GONDWANA - the Prehistorium — Attraction in Schiffweiler

Rude. Terrible customer service. Broken ticketing system. Waste of a day. Super disappointed kids.

Let me explain.. we booked our tickets online a week in advance. We booked a family ticket for our family of 4. We received a confirmation email and everything. We arrived 10 minutes early to our showtime, and they informed us we didn't have tickets. I showed them the confirmation email, and they said we should have received a second email with our actual tickets. I told them I never received a second email (and didn't know that was a thing), but my credit card WAS charged. They looked up my order and said my credit card was declined, but I showed them my credit card statement to show that was not the case and I was in fact charged. I even offered to run my card again, but they said they had already given away our tickets, and there was no room.

We did everything we were supposed to do. Booked ahead of time, and had our credit card charged, but they still refused to let us in.

We didn't receive an apology. No offer of discounted tickets on a future trip, for our troubles. Nothing. We drove an hour for this, and left with crying kids. Way to go Prehistorium.

UPDATE The Prehistorium continues to lie about what happened. Their response to this review says I did not show proof of payment. That is false. I pulled up my credit card app and showed them the payment. It has been posted on my account for a week. If you don't like my review, fine. But don't lie about what happened.

Additionally, why would your system send a confirmation email prior to the tickets being confirmed? That is literally the definition of...

Without a doubt my family's favorite Dino museum in the area! Extremely educational and non-stop fun the entire visit. There is a small cafe, dinning area and souvenir shop at the entrance.

A huge play area is just past the lobby and the main climber is shaped like a Brachiosaurus that reached to the ceiling with a slide for it's tail. There is fun for kids of all ages with activities ranging from the jungle gym, Dino shaped ride on carts, a couple small trampolines and so much more. A nice way to start or finish your visit.

The museum is one of my favorites that I have ever visited. The layout is linear and takes you on a journey from the beginning of time to present day. There are several small cinema theaters throughout the tour that are very informative for all ages groups. There are breath taking animatronics spaced out through the museum and these displays with stay with you and your kids for years to come. At the end of the trail, you finish off the museum tour with a fantastic Dinosaur animatronic show! The Dino's are larger than life and, at times, can be a little intense for younger viewers, the show ends with a meteor crashing to the stage. At the end of the show you exit the museum through the gift shop.

I highly encourage any and all families to visit if you are in the area. You should anticipate to spend about 2-3 hours here but can easily spend the entire day. I hope you enjoy it as much as...

Yesterday we decided to make a family trip to the "Gondwana Praehistorium" in 66578 Schiffweiler. The kids were excited, also because we told them, the location has a very good Google-ratings (at this time, 4.6 stars, from over 5,000 visitors).

However, already the entrance was -in a way- weird, black sliding doors? Next surprise, the entrance tickets: 85EUR is quite steep for a family of 5 (see picture) just to see a museum, as they call themselves. Expectations were therefore high, for a great afternoon at the Gondwana.

Long story short? Everybody was disappointed at the end. They state that the facility opened in 2009, the last “upgrade” happened in 2013, 11 years ago... Unfortunately, that’s what you’ll get for your money: outdated and boring displays, movies and 3D experiences. All that may have been great, a long time in the past, but not nowadays, where VR and AI is standard.

We were actually a bit worried, because of the moldy smell everywhere. They don’t seem to have a proper air ventilation system, which is concerning, because of the many visitors. In one area, you walk through real moist mulch, that mulch is carried onto the next room, which has a carpet floor, go figure...

Don’t mean to bore anybody here, and we’re not negative Nelly’s, we just think you should know, that you can spend your money (in our case 85EUR) MUCH better with your...