The Dinosaur Place

Great place for kids and adults. Splashpad is a good size but you must wear water shoes or sandals. If you forget to bring them, they do provide sandals but it’s a limited supply. It has a great maze not tough enough to make any kid cry. Dinosaur trail you walk on is fun. Kids have fun trying to find dinosaurs in the woods.

Just took my 6 year old today and it was like the park was made for him. We spent the whole day here. Yes the price is a bit high at $ 20/​person but I see this as a one time event. You can bring your own food and lots of picnic areas so that is a savings. Bring sneakers since there is plenty of walking.
Tip: I recommend skipping the small gift shop at the entrance and heading over to the shops next door. All the same stuff plus lots more to choose from and if your on a budget there are many more less expensive items to choose from.

There are things you just can’t find anywhere else. This is one of them, if you like to take your kids places where that are just for them. There are a lot of carnivals and theme parks but no place has as good a collection of life-​size dinosaurs. It’s a must see if you have kids.

We took our 4yr here today, she loved it. The splash pad was great, the play ground was really big. The bounce house was good more of a bounce slide. The trails were really cool the kids made a game out of finding the hidden dinosaurs. The only reason I held back the fifth star was the food. We ate at Monty’s munchies, we ordered the family pizza and nuggets. The pizza was undercooked and just really bad, same with the chicken nuggets they were cold. We did mention this to the staff they were really helpful and made us a new pizza unfortunately that didn’t help the pizza was just really bad. My advice pack a lunch, there were great shaded picnic areas.

Overpriced & not worth it. Children over 2 are charged the same as an adult, $ 20. There are Spring & Summer rates however the Summer rates kick in before Summer.

Brought my nephew here, he absolutely loves dinosaurs and enjoyed this park to the max. It was a nice trail walk and a great water park for the kids to play as well. We drove 2 ½ hours a a would do it again in a heartbeat to see my nephew smile from ear to ear again ! The park honor hero weekend for police, firefighter, EMT and military which got me in for free ! Wasn’t expected but enjoyed the free ticket

So we decided to venture out to the Dinosaur Place for a Sunday excursion as there were many positive reviews on Unilocal.My 6 year old loves dinosaurs, so we thought it would be a nice treat… The park is a few trails surrounding a lake and stream with hidden dinosaurs. There’s a learning opportunity as well as a chance for exercise. The dinosaurs are OK, but seem a bit run down from years of rain and snow. The volcano is also alright. It’s basically some thunder noises and steam. The playground and maze appear brand new and of great quality so that was a hit. The bathrooms are also very tidy. If you have a stroller, be prepared for some rough terrain, and I wouldn’t recommend flip flops as there’s quite a bit of walking. The price seems a bit steep to enter, but its worth going to at least once. Not really a place you would get a season pass to or go multiple times in a summer..

The kids do love it, but very pricey with loads of rules, some of which make no sense (shoes in the splash pad?). Your children will love it, parents will cringe at the price and, a few other annoying things (place shouldn’t be almost $ 100 for a family of 4. This isn’t 6 Flags).

A little expensive but still an amazing place to bring the kids. The place is packed with life-​like dinosaurs that should satisfy all Dino fans out there, big and small. They even have a small water park to cool off during the summer. Yet I thought the coolest thing was the animatronic dilophosaurus.

Let me start with I encourage a great, fun, exciting educational play place and this is a great concept, however it is missing the mark in areas. I will say it is a very clean place with beautiful grounds. BUT!!! It cost 2 adults and 1 child $ 60+ to walk a path, look at sculptures and play on a playground. If this place had some kind of walk through building with dino videos and artifacts it would give it a little more to fill hitting that mark.
The food is reasonable but your typical amusement park grub. We didn’t even step foot in the additional attractions building because of the high additional cost of the activities.
Now let me point out something trying to visit this place on a budget. The website screams at you that as of Sept. 2^nd fall pricing starts and it is a considerable drop in price. We opted to hold off a week to catch a deal on this place. When we got there on Sept 7^th we were charged Summer pricing because the Splash pad they have was open. Even though in multiple spots on the site it states the Splash pad closes Sept 1^st. So we drove over an hour to this place, were mislead by the site and didn’t bring any type of swim wear or a change of clothes for any of us because the site says the Splash pad was closed!
Maybe if a bit more was included I’d rate it higher but for a fraction of the cost I could have spent the day at the local zoo with a splash pad and gone for a nice hike close to home.

We found this place on while looking over the CT Dinosaur Trail pamphlet. We weren’t disappointed.
The cost for our family was $ 64 and change, which seems steep for entry until you compare to other amusement locations such as Lake Compounce which would have run us nearly double that price.
I recommend getting in early, as they close some of the attractions before the grounds close. For instance, the bounce house closed up at 4, we when we entered at 245 and walked around the park first, we missed out. The splash pad also closes earlier than the grounds at 5PM.
The dino walk is really fantastic. There is a good mix of dinos that are tucked up in the woods that are just for gawking and those that you can walk up to and pose for fun pictures. The selection of them is also a plus as you’re not looking at the same dino over and over again.
The playground is large and clean and well kept. They have three separate structures which have varying levels of age appropriateness.
There is a little snack bar and grill with the playground and splash pad. The splash pad itself was clean and pretty large compared to some others. The neat thing was that nearly all of the water spouts were some sort of dinosaur. My only comment was that, since everything was seemingly always on, rather than having rotating spouts with some amount of randomness and anticipation it got old quickly. Probably not worth the price if this is the only thing you plan on doing.
We didn’t get up to go through the maze but I can only imagine it was as clean, organized and entertaining as the rest of the park.
They have recently added one dinosaur that is animatronic. It looks exactly like a dino out of Jurassic Park, it’s pretty cool.
There is also some indoor stuff we didn’t get to look at, but probably will on our next visit.
Overall, I do recommend this for a day out. There are plenty of picnic tables to make day of the place with a nice picnic lunch.

