Exploring Camp Jurassic in Islands of Adventure

Over the past several months I’ve been running the data on various age groups’ favorite things in the Universal parks. Camp Jurassic, the playground in the Jurassic Park section of Islands of Adventure, kept coming up as one of the highest-rated attractions for toddlers through pre-teens. Two weeks ago I visited Universal Orlando and spent some quality time in the land exploring, climbing, and sliding.

In this post, I’ll look at all the cool things to do at Camp Jurassic along with tips for adults who are letting their kids blow off steam.

Camp Jurassic is a large playground area in the Jurassic Park section of Islands of Adventure. It is located adjacent to Jurassic World VelociCoaster with its entrance across from the exit to the Jurassic River Adventure flume ride. Immediately to the left inside the playground is the entrance to Pteranodon Flyers, the land’s kids coaster.

What separates Camp Jurassic from other play areas at Disney and Universal is the immersion and setting. Large waterfalls envelop the land, full of foggy caves and lush vegetation. What you get is a cross between Tom Sawyer’s Island, a water playground, and a high ropes course.

Kids and adults are encouraged to climb and explore the nets and observation towers around the land. Fun fact: during the construction of Skull Island: Reign of Kong, Universal fans would climb up the towers to observe construction. All towers and play areas have multiple areas of access and egress – the below tower has three entrances, with one being kid-sized ledges to climb up inside the tower. Of course, there are also plenty of fun ways to leave, including slides.

This would not be Universal if there was not a way to get your kids completely soaked before 10:00 am. Camp Jurassic offers two water playground features – a small splash pad around dinosaur bones (see above) and an interactive water gun area themed to guards and dilophosauruses.

Lifted walkways around the playground allow adults to supervise children and also offer amazing views of VelociCoaster.

Pteranodon Flyers, the kids-only coaster, is located in the land. This suspended coaster sends two guests at a time gliding above the playground and offers amazing views of the land. This attraction is unique in that it has a minimum and maximum height requirement: guests must be between 36 inches and 56 inches tall to ride and guests taller than 56 inches must ride with someone in that height range.

Camp Jurassic is a great place to let your kids burn off energy, let out some steam, or just explore without having to wait in a queue. Most adults tend to congregate around the entrance of the playground, we suggest following the Pteranodon Flyers exit signage to the second story to stand guard as your kids run around.  If you are one to imbibe a bit at a theme park, pick up an Isla Nublar IPA at one of the snack stands for a delicious beer while watching over the young tikes.

Have you been to Camp Jurassic? What are your favorite features? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!