My daughters’ love for dinosaurs led us to The Dinosaur Park, Tenby, South Wales.
We arrived at The Dinosaur Park around 10.30am and the park and entrance queues were already starting to get busy.
As you walk through the main entrance (which houses the gift shop selling lots of dinosaur related merchandise and a café), there is a welcome sign highlighting where the attractions are located at the park.
The children started their day with a visit to the indoor play area called ‘Dino’s Den’ which was a great start. There was a large red tube slide that went outside the building which the girls thought was fantastic fun.
However it took a lot of coaxing from her older sister to get my younger daughter to go on the slide. Being brave, she finally went down it and once she did, this broke the ice and she was keen to try out more adventurous rides on offer at The Dinosaur Park.
Next to the indoor play was Frisbee Golf. This is a good family activity to try. You need to get a frisbee into a basketball net, which is a simple attraction but great fun for all. The diversity of attractions on offer was what I thought was appealing about The Dinosaur Park. There was also a children’s play park which was quiet at the start of our visit.
The next attraction that caught my children’s eye was the super jumper bungee trampolines. Having a trampoline in their garden was no match for this trampoline. They got strapped in and had such a fabulous time bouncing as high as they could when pretending to be power puff girls.
We next ventured onto Le Dino Circuit a small racing track, which has mini go karts speeding around the circuit. There was a minimum height requirement of 1.20 metres to ride alone or you had to be supervised by an adult.
Grasping the opportunity to pretend to be a Formula 1 driver my husband quickly volunteered to take our youngest around the track. They were given their helmets had a quick safety briefing and then they thoroughly enjoyed racing their Daddy around the circuit.
We enjoyed a family walk through the Dinosaur Trail which is set in beautiful woodland.
Here you see around 30 life sized dinosaurs complete with their sounds.
It is very educational with information boards about each type of dinosaur found, such as how long ago they lived, where they lived etc.
My youngest daughter was more concerned when looking at the information boards if the dinosaurs ate plants or people!
We enjoyed looking for the giant dinosaurs and the girls pretended to be dino explorers. It was a lovely 20 minute walk away from the crowds of the main park.
A little word of warning, be careful of the last dinosaur as he may spit water at you!
The children could test their driving skills on the 4×4 off roaders (which they had done before at the nearby Heatherton Park) so once they had seen this at The Dinosaur Park, they were really excited to get behind the wheel again.
There were no queues for either the Disco Boats (which were inflatable motorised boats that spin around in the water and made mummy dizzy) or Dino Cross Bow Archery. My husband and I enjoyed this too, bringing out both our competitive sides!
Another simple attraction but one that my younger daughter especially enjoyed was the Astra Slide, where she went shooting down the wavy slide in a hessian sack.
Our favourite attraction by far during our visit was the Tubey Run. This is a ride that all the family can enjoy in which you ride in a speeding inflatable tube with a slick plastic bottom down a ski slope!
It was lovely to see so many families enjoying and you could hear by the laughter and screams from the children as they sped down the hillside.
They enjoyed it so much they made the climb back to the top of the hill at least 10 times, and that’s before I stopped counting!
The Dinosaur Safari is located at the entrance to the park. The first safari starts at 12.30pm and runs every 5 to 10 minutes until 3.30pm. We were excited to try out the dinosaur safari, which is new for 2016.
This is a five-minute journey through the woods on a seven-seater golf buggy. Our tour guide Wayne was a great asset to the ride and made it very engaging for everyone on board.
He stopped at each dinosaur along the safari to let the children know some interesting facts along with some humour.
The woodland is home to various baby dinosaurs, which are, according to our tour guide, just getting used to people before they move to the main dinosaur trail.
The children were caught up in the moment during our dino safari journey and they enjoyed the fact that the dinosaurs moved and roared which was a nice touch and was fun for the children. The only criticism I have is that because the safari is so popular there was a long queue. We had to wait for around 25 minutes due to the safari buggy only being able to accommodate 7 people on each journey. There is a need for a second buggy to operate at the same time to reduce the wait times and allow families to spend more time exploring what the park has to offer.
