The day has finally come to visit the famous dinosaur park (Dino Parque) in Portugal! 🙂

A friend told us about the park in 2019, but we only managed to go now, in 2021. The pandemic came in 2020, then winter and the tiredness of pregnancy together, and soon after the arrival of Ju. Plus, I wanted to go when Paddy was obsessed with dinosaurs, so when I saw that she was memorizing all the types displayed in her encyclopedia, I knew it was the right time!

We took advantage of the trip with Dad to Fig Tree of the Foz and we fit the park into our trip back to Cascais. It fit perfectly into our itinerary, on the same day we visited the beautiful Buddha Eden, as I told you here in this post.

If you want to read about our complete 3-day trip through the center of the country, see this post here.

The tour

We arrived at Dino Parque around 2:30 pm with the two kids sleeping in the car. When Ju woke up, I went out with her, and Celo stayed in the car so Patrick could sleep a little longer. We knew that the walk in the garden had been intense and that it would be better for him to rest more. I went in with my father, Jubs and the family that came from Cascais to meet us. We didn't have to wait in line at the ticket office and after paying 13 euros per adult, we entered the complex super excited. Details: children only pay from 4 years old and Paddy still has 3.

PS. If you want to pay with a discount, you can buy online and pay just over 11 euros. See more information on their official website. I didn't buy anything in advance on this trip because we were afraid of setbacks with the puppies, but it's always good to save money when you can, right?

We went in and immediately saw the store and a museum with lots of interesting photos, texts and objects. We were starving, so we went straight to the “food zone”, as they call the area with restaurants and snack bars here. There was only one option for us to buy food, so off we went with burgers, nuggets, fries and dinosaur cups for our little ones. Celo and Paddy joined us shortly after and when we were done, we went exploring the park in great spirits.

A summary of the park

Dino Park is HUGE, guys!

I didn't know, but it is the largest open-air museum in Portugal with approximately 10 hectares. There are more than 180 life-size dinosaur sculptures of the 4 most important periods in the history of the Earth and they all have informative plaques with lots of cool details. I wish I had the time and patience to read everything calmly, but I'll leave it for another visit...lol. We walked along a timeline and saw the dinosaurs that existed in the respective eras. I thought the sculptures were perfect, extremely realistic, and if it weren't for Paddy's tantrum at the beginning of the trail, the tour would have been incredible with our imagination running wild.

We were getting closer to the Supersaurus, which as the name says is a giant dinosaur (and I just discovered on their website that it is the largest in the country and in Europe), and then the little guy started to calm down. We went up the stairs, took lots of photos, and kept walking.

We stopped at the picnic tables so Ju could nurse and we could rest, after all it was a long walk and then we continued until we finished the entire route. Oh, and one important tip: it's very windy there and we're surrounded by maritime pine trees, so I recommend that you wear closed shoes so you don't get pricked by those sharp leaves, you know?

We passed by Lourinhanosaurus antunesi, the dinosaur that was discovered in the region and I was amazed to learn that they discovered a fourth nest with about 10 eggs in 2017. So recent, right? Read the news here

I think we spent about 3 hours at Dino Park, stopping to take a closer look at Paddy's favorite dinosaurs. And what are they? The famous Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Stegosaurus, the Triceratops and the Brachiosaurus. It was really cool to see the little guy so happy! <3

Our opinion

We ended the tour thinking, “Is that it? Is that all?” I swear I expected more interaction for such young children. Paddy is 3 and a half and can’t read yet, so I’m sure if he watched videos or heard some employee telling stories about the animals, he would be much more excited. We tried to read a few things to him, but I think in the end it became a repetitive experience. Look at the sculpture, read the sign, move on to the next one…

I saw that at the entrance/exit of the park they have some activities for older children, but there was something missing for the little ones, you know? It's okay that children up to 4 years old are free, but the experience would be much more complete if they invested in sound or visual resources for everyone.

Anyway, it's part of it.

But, not to mention that the little ones are so disadvantaged, there is a really cool playground at the end of the trail that was a hit!! They nailed it 🙂

We ended the day tired and happy with so much news!