Dubai: For the first time in the Middle East since their extinction sixty-five million years ago, dinosaurs will roam the earth at IMG Worlds of Adventure. The installation of the sixty-nine state-of the-art dinosaurs, in its Lost Valley – Dinosaur Adventure zone, marks one of the final stages of completion for the world’s largest multi-brand indoor theme park.
To ensure the most authentic interactive dinosaur entertainment experience, IMG Worlds of Adventure collaborated with Kokoro, the pioneering Japanese animatronics company, to produce the creatures of the Lost Valley – Dinosaur Adventure. Kokoro has a long history of being at the cutting edge of animatronics and robotics, creating dinosaurs for the Natural History Museum in London, as well as other prestigious collections around the world.
Within the park, guests are transported to the Prehistoric era where they can track down the dinosaurs, watch them in their natural environment, and hear them roar or feast on prey.
Among the biggest of the pack of sixty-nine dinosaurs spread across the vast Jurassic terrain will be the enormous Barosaurus and the ferocious Allosaurus. Taking up to 5 years to create and with the Barosaurus at over 15.5 metres high, the dinosaurs move, breathe and feel like their ancestors. To design each individual creature, Kokoro used hydraulics to replicate their unique movements, their scales have been hand-sculpted by specialist artists whilst a thin covering layer of silicone gives their skin a shiny, life-like appearance, similar to modern day living reptiles.
For thrill seekers, The Lost Valley – Dinosaur Adventure zone also contains “The Velociraptor”, a mega launch coaster, which will propel visitors to an exhilarating 100 km/h in 2.5 seconds. The coaster will have four inversions and will be the only permanently installed looping coaster in the UAE, with its biggest loop topping a whopping 105 feet high. Further attractions in the zone will be announced in the coming weeks, as excitement builds towards an early 2016 opening date for IMG Worlds of Adventure.
Commenting on the arrival of the dinosaurs, Lennard Otto, General Manager of IMG Worlds of Adventure, said, “This is an incredibly exciting moment for us, having witnessed the creation of these extraordinary creatures and now seeing them in their new habitat. In addition to the dinosaurs providing sheer entertainment, we will be developing a range of interactive educational programmes, positioning IMG Worlds of Adventure as one of the leading dinosaur attractions in the world.
“The arrival of the dinosaurs is also one of the final steps towards the completion of the park.”
Atsuya Yamada, President of Kokoro, said, “In Japanese, Kokoro means ‘heart’ or ‘spirit’ and we really have put our passion into creating these dinosaurs. They are based on the most up-to-date scientific knowledge of what dinosaurs would have looked like and how they would have moved in their natural environment. Visitors to IMG Worlds of Adventure will be dazzled by the experience of encountering them.”
The Lost Valley – Dinosaur Adventure zone is an original concept by IMG Theme Park L.L.C., owners of IMG Worlds of Adventure. It will be the largest of the four zones, whilst other zones include MARVEL and Cartoon Network, the first time the two brands have appeared alongside one another in a single venture. The fourth zone is IMG Boulevard, another original concept from IMG Theme Park L.L.C.