Robotic Dinosaur Museum

We stopped by the Cabazon Dinosaurs to check out the dinosaurs that we saw in the Pee Wee Herman movie and it was okay. The dinosaurs are really cool, but, all in all, this is a stop best for families with small children. I was bummed that some of the best dinos weren’t turned on and it was kinda cheesy to see christmas decorations thrown in there, but, as I said, this is definitely the place for families. All of the employees were friendly and the stock of toys and science kits was good.

Museum is part of your entrance into this little dinosaur park. Robotic moving dinosaurs were okay, nothing too exciting. Highlight was the Knight on horseback which looked to be attempting to slay some little dinosaurs. Not sure how that really fit into the theme of the museum, but yet it was there. They did have a couple cavemen set up, which looked more era appropriate.
Lots of dinosaur souvenirs, but none to appealing. My 5 year olds was the only one to find something she liked, which was a small plush dino for $ 2.50. Most of the other items appeared to be overpriced for what it was.
They did have a penny machine which we are always on the lookout for. The worker dude at the register was friendly and helpful. And… that was about it.

Historic road side attractions that you don’t see anymore. It’s a great spot to stop and stretch out your legs and geek out if your a Pee Wee Herman fan.
A lot of people just stop and take pictures of the two dinosaurs but if you don’t mind paying $ 8.95 for an adult you can see much more.
There’s more dinosaurs inside and you get to climb inside the T-​Rex and look out its mouth. Overall it’s a great place to stop and check out.

Let me just say that I haven’t been INSIDE the museum yet, because it was going to close. When we eventually make our way over there, I will update this review.
My husband and I were on our way from Palm Springs and just 10 minutes within our commute, I spotted this giant dinosaur smiling and overlooking the freeway. My husband loves dinosaurs so I yelled «dinosaur!» and in an instant he was like a little kid.“where? where?!” I pointed and like a mad man he immediately pulled over. You can’t miss it folks, and yes it IS that accessible. We drove into the (small) parking lot and my husband took out his fancy camera.
Lots of tourists pulled over to take tons of pics. There were 2 big dinosaurs outside the museum so you can easily take pics and stay as long as you want! Pretty cool site to see, especially that we were 80s kids and recognized it from PeeWee’s Big Adventure and The Wizard. Can’t wait to see the museum! Will be back!

If you have kids who love dinosaurs & need a place to stop & stretch your legs, this is a good, cheap (er) way to do it. Otherwise, everything seemed pretty old & outdated. Some of the robotic dinosaurs were no longer functioning. It was cool to visit once, but that was enough. Honestly, I was hoping for a bit more.

It’s definitely interesting. And I think it would’ve been more fun if it wasn’t so dang hot or historically inaccurate. It’s not really a museum. It’s $ 7.95 for adults and inside you get to wash some rocks, pan for fossils, look at dinosaurs with the most bizarre expressions, and get sprayed by ill functioning mist-​ers. The inside of the T-​Rex is pretty scary. Not in the gory bloody way but the omg I’m going to die way.

Something different, good priced with food nearby. Great for younger kids, my 9 year old loved it.

Cheap fun entertainment took my 9 year old daughter who likes dinosaurs and she had fun running around and exploring. To an adult it’s kind of cheese but to kids it’s awsome. After reading a few reviews I had to laugh at no point was a religious or creationist opinion pushed on us. The dinosaurs are there for kids to have fun and see something cool on a very boring road. Don’t read to much into things people its a place designed to stretch and keep little kids amazed at the wonders around you. I mean come on I’m pretty sure my daughter did not think she was really going to be eaten by these creatures but she still made it look that way!

+I don’t care what their agenda is, this place is a cool must stop attraction.
+Yeah, it’s sort of corny and some of the dinosaurs are busted, but it just adds to the charm.
+Worth it just to climb inside the world famous Pee Wee Herman T-​Rex.
+I wanted to buy a bag of dinosaurs in the gift shop, but it had three different prices.
+Stop here and enjoy it. I feel sorry for people who can’t tolerate other people’s views and have that stop them from reveling in some simple joys in life.

