Dinosaur State Park

$ 6 bought me a little over 2 hours of entertainment. What a deal! This is a much smaller museum, not a lot of bells and whistles, and that’s ok! We walk through, see some real dinosaur tracks, press some buttons, flip some flaps (my daughter is too young to really learn, or care, but still had fun with the mechanics). There is a play room, where the kids play with puppets, look at fossils with a magnifying glass, color, play with the pit of mica, hit buttons to hear bird calls (did you know birds are considered surviving prehistoric creatures?!), look at a snake and a skink (which my daughter pronounced Skank… classic…)
There were 2 free crafts, each took about 1 minute (perfect, as far as I’m concerned), press this clay into the fossil mold, and press some dinosaur tracks onto this strip of neon paper for a nice book mark.
They played movies (One was 25 mins and educational… we got through about 90 seconds), and a 15 min. claymation video (which would have been better, but my daughter was all set with her previous experience).
They brought out a snake… the lady spoke about the snake but it way too long and dry… we snuck out of that as well, and went to play in the gift shop area, which is treated almost like another exhibit.
They have trails, which we didn’t get to explore, but we will next time.
Showed up at 2pm, place closes at 4pm… perfect excuse to leave… Get in the car!

I just bought a house less than 2 miles from here, so I was thrilled when I discovered how nice this park is! Even though it is a state park, you should really think of it as a small local park. It has some very nice nature trails and a small museum that is inexpensive to enter. My son is 3, so the dinosaur museum thrills him, but it’s not the sort of place you can spend hours and hours. We come here to get fresh air and have picnics. Love it!

Not impressed. It is not a bad place, but I expected more dinosaurs and thought there would be some on the trail. Still if you have kids that are interested in learning about dinosaurs, it is a great place to bring them.

There is not much to do here unless you are an outdoorsy person and really want to walk along the trails. I was hoping that there would be more to see and do inside of the main building. It is certainly educational but not exactly a fun excursion.

This is an interesting place to see about dinosaurs. It’s a good place to spend a few hrs and have a picnic. You can learn a lot here about them if u take your time and read things. My son found it amazing with the skeleton fossil they found of one. Who still had bones of what it had eating in it’s stomach. They have nice grounds will maintained and kept up. Loved that if you brought your own materials you could make a cast of an actual footprint to take home. If dinosaurs are not your thing then it’s not probably worth your time.

3 stars, ill dig up a Unilocal for ya
took the brood here on sunday for some family fun. nothing overwhelming, but certainly worth an hour or two of your day. the grounds are very well kept and the trails were also well maintained, but the actual dinosaur content? fishy…
i guess some construction company stumbled across some fossils of a bunch of minor dinos walking across a pond, which donest sound too exciting, well because, its not! i saw the cut out, the actual depiction of the situation, the place where it was found, the place where the place was going to be if the first place wasnt too placey… anyway, the history the whole thing, for 6 bucks for adults, under 6 free. all my kids are under 6, so, this was a bargain, but next year, no thanks, not worth that in my opinion.
they had some other peripheral things going on, crafts for the kids, you can dig for gems (extra$), some other things too, but as i was saying a couple of hours to see a 5 minute museum thing and a 40 minute trail walk was plenty.
roar.

Probably better for older kids… although my tween girl was not overly impressed, sorry to say. My preschooler liked pushing buttons in the exhibit center but was otherwise bored. We were in and out of here in under two hours. The outdoor trails are most likely nice in the Fall and any time other than a humid summer day.

We had a great day at Dinosaur Park — we did our homework before going and brought some supplies with us to make an actual footprint stepping stone using a real dinosaur footprint — this was the best souvenir ever!
There are some small trails around the park and the venue does offer a short movie — it is not a giant park — you can do it within a few hours or make more of it by bringing a picnic.

I have to say I like the park more than the interior museum. The museum has a gift shop and random dinosaur displays. There is even a room to watch films. To be clear, I am a fan of walking in flora and also hearing the insects and birds chirp. It is great to be in the fresh air and just surrounded by nature’s beauty. It is a wonderful spot to take to probably do yoga and meditate, or even just to walk around with the family or friends. It is huge and has many trails to choose from. I would come back to the park portion. It is quiet and nice.

