The Montana Dinosaur Center — Attraction in Montana

We did a full day dig with a party of five, which included my mother in her 60’s and two kids aged 8 and 11. Seeing actual dinosaur bones and learning about them and the geology in the region was really neat. We had a great time and if you love dinosaurs you will love this. However, there are some things we wish we knew before hand, which is why i’ve rated this 4 stars versus 5.

The drive to the actual dig site was over an hour and 15 minutes each way. Considering we drove almost 4 hours to get there, we wish we knew this in advance and could have met up with the van on the way or closer to the entry to the land. This drive time is not advertised and was a huge chunk of the day. Additionally, the terrain you are driving on is rough. Be prepared if you get car sick! There is no shade, unless you want to sit in the van. A pop up tent or some chairs would go really far to ensuring people have a place to rest and cool off. Lunch was fabulous and came with a sandwich, chips, apple, orange, and cookie. They had water but I had to ask for it, it wasn’t handed out automatically with lunch. I also had to ask if we were going to eat lunch soon (at 12:30pm) because they weren’t checking the time. You will be assigned a spot to clear off or start digging for bones. We spent 99% of the day sweeping dirt into bags to later be sifted. While there were bone fragments on the surface, my kids saw everyone else getting to use the tools to actually “dig”. I had to ask if they could have a chance to do that and use them, which meant moving to another spot at the site. Given that this is something we’ve paid for, i would expect that there is an assurance that everyone has a great experience and gets to do everything. They told us it was just our luck with the spot we were in and wasn’t intentional. While I fully believe that, as a paying customer that is something I would assume they are paying attention to.

Overall, these are real paleontologists and a real dig site. This is no frills, hard work which I now have a whole new respect for. The work that goes into this...

We booked a half day fossil site tour. While we had a pleasant time, it was ultimately pretty disappointing and I think their website misrepresented the experience. The tour was supposed to be 4 hours and not include actual digging. That was fine, but we expected to see digging taking place or at least substantial dinosaur bones in the ground. We did not.

First, the van we were meant to take would not start. OK. We then drove 45 minutes to a dirt road. The guide showed us how to distinguish fossil bones from rocks and then we spent a while looking for little pieces of bone on the road. When we were done, we each got to pick one to keep and then threw the rest back on the road (sort of undermining the preceding search but whatever). Then we walked off the road a short way to where there was one large bone embedded in the ground. That was interesting, but this was not an active dig site, so not much else to look at.

We expected to then drive to a second site as the guide had promised, but she suddenly said that it was too wet (despite no sign of wetness) and we would need to go back to the center. So 45 minutes back, and then we got a private tour of the gallery including the lab. Again, interesting, but not really why we booked a half day tour. It seemed like they needed the van for a staff group, which may have been the real reason we had to go back early.

Ultimately, we were done in only 3 hours. Half of that was driving, and most of the rest was looking at a dirt road. The guide was nice and knowledgeable, but this was not worth the amount we paid. I can't speak to whether the full day tour is more worthwhile. I reached out to the center with this feedback and have received no response. Quite disappointing given that this was a highly anticipated...

I had one of the best experiences of my life going on the dinosaur dig with the Montana Dinosaur Center. We booked two full days, with a rest day in between. This was one of the few places I could find that would let kids younger than 12 do this. We took our 7 year old (who wants to be a paleontologist). He absolutely loved it. He found several bones and even got to help plaster a large fossil. Our guides, Maya and Eric, both did a fabulous job explaining how to recognize dinosaur fossils and keeping us entertained during the long drive out to the site and back.

In addition to finding fossils, we enjoyed breaking up rocks, taking in the incredible scenery, and talking to real paleontologists about their work. You don't get to keep any dinosaur fossils -- they all stay at the site for study. However, our guides took us to a nearby site that had marine invertebrate fossils that we could keep.

The lunch the tour provided was delicious. They pack plenty of water, but we also brought ice-filled water bottles and some gatorade and extra snacks. It gets HOT out there in the summer. Definitely wear clothing that can get dirty. You might want work gloves, too.

We hope to come back again...