CREATIONIST MUSEUM, DON’T GO.
Just about most of the people who gave this place 5 stars did not even pay to go inside and visit the «Museum». Worst of all, most people don’t even know this is a creationist museum: aka a museum which teaches the idea that dinosaurs lived only 1000 years ago among humans, something that many Christian fundamentalist believe. Also worst of all, the museums DOES NOT tell you this before you pay to enter, something which I think should be ILLEGAL.
The subtle cross outside the entrance should be a slight clue to what you would find inside, for example, a display which features a knight on a horse jousting with a dinosaur. This «Exhibit» presents the idea that Dinosaurs used to be called Dragons and lived among knights and people in the medieval ages.
There’s also a cheap sign inside the Tyrannosaurs building which insists that Dinosaurs are still alive today and that the «Loch Ness monster» is a living dinosaur.
Most of the displays here are pure sudo-​science and have little to no scientific fact behind them.
The outside area features cheap looking faded dinosaur statues standing next to modern day animals such as sheep and lions. There’s also a «Pan-​for-​rocks» area which doesn’t offer anything exciting or worth while to pan for.
Even if you do believe in the bible and creationism, this museums does not present these ideas very well, and the entire place looks like a cheap tacky tourist trap. NOT worth spending $ 8 per person for.
Stop by and take pictures with the gigantic Dinosaur buildings if you must, but ONLY do that, DO NOT pay to visit this place, it’s an ideological tourist trap.

Pretty small but very entertaining for the kids. It is educational too. I like that you are able to go into the huge dinosaur (it’s a store). Nothing really worth buying but… kids go crazy for toys. This place is AOK.

Kitschy. I think this defines this place to a tee.
Parking is pretty easy. It’s the desert. Lots of land to build on top of.
Follow the arrows to get to the ticketmaster. Buy your tickets. Go through the gate and into the «cave» and watch the one-​minute video of what to do. Of course, it’s so dark that I kinda didn’t see the dinosaur prints to go out the door and we went straight into the gift shop instead. Oh well.
Saw a few things that I thought were kinda cute/​fun. I used to be fascinated by dinos when I was a kid, so it was a nice feeling to be in the store. They still have a penny machine, but it only stamps out one design. Eventually we left the store to start viewing the robotic dinosaurs in the lot.
So, one of the places that you see when you walk out of the «cave» is the Dino Dig. You basically go in, fish around for a gigantic rock, and the gigantic rock should describe a dinosaur. The rock will also say to bring the rock back to the «cave» for a prize! Only one prize per child. And, apparently, there’s no age limit on the child, as my bf (who’s past 25) was able to get one.
As a note, we were the only ones here (it was a Thursday morning), so it was kind of fun to be by ourselves and have the entire place to ourselves. But we basically walked around, I took tons of pictures of each dinosaur, and the bf would walk/​run ahead of me because he’s still a kid at heart and was having a great time.
I liked going up onto the T-​Rex and having a view through his teeth to see Dinny (the other huge dinosaur in the lot). It was kind of stinky in the T-​Rex, and the stairs were TINY when going up and down the T-​Rex, but it was worth it.
There’s a small little hut that explains a lot about God’s plan and dinosaurs and Creationism. Took pictures in there too.
As a note to parents: this place has a lot of Christian references and God’s plan and Evolution is fake and Darwin was stupid and just a variety of «Christians are #1». Just wanted to let you know before you come on over. Also, there are plenty of lions lying next to the robotic dinosaurs, or lambs lying next to the dinosaurs.
So, this place is entertaining enough. I had a good childhood from when my dad brought me here. Dinny wasn’t open, though, so that was disappointing. But I think I only had a good time because my bf was around to entertain me with his antics. For the most part, I don’t know if I’d come back by myself. I may come back with certain friends, but I wouldn’t go here if it was out of my way.

Reviewer bias: unhealthy obsession with dinosaurs since an early age, weird roadside attractions.
THIS PLACE IS AWESOME.
I think I might’ve been to see the Cabazon dinosaurs once before, probably during some family car trip, and I remembered very little. I know for sure that I had never been to this Robo-​Dino outdoor museum.
We bought our tickets inside the giant Apatosaurus and headed on back to the entrance. Keep in mind, this is all in 100-​degree-​plus temps. A woman took our tickets and had us step inside to watch a short one minute video, at which point we entered the gift shop (first? OK…). They’ve got some animatronic dinos in there, including a WTF room that had velociraptors, an alligator, a baby chimp, and a knight in full armor on a white horse. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.
Once outside, we followed the beaten path to check out the dinosaurs, most of which were not very animated. I’m not sure if they’re normally all static, or if this was just a response to the heat. Either way, I thought it was cool as hell. The massive Spinosaurus that greeted us at the entrance had a limp dorsal spine fin that looked downright sad.
In fact, quite a few had droopy parts thanks to the soaring temps. I particularly loved the T. Rex, whose eyes are so close together it looks like someone pinched him between the eyes while he was being made. It’s unintentionally hilarious.
After checking out the big beasts, we headed up to the famous T. Rex (from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure) so we could sit inside his mouth and take some pics. Not that I didn’t know this already, but the shots of Pee Wee and Simone sitting inside his mouth were done on a set, a fact that will be obvious to anyone once you see there’s simply no room for seating inside his mouth. Being up there was awesome, though. Be warned: it’s a tight fit at the top. If you get claustrophobic, just don’t go.
Let’s talk about the signs around here. Unless you hate reading and/​or learning, you likely read at least one large sign proclaiming that man lived alongside dinosaurs, God is the eternal creator, evolution is wrong, blah, blah, blah. I wasn’t put off or offended by them in the least. In fact, I found it to be fucking hilarious. If whoever runs this place wants to espouse their beliefs, go for it. I think it’s stupid as hell to be a creationist, but if they want to post inane rhetoric for my own amusement, I won’t complain.