This place is most likely just for kids, but I came because I like walking trails and I like dinosaurs. That being said I skipped the movie and whatever else they had for kids. But as for the little museum of dinosaur tracks… worst $ 6 I ever spent. It’s about the size of my living room and even the information plaques were boring. The walking trails were pretty ugly too, going through overgrown trees and swamps. No signs describing or pointing to the paths, which seemed to just be all over the place. Not what I expected at all.

A nice 2 – 3 hour distraction for kids. Lots of fun, one of those fun little treasures that deserves support. College kids run the place but they are well organized, professional and very nice! Would definitely come again.

When we visited this park, my daughter at the time was 5 yrs old and she was not too impressed by it. I liked it — I think they did a good job with providing some history and artifacts about the park and dinosaurs. There’s a little hiking trail as well — Something pleasant to do on a quiet warm afternoon. Super cheap to get in

Have curious kids? then this is a must do.

This place is not great. It is good enough to spend 2 — 3 hours. We entered at 2 PM, exactly then, a 15 minutes Dinosaur movie started. The movie is very entertaining. The kids will love it. The rest of the visitor center is just OK. There is an exploration room for kids where they can look at the fossils, some mineral rocks, play with good amount of puzzles, make some drawings and such. The gift shop is surprisingly not pricey (as many places). The nature trails outside are small and good. There will be guided tours quite often in a day.
I gave it a 4 star because, for the price ($ 6 for 13+ and $ 2 for 6+), this place is good. If you are expecting something like a Natural History museum, this is not the place. If you are expecting to spend 1 entire day, this is not the place. It is good. Not great.
We visited on the labor day weekend in 2011 and they were offering free entry!
I would recommend anyone to visit this place. But, with right expectations.

My son has been obsessed with Dinosaurs since he was 2 years old. The first time we visited Dinosaur State Park, I was expecting much more… I had grown up visiting the Peabody in New Haven, CT. But over the years, I have learned to truly appreciate the things that this park has to offer through my son’s eyes (he’s 4−½ now).
Upon entering, the sidewalk has a timeline embedded in it and painted dinosaur tracks lead you to the exhibit center. You’ll enter through the gift shop (surprise, surprise) before exploring the indoor exhibits. My son and I watched a movie during our last visit which explained that the exhibit center was simply built upon the dinosaur tracks that were discovered here… wow! I have to admit, the movie was a bit lame… looked homemade. Anyhow, there is a craft room with long tables, animals in tanks (bearded dragon, skink, etc.), toys & puzzles, animal skeletons, etc. When we’re done with the exhibit center, we move outside to the casting area and check out what people have made (plaster castings of dino footprints). We’ve never participated in this project, it’s messy and the circular castings appear to be at least 2 inches thick and 1 foot wide (heavy). I believe the entire process takes approx. 45 minutes. Kids can also participate in a «Mining for Gems and Fossils» activity at an extra cost. Then, we move onto the butterfly garden and trails. You could easily spend ½ hour walking through the trails… we always hear the frogs singing to each other. Just make sure you wear bug spray, it’s quite swampy.
Note: The footprint castings are open daily from May 1 to October 31 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. There is no fee to use this area but PARK GUESTS MUST BRING THEIR OWN MATERIALS. You’ll need:
— 10 pounds of Plaster-​of-​Paris (no substitutions)
— ¼ cup cooking oil
— Five gallon bucket
— Cloth rags and paper towels
Under the age of 6 years: admitted free, kids ages 6 – 12: $ 2.00, adults: $ 6.00, parking is free. Many local libraries offer passes/​discounts to this park also.

Some
very
big
feet
Dinosaur State Park has one of the largest collection of dinosaur tracks in the world. About 2,000 were originally found but most were reburied and about 500 or so placed under a neat looking geodesic dome where the exhibitions are located.
The tracks are from the early Triassic period about 200 million years ago so they are not from the really huge later dinosaurs. Most of these guys were very bird like and a model of one of the largest, Dilophosaurus, is displayed. He’s not a T-​Rex but still pretty cool. Other displays and a great painting are also present. Of course the ubiquitous gift shop is present so you can lighten your wallet on dino stuff.
The outside of the the park has a nice arboretum and about 2 miles of hiking trails. It’s a pleasant and educational place but I have always had the feeling they could do something to make it a bit more interesting.