When I was a small child, I loved dinosaurs. And when I say loved, I mean I had a pretty unhealthy infatuation with anything dinosaur. I wouldn’t stop talking about them to my second grade teacher, so to quiet me down she actually let me teach my classmates for an entire afternoon on the subject. Later on for halloween, my great aunt custom-made a dinosaur costume for me that included a giant tail, and paws for my feet and hands… which I may have worn regularly, outside of halloween, pretending I WAS a dinosaur until I was big enough to split the seams. If it was a dinosaur toy, I had it, and I knew the name of every great lizard. Luckily for me (and those concerned that I’d still be wearing that costume into my 30’s), I did grow out of that phase. But when I heard about Jurassic Quest coming to town, I couldn’t resist the lure to check it out.
If you haven’t heard of Jurassic Quest, don’t feel too bad; it’s never actually been in the state of Illinois before this past weekend. From the company’s website, they claim to be “the largest exhibition of life-size, moving, museum-quality dinosaurs in North America.” Seeing as how traveling dino shows are not the most plentiful thing these days I don’t have any way of validating that statement, but there was certainly a good amount to see. Held at the Fluid Event Center in Champaign from Friday afternoon until Sunday evening, admission was $13 for children (ages 2-12, children under 2 got in free), $18 for adults (ages 13-64), and $16 for seniors (ages 65 and up). Tickets included the main exhibit, a tour, and the crafts and science stations. If you purchased your child a VIP ticket ($22), you also had unlimited access to all the outdoor activities such as fossil digs, dinosaur rides, and a bunch of inflatables.
The entrance looked impressive, very reminiscent of the entrance to the park in the Jurassic Park movie. The first small hallway had a few animatronic dinosaurs and a fossil skeleton, but was not terribly impressive overall. When you get to the main room, however, things picked up. There were several dozen dinosaurs on display, and for the most part they generally seemed to be split up into groups based on the terror that they were capable of instilling- also known as plant eaters vs. meat eaters. You were greeted by the peaceful looking herbivores to begin with, however judging by the terrified screams of numerous small children it’s clear that any giant lizard can equate to a horrible monster, no matter how docile its features.
Along the sides were mixes of smaller and larger dinosaurs, and toward the back of the room were the true champions of the exhibit: your giant, it’s gonna run down your jeep so please go faster, terror-inducing creatures of nightmare. One thing that I did notice here was that it seemed like there were four Tyrannosaurus Rexes on display. The signs, which accompanied each dinosaur and displayed fun facts, definitely showed that they were not the same (I didn’t even know there was such as thing as Yutyrannus). Unfortunately, they all looked so similar that anyone not well-versed in Jurassic and Cretaceous archaeology probably never became the wiser.
It’s all fun and games until you have a Tyrannosaur up in your mix.
While there was definitely a variety of extinct lizards on display, it felt like there was a larger ratio of carnivores (big and small) throughout the show. Almost all of the exhibits moved in some way, usually just the head, mouth, and eyes, and there were plenty of growling and snarling sounds to be heard. While it didn’t give you the feeling like you were actually back in the primordial jungle, it was definitely better than a static display and the models were all pretty well detailed and put together.
Clean up your toys every day or…
The side room inside contained some activities for the children, where they had a chance to make a fossil of their own, dig through clay blocks for real fossil bones or gemstones to take home, or make and color your own paper dinosaur. While there were plenty of children here it was the outside that took the cake for fun activities.
Bounce houses, dino rides, bungee pulls, fossil digs, scooter rides; they had it all. All of these were definitely crowded, however when the baby dinosaurs came out the kids went nuts for a chance to get close and pet them. To be clear: they weren’t actual baby dinosaurs. I think. Each one had a handler that carried their tiny charge carefully, and instructed the children on how they could carefully pet the young prehistoric family member. Kids definitely had to be careful, because one moment they baby ‘saurs were shy and cuddly, the next they were looking for food- and tended to find it in the form of unsuspecting human fingers!
Don’t worry, he’s a plant eater; he only tastes fingers.
I visited on Sunday afternoon, and crowds were still strong the entire time, so I can only imagine how crazy things were on Friday or Saturday. Overall I don’t think it would be something that I would have gone to just by myself or with a friend to (re-)indulge in my childhood due to the ticket prices, however for an experience that a family would probably have only once or twice in a lifetime (especially when their children are at just that “right” age for this type of wonderment) it seemed like a better value than going to the movies or playing video games for an afternoon. Oh, and don’t worry, there were PLENTY of toys or other things that can be bought or begged over, so you’ll have a chance to take part of the experience home with you.
Jurassic Quest’s next stop is North Dakota, and it’s not clear when it will be coming back to Illinois. Keep an eye on their website, however, and if they do head back this way I’d suggest checking it out.