As it was the Easter holidays and we don’t have a holiday booked this year, we decided to head to London for a few days. We were invited to review the attraction – Dinosaurs in the Wild.
What is Dinosaurs in the Wild?
The idea of Dinosaurs in the wild is that you are transported back 67 million years in a time travelling machine to see living dinosaurs with your very own eyes. I have kept my review brief without too many photos as I don’t want to explain too much about the actual journey in case you want to visit. I wouldn’t want to spoil the experience and the element of suprise.
The experience is open until 31st July. Located close to the O2 at Greenwich Peninsula, we were able to find the attraction quite easily when coming out of the tube station there were signs and painted yellow dinosaur prints along the pavement to follow.
The Experience
On arrival we collected our tickets from a little booth and headed into the waiting area…. this area has an area to leave jackets/bags, toilets, a little food stall and lots of bench type seats. I believe the idea is that it is like a ‘time travel’ waiting area. There are a couple of backdrops which you can take your own photos with also.
Whilst in the waiting area there is a tv screen, this showed a bit about the weather at TimeBase67, the experience and it showed a Chronotex departure board. This confused us and others slightly as no where on our tickets did it have a transfer code. This would have been great fun for the children to understand watch for the code number to move to departures as an indication when to go and queue. Unfortunately it was a wasted opportunity as it just confused us into worrying we were missing a ticket or something.
At your entry time you queue up and have your photo taken with a green screen, you can then purchase the image if you wish on exiting the experience. After having your photo taken you enter through a door in a group of around 20 people to an area with a screen to watch this explains some safety tips and also a lady talks to you about what you hope to see (this is a time filling exercise as the ground in front of you moves along in their journey). You then board the Chronotex 67 and time travel back to the Late Cretaceous period where you see many dinosaurs on your travels.
You go through a series of rooms at TimeBase67 and get to see lots of specimens including dinosaur eggs, a hatchling and lots of camera footage. This was great fun and it genuinely felt like you had been taken back in time. You meet many crew along the way who share their findings and information and experiences of working alongside the dinosaurs.
Everything was very realistic, the girls were very excited and asked our tour guide many questions about the dinosaurs we saw and asked about different things they could see in the rooms. The actors were very professional and passionate and made the experience ‘real’.
The dinosaurs were realistic, movements were smooth and all the props and machinery was quality, there were no flaws or damaged edges everything was pristine. There were many areas for learning on the journey, learning about dinosaur names, their diets, sizes and ages.
The experience is recommended for 5 years upwards at parents discretion, there were lots of younger children in our session. Little K is pretty brave but at one point she did get a bit worried and was biting her t-shirt sleeve. When we left I asked if she was scared and she said ‘I forgot it wasn’t real… I felt like it was really happening’. She did really enjoy the experience however I do think younger children who don’t understand the difference between reality and acting may become a little scared.
We would definitely recommend Dinosaurs in the wild as an attraction. We had a fabulous time, both adults and children enjoyed the experience and as we were leaving we heard lots of families, laughing and discussing how they had enjoyed their trip back in time. We would agree that the recommendation for 5 years plus is about right. We found the whole experience exciting and very ‘REAL’, we enjoyed seeing dinosaurs in their natural habitat, time travelling and exploring the TimeBase67.
The attraction lasts around an hour. We went for lunch in the 02 and enjoyed the Emirates cable cars after the experience to create a longer day out. We would suggest possibly changing the departure board and maybe producing an information booklet or leaflet upon entry to explain to children the adventure they are about to partake. As this isn’t a permenant attraction this may be why they have not produced this. The timings between groups was very fast therefore sometimes as we headed through one area, the group in front was still leaving the room which made it a little clunky at times with the transitions of moving through the experience, although this didn’t alter our enjoyment of the experience.
Head down to Dinosaurs in the wild before it closes on 31st July. Find out more at their website – https://dinosaursinthewild.com/
Disclaimer – We were given free event tickets in exchange of an honest blog review.
Adventures of the Allum family 
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