I may be giving it one too many stars because I am a huge dinosaur fanatic. This was one of my favorite places from my childhood, which is why I had to pay another visit. The original apatosaurus and tyrannosaurus still stand tall on the site. Now, they are accompanied by more dinosaur statues and animatronic dinosaurs in an adjacent gift shop. For $ 7 per adult, it is worth a look. One visit is all you really need and the whole attraction will take you no more than 1 hour to see.
Be warned, the dinosaurs are owned by a local church that is quite adamant about spreading their religion. That is great if you are a fanatical Christian. The rest of us can only laugh at the absurdity of it all. There are signs all over the property that discredits genetics, denies the existence of human ancestor fossils, and claim that early humans and Jesus rode on dinosaurs.

I love dinosaurs and so when I was headed to Palm Springs and saw a billboard for a Robotics Dinosaur Museum, I was like, ”Heck yeah!!”
They have two cool large dinosaurs that you can climb in all the way to the top. I am giving this place a star for that because who doesn’t want to look out of a dinosaur’s mouth? Another star for the outdoor section of dinosaurs. The large dinosaurs couldn’t have been cheap, so a star for that, too.
So what’s not to like? Well…
1) The robotics are pathetic. It’s a few dinosaurs in the gift shop that kinda move, if they move at all. They don’t have a wide range of motion, and one even looks like he has Tourettes. The LA County Fair had a dinosaur exhibit the last two years I’ve been, and that blew this entire Robotic Dinosaur Museum out of the water.
2) There’s an exhibit with a KNIGHT — yes, that’s right, a knight — on his white steed battling a dinosaur. I was confused. Then I noticed another exhibit with a cave man and cave woman standing next to a dinosaur. I now know from all the flyers/​posters they have hanging everywhere that they believe dinosaurs and man co-​existed (created on the same day as Adam and Eve). Uh, ok. I should also add saying they’re «exhibits» is too kind. Basically it’s just a bunch of dinosaur figures standing all around the gift shop that are just segmented off from one another. You can see the whole thing in 5 minutes. BTW, this is the so-​called «cave».
3) The outdoor garden section with the larger dinosaurs (non-​robotic) is nice but they added weird stuff in the garden with the dinosaurs. Like a regular garden turtle — the kind grandmas put into their backyards. Oh, and a montage of a lion, snake, lamb… and dinosaur! It just seemed random.
The bottom line:
Listen, if you don’t mind getting a Creationist view on things (or if that’s your belief), this place would be awesome. If you believe in evolution, bring your blood pressure meds or just don’t come — and really, you wouldn’t be missing out on anything. The pictures are actually cooler than going there.

