{"id":100171,"date":"2025-12-30T17:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T17:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/100171\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T17:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T17:18:09","slug":"jurassic-park-river-adventure-refurbishment-starts-jan-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/100171\/","title":{"rendered":"Jurassic Park River Adventure refurbishment starts Jan. 5"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.universalorlando.com\/web\/en\/us\/things-to-do\/rides-attractions\/jurassic-park-river-adventure\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jurassic Park River Adventure<\/a>, the big-splash dinosaur ride at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.universalorlando.com\/web\/en\/us\/theme-parks\/islands-of-adventure\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Islands of Adventure<\/a> theme park, is about to take an extended break. The last day for visitors to ride will be Jan. 4.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/universalorlando.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Universal Orlando\u2019s<\/a> online list of temporary closures indicates the ride\u2019s refurbishment will last through Nov. 19, meaning the soaker will be out of the lineup through the spring break and summer seasons. The schedule points to the ride\u2019s return about a week before Thanksgiving 2026.<\/p>\n<p>No details about the downtime or refurbishment have been announced.<\/p>\n<p>Jurassic Park River Adventure opened with IOA in 1999.\u00a0 It includes a storyline of a \u201creal\u201d dino-themed attraction, where something, naturally, goes horribly wrong. Visitors float through scenes with animatronic and sometimes angry dinosaurs, including a menacing T. rex and a dramatic 85-foot drop that leads to a public splashdown and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/jurassic_park\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cJurassic Park\u201d<\/a> soundtrack by composer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johnwilliams.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">John Williams<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/2025\/12\/29\/theme-parks-2025-1226\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Epic Universe debut dominates, but Disney, others add to active 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Universal has also posted a lengthy closure for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.universalorlando.com\/web\/en\/us\/theme-parks\/universal-studios-florida\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Finnegan\u2019s Bar &amp; Grill<\/a> at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.universalorlando.com\/web\/en\/us\/theme-parks\/universal-studios-florida\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Universal Studios<\/a> theme park. The restaurant\u2019s downtime is listed as Jan. 12 through winter of 2026. In addition, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.universalorlando.com\/web\/en\/us\/things-to-do\/rides-attractions\/hogwarts-express\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hogwarts Express<\/a>, the train attraction that connects the Wizarding World of Harry Potter areas of IOA and the Studios, will be closed Feb. 9-23.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/2025\/12\/19\/sloth-world-1220\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sloth World plans quiet existence on bustling I-Drive<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Email me at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/2025\/12\/30\/ioa-jurassic-0101\/mailto:dbevil@orlandosentinel.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">dbevil@orlandosentinel.com<\/a>. BlueSky: @themeparksdb. Threads account: @dbevil. X account: @themeparks. Subscribe to the Theme Park Rangers newsletter at <a href=\"http:\/\/orlandosentinel.com\/newsletters\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">orlandosentinel.com\/newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jurassic Park River Adventure, the big-splash dinosaur ride at Islands of Adventure theme park, is about to take&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[558,104,28,114,266,5077,1335,139,141,140,109,2411,106,1316,107,3434],"class_list":{"0":"post-100171","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-orange-county","15":"tag-orlando","16":"tag-orlando-headlines","17":"tag-orlando-news","18":"tag-social","19":"tag-theme-parks","20":"tag-things-to-do","21":"tag-tourism","22":"tag-travel","23":"tag-universal-orlando"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}