Located next to the Jurassic Journey safari is the Amphitheatre which has a twice-daily fossil hunt at 11.15 am and 3.30pm. There were also some fun and game activities in this area.
We visited the park during the summer school holidays and although there were some queues, which is to be expected at this time of year, the children enjoyed many activities during our visit.
The busiest attractions during our visit were the Water Bubbles, Jurassic Journey Safari, Tubey Run and Superjumper Trampolines. Due to the length of the queue the girls unfortunately did not have a chance to walk on water on the water bubbles. It looked a really fun attraction but very difficult to stand up!
There was a 12 hole dinosaur themed adventure golf course, which we didn’t play on because we ran out of time, but certainly looked fun and something that we would do on our next visit.
The park is suitable for children of all ages and can accommodate both pushchairs and wheelchairs.
The majority of The Dinosaur Park attractions are outdoor, so it’s more suitable for a dry day during the summer months, as it won’t be as enjoyable in the rain. However there is an indoor play area called Dino’s Den which has soft play areas for toddlers and the hard play area for older children.
Facilities at The Dinosaur Park include a dinosaur restaurant that caters for children, refreshment kiosks, gift shop, toilets with baby changing facilities and plenty of free car parking.
However the only toilet facilities I could locate were at the entrance. The park could possibly put more toilets to be located near the Dinosaur Trail, to save families having to walk from one side of the park to another. We choose to take a picnic with us and there were lots of picnic benches available and lots of grass areas to relax. With regard to refreshments I thought this was quite limited plus the café and kiosks were quite expensive.
Although the dinosaur park doesn’t have any of the big showcase rides of other local attractions, one thing we loved was that once you’ve paid your entrance fees, pretty much everything is included in the price. This was wonderful because we spent the rest of the day on the various attractions and didn’t have to worry about further costs.
There were a few rides that required a 2p charge to operate. These were the orbiters, safari tractors and moto quads. Staff were giving out 2p’s on entry to the park which was a thoughtful gesture.
Children could also experience Ting Ting, the walking dinosaur, although he would be best enjoyed by younger children. There was a small charge (£1) to operate the sand diggers. Any additional rides were reasonably priced.
This attraction in Pembrokeshire has always been on our to-do list but until now we have not had the opportunity to visit. This is often because it gets overlooked by the big name attractions in the area such as Oakwood, Heatherton and Folly Farm.
The girls had the opportunity to enjoy some great activities that they had not tried before or have been too scared to try in the past such as the Go Karts, Tubey Ride and the giant Astra Slide.
I would now recommend The Dinosaur Park Tenby and add this to the list of must visit attractions if you are visiting Pembrokeshire and are looking for a fun day out with the family.
You won’t be getting a polished commercialised theme park but it’s a great family attraction that is also very good value for money. In my opinion the park is best enjoyed for younger children of primary school age. There are some height restrictions – my youngest daughter who is 5 had to ride with an adult or with her older sister on some of the attractions.
Pembrokeshire is a fantastic county to visit with children and there are so many child friendly attractions. The Dinosaur Park Tenby is adjacent to a number of other family attractions including Manor House Wildlife Park and Heatherton.
Directions and Admission
The Dinosaur Park, Great Wedlock, Gumfreston, Tenby, Pembrokeshire, SA70 8RB.
Ticketing pricing is: Adults £10.75, children £9.95, under 3s free, OAPs, £9.95.
For seasonal opening hours, see The Dinosaur Park website.
There were no family ticket options offering special discounts for families which would be beneficial. If you sign up to Kids Pass mobile app for a £1 trial period you can receive 10% discount on entrance tickets.
Disclosure: We were given 2 tickets to The Dinosaur Park for the purpose of this review and we paid for 2 tickets. All opinions are my own.