What To Expect At Jurassic World: The Experience at Gardens By The Bay’s Cloud Forest

The warning signs, flashing lights and snapped cables can only mean one thing. Something big, prehistoric and full of teeth has escaped. And right on cue, the rockstar of the Jurassic World movie franchise, the Tyrannosaurus rex, roars to life as you round the corner.

If you've always wondered what it's like to visit Isla Nublar, the fictional island home to de-extinct engineered dinosaurs, you can finally get a glimpse of it at the immersive exhibition Jurassic World: The Experience, which opens on Thursday (May 29). 

"Nublar" means "to cloud" in Spanish and no other location in Singapore is more fitting than Gardens by the Bay's misty Cloud Forest to stage the life-sized sculptures and animatronics equipped with motion sensors by Neon, the same team behind 2022's Avatar: The Experience.

The pair of Brachiosauruses greeting you at the entrance, one of them with a towering three-storey-tall neck, is reminiscent of the first Jurassic Park movie in 1993. 

T-Rex and those slender-necked giants aren't the only bigwigs around. A pair of Velociraptors pose mid-action in their raid of the Pteranodons' nests hidden in the conservatory's Cloud Mountain. It's the perfect backdrop to imagine Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali in the upcoming new Jurassic World Rebirth movie that opens on Jul 3. 

A crashed truck in the foliage reveals a confused bone-headed Stygimoloch trying to bust its container. Further down the path, you'll spot the long, swaying neck of another Brachiosaurus, this time, much closer than the pair at the entrance.  

If you spot a crowd gathering, chances are, the keepers have brought out the weeks-old baby dinosaurs, Stiggy and Bumpy, for a little show-and-tell and interaction.

But not all of the smaller creatures are harmless like the Compsognathuses or Compys perched on rocks throughout Cloud Forest. They may look vulnerable, until you remember the little girl who wandered a little too far in the movies... 

You start to wonder, too, how good is your impression of Chris Pratt's Owen Grady, as you descend the escalator to meet Blue and the rest of the volatile velociraptors rattling their cages. But hold that thought as you come face to face with the fringed Dilophosaurus. These animatronics don't spit venom but they do spit – don't say we didn't warn you. 

The exhibition is also a chance to learn about the ferns, conifers and cycads that the dinosaurs fed on. At Evolution Walk, you'll even see the ancestors of plants, imagined in 3D reconstructions, that existed millions of years ago. 

There’s no time limit to explore the exhibits but do allocate about an hour for the experience. And if you linger till past sunset, you'll be treated to a whole new different perspective. Event ends on Dec 31, 2025.

Tickets start from S$22 per child and S$26 per adult. For tickets, go to jurassicworldexperience.com/sg.

The original version of this story first appeared in CNA Lifestyle.
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