Bell Bank Park, Mesa
26th February, 2023

Our mission to bring you every a report on every dinosaur-related exhibit to pass through the state of Arizona continues, with a visit to Jurassic Quest, which bills itself as “The #1 Dinosaur Experience in North America!” There appear to be several set-ups touring the country simultaneously: I guess they’re the dino-equivalent of the Blue Man Group. General admission is $22, but that just gets you in the door; if you wanted your kids to experience all the other attractions, an “unlimited” admission is $36. However, the small print informed me that the maximum weight for the rides was 140 lbs, so we sadly bought general admission tickets, and I consoled myself with another doughnut.

The main core of the exhibition is a series of life-size, somewhat animatronic replicas of dinosaurs, I say “somewhat”, since movement was largely limited to them nodding their heads gently, wagging their tails and waving their arms a bit. The most impressive thing was the sheer scale, and being able to get up relatively close to them. You don’t fully realise how big a Tyrannosaurus Rex is, until you’re standing almost underneath it, looking up at its jaws. There were video displays in each exhibit, on which “park rangers” discussed the animals therein. However, these were almost useless: the venue was very echoey and quite noisy, making it almost impossible to hear what was being said.

There was a decent selection of animals to look at, hitting all the major dinosaur tropes, from velociraptors to pteranodons, via triceratops and so on. We did notice some of the exhibits did appear to be a little worse for wear: a missing dino-finger here, a leg only loosely attached there. I guess this is an inevitable result of a travelling exhibit, which needs to be packed up, moved and re-assembled every week to a new location. Outside of these exhibits though, there really wasn’t much to do for us general admission ticket holders who weighed over 140 lbs [and the lines for rides, photo-ops etc. were almost of Disneyland-esque proportions]. Tucked away in a back corner was a little fossil exhibit, with various real and resin cast items, such as a megalodon tooth (right) which was interesting to look at. I’d like to have seen more of that.

The souvenir shop was particularly disappointing: again, perhaps a result of the nomadic nature. Unless you wanted a generic plastic pith helmet for $25 bucks (something easily available on Alibaba.com for a tenth of the price), there was hardly anything available to purchase. I was even unable to take my traditional “Jim getting savaged by a plush animal” picture, something I had been eagerly anticipating. I had to make-do with an impromptu Raquel Welch impression (top). There was a “velociraptor training show” exhibit, which took place every so often; however, I’m fairly sure this did not end in the screaming and dismemberment for which we hoped. Indeed, the whole thing more or less gave the illusion that the prehistoric past was some kind of hippy commune, in which all the dinosaurs lived together in peace and harmony. Even when I was 11, I’d have called bullshit on that.

There were also various “fossil dig” and dinosaur-themed bounce houses, but like the event in general, it was very much aimed at a younger audience. If you had kids, you could have spent the whole day here, getting round everything – and probably would have to, due to the queues. Us? After not much more than an hour, we’d exhausted the entertainment potential and headed back to the modern world. [We never did see the supposed dino babies] It had been reasonably fun, but then, we always enjoy ourselves wherever we go, even on a trip to the supermarket. That doesn’t involve a fifty-minute drive in each direction and paying twenty bucks to get in. Still a better dinosaur experience than Jurassic World Dominion though.