The UK's best days out for dinosaur-obsessed kids
What is it about dinosaurs? In our very earliest years, we get familiar with these prehistoric reptiles and I'd be willing to wager that more UK pre-schoolers can identify a T-Rex than even a ladybird or caterpillar. Move on to primary school, and you'll find the kids confidently asserting the differences between a stegosaurus and a triceratops, and any farm park or theme park offering the chance to see these beasts in all their life-sized glory becomes a sure-fire hit.
Fortunately, throughout most the UK you can barely swing a cuddly diplodocus without hitting a dinosaur-themed attraction. Here we have everything from dinoland walk-throughs, packed with animatronics and fun photo opportunities, to world-leading museums home to one-of-a-kind fossils and complete dinosaur skeletons. Not to mention the UK's fossil-hunting hotspots, located along our wiggling, crumbly coastline and offering the chance to find ammonites, shark teeth and even dino bones.
So, where to start? Here's our pick of the best UK days out for dinosaur-obsessed kids.
Fossil-hunting
Jurassic Coast
Dorset
The rocky cliffs around the town of Lyme Regis on the Dorset coast are perhaps the most famous UK fossil-hunting hotspot. This was the stomping ground of world-renowned 19 th -century palaeontologist Mary Anning, who discovered the complete skeleton of a plesiosaurus here, and today yields relatively easy finds of Jurassic ammonites and belemnites. The best time to search is after a winter storm and the best places are the beaches of East Cliff Bay and Monmonth. To really get to grips with the landscape, book a guided fossil walk with Lyme Regis Museum, which last around three hours and include museum entry (adult £16.75, child £12.75, under 4s free, lymeregismuseum.co.uk).
The Alexandra Hotel (01297 442010, hotelalexandra.co.uk) has double rooms from £215 per night, including breakfast.
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is one of the UK's richest fossil sites, with fossils not only from a diverse range of dinosaurs but also the likes of crocodiles, turtles and flying reptiles regularly discovered along the coastline here. The kids will be wowed by a walk along the sands at Compton Bay, spotting dinosaur footprints scattered along the coast and maybe even winkling out a fossil or two themselves. To up your chances of a find head out with Wight Coast Fossils, island-born experts who lead hour-long walks along the beach, explaining the geology and helping families find their own fossilised bones and teeth (adult £5, child £3, wightcoastfossils.co.uk).
The Albion (01983 755755, albionhotel.co.uk) has double rooms from £140 per night, including breakfast.
Isle of Skye
Scotland
Skye is unrivalled in Scotland for Jurassic fossils, with the beaches of Elgol on the Strathaird peninsula and An Corran on the Trotternish peninsula particularly fruitful places for a hunt. Call in to the small family-run Staffin Dinosaur Museum near An Corran for tips on what to look for, then head out onto the sands at low tide to see dinosaur footprints on the flat rocks (adult £5, child free). On Trotternish's western coast, older kids will love scrambling over the windswept rocks of Prince Charles's Point to check out Skye's newest discovery – a series of some 130 mid-Jurassic-era footprints made by a mix of carnivorous theropods and plant-eating sauropods.
The Cowshed Boutique Bunkhouse (07917 536 820, skyecowshed.co.uk) has self-catering pods sleeping four from £80 per night.
What to look out for
Theme Parks
ROARR!
Lenwade, Norfolk
The UK's largest dino-focused theme park has more than 25 rides and attractions, from the Raptor Contraptor carousel, which promises to have kids soaring like a pterodactyl, to the Swing-o-Saurus swingboat ride. Fill your day here with Jurassic-themed crazy golf, digging in the sand pit for dino remains, getting soaked in the splash park and tackling the high ropes course. Much of the park is aimed at kids around 4-10 but toddlers will love the interactive walls and floor games at Dino-Ville and clambering up through pterodactyl's treehouse, plus there's a section of the soft play area just for them.
Adult: £12.95
Child: £12.95 (or free under 90cm height)
Contact: roarr.co.uk
Wensum Valley Hotel (01603 261012, wensumvalleyhotel.co.uk) has double rooms from £85 room only per night.
