Dinotropolis — Attraction in Dartford

Inside the soft play is of very nice quality, you do feel immersed but I will never be returning for a series of reasons. I booked for it’s open day, it got delayed (fair enough) and I was offered a complementary visit to return. I wanted to give it a few chances before reviewed as understandably with a new setup you need to be forgiving and understand that issues will arise. But my motto in life is how things are handled when things do go wrong and Dinotropolis have really got that bit wrong. I am now not taking up this complementary visit and any opportunity to discuss further with the park after many many attempts of me contacting them to resolve.

I’ll run through the whole experience…

The website is terrible, it doesn’t give much information on the park itself or the food that is available. The ticket types don’t make sense, why is a meal deal only available with one of the options and not the other? If like me you have a 2 year old, the laser challenge really isn’t suitable so why should I be tied into a laser challenge to take advantage of the meal deal? Also, the days before opening why were your website developers not available to stop new bookings being made?

You get an hour and 30 minutes. They were flexible as we attended on an off peak time. Thank god that was the case.. when I ordered our meal we were told it’s a 15 minute wait. We were given no table number, no buzzer, so it meant we couldn’t go and enjoy the soft play and instead at to wait at the over crowded seating area. That’s 30 minutes just spent eating, 60 minutes left to play!

The coffee. Every parent loves a nice coffee whilst their littles are running around. The latte was like an expresso, in a tiny cup and filled 3/4 way up. I asked for more milk and it made it better but there’s nothing worse than an awful coffee.

Lockers & seating. When you are paying £5 per adult you at least expect a seat. There are some storage holes to put your stuff but no where near enough to accommodate the amount of people in the park. As with most soft plays, people then put their belongings on a table. T

The staff. When I left the park on the Monday I rebooked my complementary visit for the following Monday. That night I contacted Becky (who I was told was responsible for the free second visits) and after attempts of phoning and emailing I got no reply until the Saturday. If she read my email properly she would have known I needed to reschedule the Monday visit that was just 2 days away so important to resolve ASAP. She replied asking for the details I had already giving her (tiring!) and when I did she never replied again. The social media team tried to help but by the time someone else contacted me it was the Tuesday. Their reasons never make sense.

Then the price. At a minimum of £17 for 90 minutes it’s way over priced. There is Gravity that offers off peak rates that are attractable to the parents of toddlers and makes it a regular treat rather than a rare treat.

It really feels like a huge dollop of common sense needs to be applied to this set up. If your phones are not working, how else do customers contact you… Email? So surely you would have someone dedicated to ensuring a communication channel into Dinotropolis is available. I gave the staff a time to call and fair enough it was 30 minutes away, but getting a reply over 24 hours later not so subtlely being sarcastic over the timeframe, if you were unable to respond within 24 hours than don’t make comments insulating 30 minutes was unrealistic.

The social media team are probably the only people in this whole set up that seem like they are actual understanding humans. Maybe everyone is overwhelmed, who knows but a lot of this could have been avoided by some business sense. I know Dinotropolis are keen to talk to me and have tried to call me but after 2 weeks of stress, I have called it a day. I had given them lots of opportunities to resolve the situation and now it is...

First review from 2019... Avoid the coffee! Whilst it's 1x free for each paying adult (well it was pre covid) it's close to dishwater. The place itself is clean, tidy and staff are friendly. The last time we went we took out own reusable cups (to save the planet), the staff filled their own non-recyclable ones, tipped into my cups and then threw away their non-recyclable ones! Seriously! Hope they read these!

So today (26/09/2020) their covid measures were really good. There were a few families ignoring rules, no masks etc running around the play areas. I informed staff (sorry, this is for the greater good, we don't want another full lockdown thanks), and they RAPIDLY went out in force to let people know they had to wear them in the play park, they then followed up with announcements. Well done dinotropolis! :)

Update Feb 2023, they have implemented a timed entry and exit, so you have to arrive and leave by certain times which with kids is never going to work 100% of the time, so umm good luck with that... The place remains clean, but the cafe remains pretty awful, coffee remains just nasty. You also can't bring in your own items due to "allergies for other children", strange reason, but hey it's their place, their rules, I just wish they would improve the cafe. The dinosaur drawing area is almost abandoned, there are no parts for the dinosaur 3d puzzle, the projector on the sand pit that projected animals roaming around your sand sculptures needs the bulb replacing as it isn't bright enough to even pass the 11+, the dinosaur pictures for colouring in are now held at reception, the big screens are no longer switched on to show the kids artwork... All the balls for the soft ball guns have been taken away and the guns don't work.... the older children ball bit was replaced by an empty floor but luckily has now got some new ones in..

It's just, well, all a bit sad. At this price there isn't really a good excuse. Some of the dinosaurs have significant damage and the dust on the sections children don't walk is pretty rancid (pictures available upon request!)... Think this is the last time we will go, thanks for...

I was looking for a new soft play experience to share with my daughter and stumbled across Dinotropolis. After reading some reviews I was hesitant to go but as it’s in Bluewater I figured if it was that bad we could leave and make use of the other facilities within the shopping centre. But after attending I felt compelled to write my own review as I think the ones that are very negative are far too harsh. The staff first of all, were fine, all very friendly and looked happy to be there despite it being ‘work’ for them. The facility itself. It was great, it’s a large play space with a lot of different areas to crawl and climb through. My little one had a blast and didn’t want to go after the hour and a half was up. Hygiene wise. I didn’t notice anything untoward. It’s been around for years so there are some ‘rough edges’ but nothing too concerning, a frayed playing mat here and there or some sand missing from the sand pit, but certainly not enough to warrant it being unclean. As for the comment about the children and it being rowdy and ‘packed’. It’s a soft play! Children go mad, it’s part of it, pushing and knocks are going to happen, kids are crazy, it’s not out of control, it’s kids having fun. It was busy when I went but we just made our way around the different areas and enjoyed it, no different to any other soft play we have been to. The constant reminders about the season coming to and end are rather loud but a necessity, if they didn’t have them, every one would be piling out of the place all at once dead on their finish time and it would be chaos. The reminder mean some people leave a bit earlier and some stay, so the foot traffic is managed better, I felt no pressure to leave early and me and my little one stayed right up until the time we had paid for with no one ushering us out. We even got some food afterwards before making our way out, which, was a bit pricey but again, nothing out of the ordinary, if you want a cheap experience then pack a lunch and go to the park, this place is no different from any other soft play and the actually soft play itself is large and lots of fun. We will very...