I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Jurassic Creatures exhibit in Melbourne in the St Kilda Triangle (behind the Palais Theatre). Although small, the exhibition was perfectly crafted for kids and families. With many large dinosaurs on display, some even animatronic that move, make noise and come to life, even the tiniest of dinosaur enthusiasts would be amused.
Not only are there dinosaurs everywhere, but children have the opportunity to wear little white lab coats, goggles and become paleontologists for the day, chipping away to find their own fossils. There are also some food stalls, puzzles to solve, a bug display, a carnival game and even a jumping castle.
While I did enjoy the exhibit as a whole, I think that the environment could have been advanced with hosts guiding patrons around and sharing further information about the dinosaurs that existed 165 million years ago. It would have been the perfect opportunity to have staff in themed scientist or jungle gear playing a role whilst educating children. For the most part the staff were present, but the interaction that I witnessed between staff and attendees was very minimal. Something like this could have been done to help enhance the experience for children, for the feel of really visiting a dinosaur park.
Jurassic Creatures is a traveling animatronic dinosaur exhibition that is both fun and educational. If you don’t have any children and just like dinosaurs, while seeing the animatronic dinosaurs is great, the exhibition will be very limited for adults. However, with the many things on offer these school holidays, Jurassic Creatures is perfect for the tiny paleontologist and I would absolutely recommend checking it out if you and your kids love dinosaurs.
Jurassic Creatures is currently on exhibition from the 15th of September until the 14th of October. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster. For more information, visit Jurassic Creatures today.