September 21st 2009 - Cameron Bowers, Green Workshop

           Over the weekend, my family and I went to the Rainforest Café for dinner. Personally it isn’t my favorite restaurant, but it's what my brothers wanted. The restaurant is immense, and it is decorated to look like a real rainforest. To me the décor was okay but if I had any chance of enjoying it, my brothers made sure that wasn’t going to happen. In the front of it there is a gift shop. If you look up you will see an animatronic snake, I think it was a python, and a monkey, along with fake jungle vines. To the left there is a giant mushroom that had some tables under it. Straight ahead there is a decent size aquarium in the shape of an arch.

      Towards the back, there is more jungle vining. Also there is an animatronic gorilla, and I think there was a giraffe, and elephant, along with more tables.  If you look up in the center there is a lit up picture of the rainforest at night. To the right in the far back there is a sculpture of Atlas holding the earth, and water is shooting up all around him. To me it looked like the thing was going to break, because it looked kinda cheap. Besides the plants, and animals, the rest is detailed to look like an ancient myan civilization. Next to the large mushroom water falls from the “ancient walls” and hits dry ice causing there to be mist. If that wasn’t enough every 30 minutes a “thunder” storm comes in, and all of the animals scream, and panic. There are speakers that give the sound, and subwoofers provide the bass, and the lights are wired to dim out. When the thunder goes off the lights get very bright, then dim out, then back to normal. When we left I saw an animatronic alligator in a wishing pond.

(The only reason I don’t like it there is because the food takes forever to come out.)