"Our other E-ticket attraction is Countdown to Extinction. To get there, guests will enter Dinoland, USA, a tribute to our American love of dinosaurs from tacky roadside attractions to serious scientific inquiry. The bridge from Safari Village" [what ended up being called Discovery Village] " is dominated by a huge Brontosaurus skeleton. Dinoland, USA is a hybrid: part wacky souvenir stand and part dinosaur dig. It is populated by professors and graduate students. Essentially, the students are pranksters, while the professors are voices of authority."
"Restaurantosaurus carries out the story of the students and professors - it's their dorm and rec hall and cafeteria."
"And then there's the Countdown to Extinction attraction. So many early visitors to DinoLand, USA, came up with questions that the Dino Institute was built to serve as a discovery center and ongoing research lab dedicated to uncovering the mysteries of the past. Guests will wait in areas filled with museaum quality displays about dinos while learning they can participate in a time-travel experiment to rescue a living dinosaur and return it to the present."
"Restaurantsaurus, now the living quarters of the dig team, was the original, funky Dino institute. The great room is the old exhibit hall, with layers of old and new dino displays and the accumulated ephemera of the dig site. The dining hall was broken into rooms with different functions that help tell the stories of generations of grad students and professors. For the bunk room, designers created a tent-like ceiling made of 2 layers of canvas with a layer of glass in the middle. The team even purchased an old Airstream trailer from Imagineer Todd Beeson's grandmother to tack to the side of the building. With cozily upholstered red vinyl booths, it's a rec room extraordinaire."
"Chester and Hester's Dinosaur Treasures is the ultimate affectionate tribute to roadside Americana. A former gas station, the place, (so the story goes) was owned by amateur dinasaur afficionados Chester and Hester. Just outside the bounds of the Dinosaur Institute's property, the shop bristles with tacky, spangly signs and is crammed with merchandise of sometimes questionable educational value. The Institute wants to buy and raze the place, but Chester and Hester's unidentified heirs have as good a sense of humor as the originators. They won't sell. Tiny plastic dinosaurs ride rickety, dinosaur themed trains suspended from the "grimy" ceiling while others flee fake lava flows in the highest corners. Years of thumbtacks and scribbles 'scar' the walls near the phones. Everything that can be turned into a dinosaur has been, including old oil cans, rulers, and flexible pipe,"
I have the Imagineering guide to MK and love flipping through it. Didn't know they made them for the other parks!
