The Lost Kingdom – Jurassic dinosaur experience London

I’ve attended several Fever events in the past from Dopamine Land to Money Heist the experience to the Minecraft Experience Villager Rescue – so was immediately interested when I saw an advert for an outdoor dinosaur experience, the Lost Kingdom. The website said it was in south London but I was pretty surprised – and happy – when I saw it was Beddington Park, just down the road from me.

We bought tickets for the second day of the 2.5 weeks it was open – it is then going on to Southampton then Manchester, having already been in Glasgow previously.

It’s a trail that you follow around part of a (very large) park that also takes you through a woodland area next to the river. The dinosaurs are spaced out along the trail, each with a plaque that tells you about them – but best of all, they are animatronic working on a motion sensor, so as you get to each dinosaur, it will turn its head, or open and close its mouth, swish its tail and so on – and they all roar.

They are lifesize and some are obviously huge, towering over the field whereas others are smaller, even sitting on a nest of eggs. It was interesting to walk around, read the information panels and point out some of the different characteristics like long talons or horns that were used for fighting or defence.

There was a single dinosaur ride, which cost £3 (cash only), and a few giant eggs children could go inside. There was supposed to be a fossil dig pit where children could play at being paleontologists but there was only a hard moulded plastic area of dinosaur bones, with nothing to dig or do on it. The main website also mentioned street food and drink stalls but there was nothing there; though that wasn’t mentioned on the London specific website.

Even though each dinosaur was roped off, with signs asking not to cross the rope or touch the dinosaurs, several children were doing just that, actively encouraged by their parents who in some cases were grabbing at the moving parts themselves, stuffing the open mouths with grass, and in one instance watching while their children climbed on the large T-Rex. It was such a shame that some people ignored the rules as it looked quite clear the dinosaurs could get damaged if they carried on, but there were no staff around apart from two people at the gate and one person taking payment for the dinosaur ride – though I’ve since heard from Fever who run the event that they are going to look into this and address it.

We also noted that two of the information plaques next to the dinosaurs were missing, and one was printed entirely in Dutch with no English which was a bit odd!

The website also suggested the event would take 2-3 hours to visit and we took 1.5 hours – 20 minutes of which were queuing for the ride. We took it at a fairly leisurely pace so I really can’t see how anyone could take 2-3 hours.

The event was priced at £14.50 for adults and £12.50 for children if booking online in advance; I’m not sure it was quite worth the £44.50 it cost the three of us (including the £3 ride) even though we hadn’t had to travel far to get there; it was quite interesting but I think probably more impressive if you haven’t seen dinosaurs on this scale before. We had been to similar walk-throughs on the Isle of Wight and in Majorca so were perhaps not as awe-struck as some of the younger children we saw, but it was still an interesting experience and a nice way to spend an hour or so.