For $ 7 per adult, you can be spoon-​fed their own personal brand of information that «proves» dinosaurs aren’t as old as we think (since they show up in cultural art like on Native American blankets and in the Chinese zodiac and because carbon dating is bunk), that they are not evolutionarily linked with birds, and that true «logical deduction» is the acceptance and belief that «it is rational … that God, not unknown events, created all life forms after their kind.»
I’m not even going to break any of that apart. I was only in this to finally get inside Claude Bell’s tyrannosaur’s head, if only to get a picture of Dinny that looked like this:
As I said, I’m not going to dissect their take on science, but this review will more center on this attraction’s quality and appeal as roadside Americana.
You enter through the «cave,» watch their 1-​minute video about the park, and you’re in the gift shop which is the only place you can actually see «robotic» dinosaurs. Most of them have motion sensors, so they’ll only move when someone’s walking by to check them out. Their animation is slightly better than a 25-​cent horse or rocketship ride in front of a grocery store. Heads turn, eyes occasionally blink, mouths open (this one chews on a plushie:
), but for most it’s a struggle as they squeak and lurch. Couldn’t help but think about the Knott’s Berry Farm dinosaur ride.
None of the dinosaurs in the outdoor area move, but many are glorified lawn ornaments, built for entertainment and shock value as opposed to scientific accuracy or to scale. Not only that, you’ll see the SAME statues over and over again. Many of them are faded with pieces cracked or broken off. Found this one hidden behind some thick brush:
They’ve removed the Crusader entirely. Didn’t see him anywhere, let alone battling a T-​Rex. The army man, that was apparently beside a dino in the jungles of Vietnam was standing by himself in the middle of the park with a makeshift sign that read «Pray for our soldiers.» However, they’ve still got a knight about to lance himself a robotic dinosaur, in the gift shop:
As for sticking in creatures that evolutionists would say don’t belong, there will just randomly be a lion here or there — be it attacking or just lounging around with dinosaurs on the prowl (photo:
).
As previously mentioned, the real capstone of the «museum» is the opportunity to go inside Rex and look out from his mouth like Pee-​Wee Herman tracking down his stolen bicycle. You go up two regular flights of stairs and then a very narrow, ladder-​like spiral staircase up to the head. If you’re claustrophobic or afraid of heights, this might be a challenge to your tolerance level. A grill separates you from Rex’s teeth, so you can’t touch them or reach outside.
Without the chance to finally get inside this piece of roadside attraction history, I’m not sure if I could justify spending anything for this let alone $ 7 per person. Still, it’s pretty cheesy and we got a laugh out of it. In the future, I’ll just visit Dinny.

This place was not part of the plan, but my friend decided to pull off the freeway so we could visit.
For $ 6.95 we were given admission to the cheesiest, smallest «museum» if you can really call it that, which we walked in less than 10 minutes. She climbed to the top of the T-​Rex, I opted not to.
I bet if we had some kids with us, they would have enjoyed it, but for two grown ladies, this place was pretty lame! If it was free admission, I probably would have given it 3 stars.

This place is just okay. We paid $ 5 each to go into the place, which was discounted because we walked in so late in the evening. We went through the gift shop and looked at the poorly moving dinosaurs and then went outside to venture around the lot.
They have a bunch of different dinosaurs which was fun. It was almost like walking through a museum of plastic. We also climbed to the top of the t-​rex, which was kind of fun, because we made it fun.
I would say, if you have a good sense of humor and want to take a 30min to 1 hour break, stop by. The place is literally off the freeway, and is pretty cheap to go in and venture around. I would NOT though, recommend going there multiple times.

This is one of my favorite destinations when I am on my way out to Joshua Tree National Park. If you look beyond the ridiculousness of the underlying fundamentalist nonsense that is the reason for the existence of this place, it quickly becomes an endearing piece of must-​see desert kitchiness.
As a California native, I still remember when all that was here were the two large dinosaurs and the neighboring restaurant (you can see them in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure). With the newly added Robotic Dinosaur «Museum», you now have 4 times as many photo ops with your friends! Such a strange place, but it is always fun if you take it for what it is… super lame, super cheesy, and a lasting part of road trip Americana.
If you don’t feel like springing for the $ 7 to walk through the exhibit (and ultimately walk up inside the head of the T-​rex!), you can still stop by and check out the big dinos from outside the museum.

We always drove by the ‘dinosaur’ on the way back from palm springs and 30 years later I got the opportunity to go in with my kids… Truly its a campy fun place, and a must visit for families with small kids.
The first thing you see is the big bronto, which you enter near the tail and climb up some stairs through its belly to find a gift shop. Its got the typical plastic junk that kids like, along with some fossils, but while you are there you buy tickets to the robotic museam in the back.
The one thing that Diego N. (previous author) stated is exactly true. Im not sure if their are Creationists or whatever but there is constantly a video playing above talking about creationism and what ‘christ’ was doing the day before the crusifixion… I had to do a double take the 2^nd time around the shelves, and it kinda struck me as strange also.
The Robotic museaum in the back is a bit more immersive and more about the Dino’s. There are 3 10 foot high robotic dino’s that you can ridge (the don’t move more than at the midsection) which my young kids just loved. Again a lot of plasticy kind of stuff but there is a diorama in he facility with all sorts of other dinos.
Once you go outside, there are several full sized creatures, which are made out of a metal exoskeleton and some sort of rubberized outsize, which are pretty impressive. There are other activities like panning for gold and digging for rocks, and a rock garden displaying other varieties of dinosaurs.
When you get to the end though, there is a gigantic trex, probably 60 feet high, which you go inside, and actually look out onto the freeway through his teeth. That was pretty neat.
Anyway, great for fam’s with kids.