This was our third visit to dinosaur place. Every time we visit it is very clean and the staff is very friendly. This time two coworkers went out of their way to cook two hotdogs for our young children in order to satisfy them even though the store had turned off the grill already. Way to go the extra mile.

I was reluctant because of the price. My son (9) was reluctant because he thought it was for babies. After being here for exactly 2 minutes, he was begging to come again. So far, we have spent 1 hour between the beautiful playground and great splash pad. Still tons to do!

This place was pretty awesome. Just enough college kids to make the grounds staffed, but not stifled. With that, my 3 year old LOVED the Dinosaur exhibits and the huge selection of «presents» in the gift shop. After the first trail, I think I was more excited than he was at the prospect of getting a solid 7 hours of sleep… but we ended our route at a playground built for 4 age groups and continued until they closed.
Not exactly daycare, but awesome if you actually like playing with your kid.

Let me just start by saying my daughter loves this place so much, (not really sure why) I think she could possibly be coerced into going here for a weekend instead of DisneyWorld. Okay, maybe a stretch, but seriously, this kid is into it!
Perhaps it is the oh-​so-​seductive Disney-​like gift store that you walk through to get to the «Discovery Zone» downstairs filled with all kinds of toys, games, stuffed animals, figurines, science games and projects, and glittery, sparkly stuff that makes your eyes pop out. I always resist spending money on the largely strange array of gifty weirdness that is up there but always steer them to the «Under $ 5» shelf (thank you… we appreciate that!) and they are happy enough.
But, if you manage to get out of there for under $ 100, I’d be surprised. I have two kids and while the downstairs «gem mining» and «gold prospecting» and «bone zone» are fun for the kids, it seems to me that it is better for the under 6 year old group. Realistic «mine» filled with sand with single 20 watt lightbulb hanging overhead is $ 13 for «a half hour» of time… don’t be fooled… it’s just 10 minutes, and yes, they set a timer, and 20 minutes out at the table where you can ID the rocks you’ve found. Really, once you’re at the table with your ¼ full bucket of rocks, you could really sit there endlessly… no one is going to kick you out unless there is a line around the block.
Gold prospecting is done in a real water feature coming out of the wall, but «gold» is just fools gold and you are also timed there. Understandable, but annoying when you’ve just shelled out a small fortune. Anyway, the outdoor walk around the dinosaurs is fun, the splashpad is great in summer, but we haven’t done that in years ’cause it’s just too crowded in the summer and expensive. Inside will run you about $ 25 per kid for any package of fun, outside is about $ 20 per kid for each splash pad and dinosaur trail.

It’s been a year since our last visit and I’ve forgotten just how much we enjoy this place. We noticed additional new dinosaurs throughout the park. I have to say, the dinosaur statues are truly beautiful works of art, amazing detail and placed nicely along the trails. The sprinkler park is well maintained, clean and has many chairs with umbrellas and tables for parents to rest and watch the kids play. Just a note, everyone have to wear shoes within the sprinkler area. They supply flip flops if you don’t come prepared, but our son wore his Crocs, which worked out well. The changing rooms are roomy and clean. In the summertime with beautiful weather, we could spend the entire day here!

My children had a blast here. They were super excited walking the path and had to have their photo taken with each dinosaur. The splash pad was great too and I even had fun with it. Although the price was steep as other reviews have said, it is still a good place to go as a special treat once in awhile. I would go again in the future.

I live near Nature’s Art so I’ve been there many times. When my girls were younger we had their BD parties there. Now that I look back, the parties were overpriced and not much fun. The trails in the back were pretty but again, VERY overpriced.
When I shop for gifts the older staff watches me as if I were a shoplifter. I’ve found the dark hair lady in the bead room knows very little about jewelry making and has been rude to me many times. While paying for my glass beads she told me she would never put glass beads in her jewelry. I’m done with the rude service and over priced gifts. I now have a new favorite shop in Niantic that sells beads, has classes, BD parties and they treat me like I am special. Good bye to NA.

Great place for the family. Big splash pad and playground. Good walking trails with life size dinosaurs.

If the Dinosaur Place was closer to home and a little less expensive it would have had a 5 star review.
I brought my two kids here as an end of the summer/​back to school adventure. We had a great time and will definitely return. The idea behind the Dinosaur Place fits what every elementary school boy dreams of: life sized dinosaurs, mazes, playgrounds and water parks!
We spent over 2 hours walking around reading and identifying all the dinos from long ago. The setting is perfect you are on a gravel path with trees all around you so it feels less cheesy then other places.
The spray park is great and very clean as well as a fun playground for the kids to climb around and get out what little energy is left before heading home. I would recommend that you do the hiking first as it is a decent distance and it would be a shame if you had to carry them through or worse yet listen to them whine about how tired they are.
We ate at the snack bar, nothing special, I think next time I will pack our lunch instead. October is national dinosaur month so we are planning a return trip to celebrate.