I wondered for a while when the Mesozoic Era was going to hit our household. When my oldest son Wade was 2, dinosaurs didn’t interest him. Even at 3, nothing in the dinosaur craze around us – on T-shirts, toys and books – seemed to catch on. But then something happened when Wade turned 4, and he got hooked. Now, if you ask him what he wants to be when he grows up, he’ll tell you a scientist because he loves dinosaurs.
So Jurassic Quest – the COVID-friendly drive-through version of the touring dinosaur exhibit – seemed like a slam dunk for us. The national tour that has crisscrossed the country from New York to L.A. and back, is in Charlotte this week at Charlotte Motor Speedway’s zMAX Dragway. After a couple of days off, it resumes today {Wednesday} and runs every day through Sunday, Feb. 21.
My only question, when I couldn’t quite picture how it would go, was whether the life-sized animatronic dinosaurs would scare Wade. But once we got an opportunity to go, I just made sure to explain ahead of time that we would stay inside the car, windows rolled up, and the dinosaurs couldn’t get close to us. When I heard Wade explaining this to his twin 3-year-old brothers, I knew we were going to be OK.
We ended up going on a day the twins had preschool and Wade didn’t, which was all the better. It was nice to focus on my budding paleontologist. When we pulled into the start of the tour, I asked Wade if he was a little scared, his response was “No, excited!” And that was the attitude he took.
He loved it. At the first dinosaur or two, Wade stared wide-eyed. After rolling past a couple more, while we listened to the audio tour synced up to our car, he started roaring with the dinosaurs. (They move their mouths, wag their tails, blink their eyes, and roar!) By the end of the 70-dino tour, he was snapping pictures using his hands as an imaginary camera.
The audio tour throws a lot of information at you, but not too much for a 4-year-old to take in some good information while also staying engaged. The audio tour is about 35 minutes long, but including breaks it might take more like 45-50 minutes to go through. I found it easy to follow along. The audio prompts you to pause in places where there might be a wait, and there are signs to remind you to resume when you get to the start of a new exhibit area.
The tour ends with a photo op of your crew while still in the car with a dinosaur for a backdrop behind you. And of course, there are also some dino swag purchasing opportunities.
As a mom, first and foremost, I loved seeing my son excited about Jurassic Quest, and I loved the chance to learn along with him about something he’s become so passionate about. I was also so happy to do something fun and new, that was totally pandemic-friendly.
We drove through on a rainy dreary day, and the scenery was not as bright and colorful as it looks in the Jurassic Quest ads you see on Facebook. It’s hard to get around the fact that you’re in the parking lot of a dragway. (There are probably more scenic spots along the Jurassic Quest tour.) But for a kid, whose imagination is running wild anyway, none of that mattered.
When my sister asked us that evening over dinner how Jurassic Quest was, I said, “Good!”
“It wasn’t good,” Wade said. “It was tremendous good!”
There you have it.
Tickets are $49 per vehicle, with a max of eight passengers. For more information, go to www.jurassicquest.com.
