I have been a little quiet on my blog of late, but that’s not why I am writing a post today. In fact I had planned to completely end my blogging life and concentrate on photography, however something has occurred that inspired me to write.
Dino Kingdom promised dinosaurs like you’ve never seen before, and in their own words;
‘STEP BACK IN TIME AND EXPLORE ROARING AND MOVING DINOSAURS AND STATE-OF-THE-ART 3D AND AR TECHNOLOGY. IMMERSE YOURSELF IN UNFORGETTABLE INTERACTIVE ACTIVITIES AND ENJOY A RANGE OF THRILLING FAIRGROUND RIDES, DELICIOUS FOOD AND DRINK AND MUCH MORE.’
But I feel the only thing they possibly got correct in that quote is ‘fairground rides’. We was promised moving animatronics, an interactive and immersive experience with plenty to do and to see, what we got however was possibly the most disappointing dino experience I have ever been too. I didn’t even take any photos.
Given that our journey started a good 2 hours away, We was all excited to visit this new place and experience something fun and educational, The children themselves were semi kept in the dark as to where we was off too because, after all who doesn’t like a surprise? The tickets that had been very kindly gifted to us offered us a 3 hour stay and once again because of the distance between Harlow and Nottingham I picked the 4pm – 7pm slot, as it fit perfectly into our schedule. The drive was long and boring but going through all the different counties towards our destination kept us entertained along with munching on some fruity polos.
D I N O D I S A P O I N T M E N T
Once we had reached Thorseby Park, which I would like to point out was a beautiful area to visit with a stunning hotel and a free museum, youll see why I mentioned it was free shortly. Driving through the grounds to reach the car park there wasn’t much in the way of signage, but once we got out and started our walk down to where we needed to go there was some questionable dinosaur related jokes scattered about and a little train which you could use if you felt tired.
It all seemed so promising, walking towards the opening, getting our tickets ready and entering the area.. and this is where things started to seem less fun. We followed the signs around, there was some dinosaurs standing in the grass that did slightly move but not how it was advertised and despite the advertisements sharing photos of people on the dinosaurs, there was plenty of signs telling us to ‘DO NOT TOUCH’.
Walking through a small wooded area we saw more dinosaurs which we simply couldn’t get close too due to the queues to take selfies next to them, a large wasp like bee which, while I am not that educated into prehistoric creatures wasn’t an actual thing, a goofy looking frog and a huge tarantula with two eyes. Once again none of these models actually moved but seemed to just be placed down and left with some signs that, despite their claims of being educational, didn’t really have much educational facts on. Moving from this wooded area we went into another one with some badly made flying dinosaurs in the trees above us and for some weird reason a talking tree?
Once we was out of this tree area we entered what seems to be the main reason why Dino Kingdom is in production.. the funfair.
N O T F U N A T A L L
The less said about the fairground the better in my eyes, situated right at the end of the trail, which was around 30 minutes of your time was one ridiculously expensive, not dinosaur related at all funfair. Now we all know that these kinds of things in general are a bit of a rip off but.. this one takes the cake, or takes the £5 for 4 doughnuts!! I can completely see what this company has done, its taken the joy and excitement that people feel when it comes to dinosaur walk arounds and created it into a money making venture. I mean why else would this ‘epic dinosaur experience’ also tag along a fairground with £4 a pop rides?
Even the actual tickets to the pathetic dinosaur event weren’t cheap either with a prebook adult ticket being £15 and a child being £13 and with the fact that children under 2 still need to have a ticket as well making it one expensive day out if you include buying food or riding any of the rides at the end of it, as I said above, the military museum which probably would’ve been more enjoyable, educational and interesting was F R E E!! and to add insult to injury, once you leave you cannot reenter. for an example we decided to go look at the grounds as it was closing soon but children being children needed to use the toilet and having had no luck with the public toilets we walked back and had to try and convince the people at the doors to let us in to use the toilets.
This probably is going to be the most honest review you’ll find of this place from any bloggers because lets face it, we all like free stuff and kiss some arse while doing it. But I am not someone who is going to sit idly by and witness people getting completely ripped off by this company.
I leave this post by simply saying. if you have tickets to this event.. please dont waste your time, petrol or money. STEER CLEAR of Dino Kingdom and their ‘state of the art’ lies.
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