Sally Dark Rides

I went on a free tour of Sally Dark Rides and left feeling like my mind was blown. First of all - I had no idea this was a huge warehouse in Downtown Jacksonville. Nor did I realize most of the dark rides across the whole world are created and developed here! It was amazing!! Our tour guide led us through the building while showing us all of the stages of creating an epic dark ride. This made me think about amusement parks in a whole different way. The tour was about an hour and was very informative. We asked lots of questions and met people from different departments along the way. Highly recommend booking a free tour and checking this out. It would be great for kids as well!

I need to start b my saying that this part of our trip to Florida was not planned! My 11 yo LOVES animatronics, most especially, Five Nights at Freddy's (FNAF). He originally wanted to visit a much smaller place in Orlando, which is a one man operation charging $375. It was a bit too far and too expensive for what it was so I decided to do my own research of places he would love, Sally Corporation became the place. I filled out the reservation form online and was told there were no spots available during our time in Florida. I couldn't take no for an answer. I emailed back explaining how much my son wants to be a Robotics Engineer and that we would wait as long as we needed to snag a spot. We got an email back the next day that two spots opened up!!! We made our way downtown and parked for free in the back. We entered to learn that the tour was also FREE...FREE! This facility is HUGE! They are arguably the largest producer of Dark Ride Amusements in the US and don't just make the robotic aspect of the animatronics, but they handle EVERY aspect of the creation and completion. From make up, costumes, design, voices, all of that! We were thrilled to see they had a...yep...FIVE NIGHTS OF FREDDY'S attraction! If you've ever been to he Ripley's in San Antonio, you will see one of their biggest sellers there, a ginormous T-Rex, that's their baby that sells for $90,000! The tour takes you to each department and you are truly immersed in their production. It is an working operation so you get to see the people behind the scenes at work, which was SO DAMN INSPIRING for my 11 yo who has told me for 4 TM years that this is what he wants to do in life. He got to see what his future could be like, which is absolutely priceless. The staff, facilities, location, displays, animatronics, all were 5 stars! Hands down a MUST when in Jacksonville! Come for a 10 or 11am tour and then take the FREE Skyway (Tram) to Hemming Park and Check our Sweet Peet's. Your kids will have the best day ever!

This is one of the coolest FREE things you can do in the River City. It's a factory tour that takes about an hour long and you learn a lot about how they create those animatronic creatures on theme park rides. The first room they take you in has an interactive shooting game where you can see a possible final destination for their creations -- as a prop in an interactive scene. The next room is a clay room where you can see the clay formations of heads with the likeness of past presidents, cartoons, and other characters. In another part of the tour, you see their animatronic dinos. And after that, they show you some animatronic humans. The day we were there, they were constructing some that would later be sent to India. Their creations are made for theme park rides mostly. I originally thought they constructed things for movies, but the only one they did was Pippi Longstocking. From what they say, they build their creations to last, whereas the movie props are temporary. Some of the creatures we saw were a giant T-Rex in a box, the creepy puppet from the Goosebumps series, and a band of animatronic animals that remind me of the one at Chuck-E-Cheese. Wanna take the kids? The only thing that sucks is they don't offer it on July and August. But if you have kids 7 years or older, you can schedule it for a Tuesday or Thursday morning during winter or spring break. Make sure to reserve in advance.This was a really interesting tour and I'd come back to see it again.

Great way to kill some time. I work in the amusement industry and am very aware of the Sally Corp's wonderful reputation. While on a quick trip to Jacksonville I was pleasantly surprised to find out they offered tours of their facility. This is great for all ages and an awesome behind the scenes tour

Great place! It was really neat to see the animatronics being designed and built. Highly recommend taking the tour.