel, so she was able to monitor the wait time and jump into the line as soon as we called and let her know we were on the way over. Even though it was a Saturday night, it was fairly late (around 9pm) by the time we got checked into our hotel room and then found our way over to the restaurant for dinner. The main result of this was that they were not yet taking any reservations, which did at least increase the potential for fairly long lines. All the pictures in this post were taken instead by my father (most during a previous visit to the restaurant) and I thank him for sharing them with me.Īt the time of our visit, the restaurant was still officially in "soft opening" meaning that it hadn’t yet had its official grand opening and would still be operating with a few limitations. Giving credit where credit is due, I should mention here that I was so hungry and hurried to get to dinner that I forgot to take my camera along to the restaurant. It did turn out to be a good choice and really helped us to transition from the high-stress of travel into the fun of themed entertainment. Saratoga Springs is just a short bus ride from there, so trying out this new restaurant seemed like an ideal choice for the first night of our trip. ![]() This year, our arrival night dinner was at T-Rex Cafe, the newly-opened dinosaur-themed restaurant at Downtown Disney. After a long day, this is usually a bit late to head into a theme park, so we instead usually look for a fun place for dinner somewhere that isn’t overly far from the resort where we are staying. On our trips, we have typically arrived at Walt Disney World by around 8pm or so Florida time. When you add on the three hour time change (as well as the travel time to and from the airport), most of the arrival date is used up. (Continuing my very slowly-written trip report of our 12/7-12/15/08 visit to Walt Disney World and Orlando)Įven on a direct flight, the travel time from Los Angeles to Orlando is nearly 5 hours.
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