Gulliver's Dinosaur and Farm Park
Milton Keynes
Get up close to life-sized Jurassic-era favourites in the Lost World of the Living Dinosaurs at this laidback family farm park. You'll take a boat around the dino enclosure, spotting the likes of diplodocus and T-Rex and can even ride your very own triceratops at the Dinosaur Rodeo. Kids over 90cm in height can also scale the Jurassic climbing wall, while those keen on living reptiles can meet snakes and lizards at the Reptile and Bug Centre. The rest of the park features farmyard animals (ponies, llamas, goats) and classic farm park fare such as tractor rides and mini diggers.
Adult: £11
Child: £11 (or free under 90cm height)
Contact: dinoandfarmpark.co.uk
Horwood House (01296 722100, horwoodhouse.co.uk) has double rooms from £79 room only per night.
Dinosaur World, Ralph Court
Herefordshire
Are your kids brave enough to come face to face with a full-size T-Rex? Deep in the gardens of Ralph Court, life-size animatronic dinos with beastly roars – including T-Rex, velociraptors and brachiosaurus – stand ready to greet families brave enough to enter through the dino's mouth gateway. During school holidays you might even encounter a 'live' dinosaur and its keeper walking the gardens, while the most enticing of the many photo ops is the new T-Rex jeep experience, where a six-metre, tooth-baring dinosaur rushes towards you as you sit in a bright red jeep.
The Abbey Hotel in Great Malvern (01684 892 332, sarova-abbeyhotel.com) has double rooms from £129 per night, breakfast included.
Fort Evergreen
Warrenpoint, Co Down, Northern Ireland
Small, family-run and utterly charming, Fort Evergreen offers a packed day out for young families. Head off along the Jurassic Walk first, to meet life-sized all-moving, all-roaring dinosaurs including the large meat-eating spinosaurus, small but vicious-looking velociraptor and instantly-recognisable triceratops. Then get stuck into the Dino Dig, where the kids can turn palaeontologist and unearth fossils from a mighty T-Rex in the sand. There's also a vast soft play here (particularly great for under 3s) and plenty of modern-day animals such as fallow deer, donkeys and alpacas, as well as a giant wooden fort decked out with rope bridges, climbing walls, tunnels and swings.
The Rostrevor Inn (028 4173 9911, therostrevorinn.com) has double rooms from £100 per night, breakfast included.
Museums
Natural History Museum
London
This renowned museum is home to one of the world's most important dinosaur collections and is ideal for older kids seeking to go deeper on all things dino. Here they can see part of the first T-Rex skeleton ever discovered, the first iguanodon skeleton known to science and the skull of a plant-eating triceratops, among hundreds of other incredible exhibits. With dino-obsessed children aged seven and above it's worth booking the out of hours tour, which gets you in to the gallery at 9am for an exclusive tour with a guide who can answer all their burning questions (adult £25, child £17), while the Dino Snores for Kids lets those aged 7-11 (and their families) explore the museum by torchlight and participate in interactive activities with palaeontologists before sleeping over with the dinosaurs (£85pp).
Free entry
Contact: nhm.ac.uk/visit
The Queen's Gate Hotel (020 7584 7222, thequeensgatehotel.com) has double rooms from £170 per night, breakfast included.
Dinosaur Isle
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is fertile fossil-hunting ground, with the most complete dinosaur discovered in the UK in the last 100 years found here at Compton Bay – and now on display in this family-friendly museum set above the beach in Sandown. The collection here is vast, featuring some 40,000 specimens, all of them discovered right on the island, and includes everything from elephant tusks to alligator teeth. You'll also encounter life-sized animatronics of the island's five most famous dinos: neovenator, eotyrannus, iguanodon, hypsilophodon and polacanthus, and there's always a qualified palaeontologist on hand to answer all your questions.
The Royal Hotel (01983 852186, royalhoteliow.co.uk) has double rooms from £146 per night, including breakfast.
Stone Science Museum
Anglesey
This family-owned museum is home to one of the largest fossil collections in Wales and with children encouraged to touch many of the exhibits, makes for a relaxed intro to palaeontology. It's all the private collection of owner and geologist Dave Wilson and kids can touch a dinosaur egg, teeth and even poo. There are also life-sized reconstructions of parts of dinosaurs set throughout the two floors of the museum as well as dioramas showing how the earth developed and how dinosaurs evolved to help make sense of it all. The shop is also worth a visit, for fossils, minerals and crystals you can start your own collection with.
The Trearddur Bay Hotel (01407 860301, trearddurbayhotel.co.uk) has double rooms from £85 room-only per night.
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