Days of the Dinosaur

My youngest is a paleontologist in the making. He is OBSESSED with anything to do with dinosaurs. This year he’s having a dinosaur party. That was the brief. Mommy has to make it happen. No stress… nothing that Pinterest and How To Cook That can’t fix.

When we first saw the Days of the Dinosaur ads my husband and I got so excited! Yes, WE got excited. (It’s what happens when you’re a parent.) It was definitely going to be on the July holiday itinerary. 

I realized when we got to Sandton Convention Centre that I’d forgotten my phone at home, so no photos :-(. The pics in this post are from the website.

The information on the interweb wasn’t sufficient for my OCD planning tendencies. I like to have as much info as possible for even the most mundane excursions. Initially when I checked out the ticketing details on Computicket you could buy a ticket for a particular day. The next time I checked you had to book a day and time. CONFUSION IN MY BRAIN! 

What apparently happened was that on the first day of the exhibition, everyone who had bought tickets for that day pitched up when the doors opened, which turned into a chaotic mess! Two hour long queues, congested exhibition space, very agitated children and parents. To avoid further frustration the organizers staggered ticket entrance times so that there wasn’t a rush on the venue. Weekend tickets were sold out weeks before the time, not that that was an option for us, anyway. Weekday it was.

THE EXHIBITION
Our tickets were for 11:00am and upon arrival we encountered a not so short line of people but five minutes later we were in the main exhibition hall. Ushers were around to help with where to go and what to do. Upon entrance to the hall you can hire an audio guide (similar to the one pictured below) for R35 that gives you more information about each dinosaur in the different scenes such as when they lived, what part of the world they were found, their various habits, etc. 

 

Image from here.

One audio guide can be used by two people when you connect the headphones that come with it. They don’t tell you this but we figured it out. It’s the same remote-looking contraption at the Body Worlds expo that only one person could use because they didn’t give a spare set of headphones.

The amount of information from the audio guide is overwhelming even for adults and I think goes over the head of a nine-year-old. My paleontologist is a few weeks away from seven-years-old and my eldest is 9. After about the 7^th or 8^th scene they weren’t interested in the audio guides anymore and to be honest, neither was I.

There are 16 scenes in total with 2-4 moving/robotic dinosaur models in each in various “natural” settings. The size of some of these things are intimidating and especially with a child-like imagination and the National Geographic education on dinosaurs most of us have, you can get sucked into the scene. The tour of the scenes is between half an hour and an hour, if you read all the information boards and listen to the audio guide. Towards the end you'll probably rush to get out but you have the entire day to go back and pick up where you left off. I'd suggest that if you get an audio guide, to do half the exhibition, take a break in  the interactive section but don't hand in the audio guide just yet, and then go back to the the second half. If you're not all that interested in all the information, then you'll spend about half an hour in the exhibits.

ACTIVITIES

Upon exiting the main exhibition hall you get to the interactive area and food court. The actual interactive area was just a console with 4 mini dinosaurs about 5m away that could be manipulated from a control desk with buttons to move various body parts. 

There was a sandpit where kids could dig for dinosaur bones. 

They could get their faces painted like dinosaurs for R40, they could buy novelties like walking dino helium balloons for R50, a You magazine-type dinosaur book (available in English and Afrikaans) for R35. There was also a stall for dino-souvenirs; t-shirts, socks, games, toys, etc. 

Then you could get your photo taken on one of the 3 or 4 dinosaur models for R50. Much like at the Sandton City Kids holiday programmes. 

 

There was also a 3D movie every half hour that really was missable. It had very little to do with dinosaurs and more to do with conserving the planet. I thought it was a waste of time, but it was “free” so I suppose I shouldn’t complain. 

FOOD
The food on sale wasn’t hectically overpriced as is normally the case with events like these. The lines at the food stalls moved quickly. You choice included things like hot dogs, slap chips, pizzas (margherita or chicken), juices, sodas, a variety of coffees, teas, hot chocolate and then tuck shop chips and chocolate. For a family of 4 plus granny we spent a total of about R250 on hot dogs, chips and a pizza that 2 adults shared, and drinks (coffee, hot chocolate, juice and bottled water).

As we exited the main hall, we bumped into a real, live paleontologist from Wits University which was the highlight of my son’s life up until this point! He was dumbstruck at the time but will tell you about the paleontologist first when you ask him about the whole Days of the Dinosaur experience.

The exhibition is on in Cape Town at the moment until 30 August. You can get your tickets at Computicket and if I’m not mistaken weekends are sold out already! It’s worth taking in, especially if your kids are into dinosaurs. And like a good kiddies movie, there’s something in it for the adults as well.