Indiana Dinosaur Museum — Attraction in South Bend

I have been waiting to write this review since my first trip on July 20. Today was our second trip, so I feel as if I have a good sense of the entire museum to write a thoughtful review.

I give it 3 stars simply because I am combining the Dino museum and the Chocolate Museum into one review, unfortunately!

Firstly, this place is just amazing. I truly feel this is a gift to our community! I have 5 kiddos, and we have thoroughly enjoyed walking the beautiful trails on a regular basis, and taking in all the lessons in geology, geography, ecosystems, and facts about our wonderful city! We love the bison and goats, too! It is such a gift that anyone can come in and see dinosaurs in the lobby any time they are open, as well as have access to the grounds. It's amazing and we are thankful!

We have had wonderful experiences both times we have visited both museums now! However, I can not leave a full 5 stars simply because, in my opinion, the chocolate side is absolutely not worth the price. While I really enjoyed seeing the artifacts and chocolate history, it is incredibly small. The tour really has nothing to see. The first time we came was on a Saturday and there was one guy making chocolate covered pretzels, and the rest of the factory was offline. The tour guide tried her best to make this interesting, but it just was not. We really enjoyed the chocolate bar at the end, but it just was not a $20/person experience. We came back mid-week and it was even less exciting, lol. So for that I had to knock a couple stars off. I'm sorry!

Now, we loved everything about the dinosaur side (except maybe the deep time worldview...I'm a solid Creationist, but I forgive you, wink). We love the aesthetics and even my 2 year old had such a great time! The staff is so amazing and right there to answer any question we have! We love the U-Dig experience and honestly, we could spend hours and hours in the room if it wasn't so dusty and hot. It truly needs better ventilation! But it is SO MUCH FUN to dig for fossils! I DO think it should be a part of the admission price, especially for the little ones, and then charge extra for any extra fossils one might want to keep. But regardless, we loved it.

If a family doesn't have the extra funds for the U-Dig, the museum has sand boxes in the same area with shark teeth, "fossils" to dig up, and even a fun topological dig box that changes as you dig. Super cool and fun!

We LOVE the Jurassic Park room! We are huge fans, and it is so neat to see real set props and catch a show of the movie while there, too.

Probably one of the most unique things is the access to the paleontologists at the lab! My children got to help work on a REAL dinosaur bone! I mean, where would they ever get the chance to do that if not for here?

Everywhere you look in this museum there is something new to see that you probably missed before. And the variety of species is so neat!

I can't stress enough how amazing the staff is. They go above and beyond to make our experience a good one. We've gotten to pet tortoises, help clean Dino bones, hold a megaladon tooth, eat extra chocolate samples, and ask so many questions! Both times we have come have been unique.

We will be back, and I'm sorry for the 3 star rating. It bums me out. But ya gotta do something about the chocolate side. Especially when competing with dinosaurs! I would feel much different about the chocolate museum if the price was much lower. It is what it is.

I truly am so grateful for this gift to our community, I want it to do well, and I...

Absolute waste of money. I might as well have set 150 dollars on fire. Before I go further, I’ll give some context. We are annual members of multiple parks, museums, and art centers in the area and are passionate about supporting these organizations. However, this is one we will not be back to visit and I will adamantly tell anyone and everyone I know NOT to visit.

We paid for the explorer pass, which apparently does not include the fossil dig experience. More on that later. The explorer pass gives you access to the two “sides” of the museum experience. One is the dinosaur side, one is the chocolate museum. In order to go to the dinosaur side, you have to sit through a series of local advertisements and then watch a video. It feels like a man’s ego trip and hobby that he’s trying to bankroll through unsuspecting visitors like us. I’ve never seen a museum hype up the owner/director like that before in my life. Super bizarre. So the museum itself is basically a large room, and then there’s a weird back room with dirt where you can dig for “fossils.” This is 100% not worth the extra charge. You will also get completely covered in orange dust lol. There are also a lot of weird things, like the shrine to the owner’s wife and the use of licensed images, music, and trademarks.

Aside from that, the dinosaur museum side isn’t actually kid friendly. 90% of the content is written text and infographic data. Totally fine, but not really great for kids. Also, all the fossils are clearly in reach of toddlers with no real barricades (just “do not touch signs”, so I watched probably 10 parents battling their little ones to not touch what was so openly within reach…. at a place that is marketed to children and families.

The chocolate museum was more like a collection of random memorabilia related to chocolate. I’ve seen better antiques curated in a Cracker Barrel. After the “museum” (which is literally just a room), you take a stroll through the edge of the factory and then you get a sample at the end.

I will give credit to whoever designed the actual content in the museum - they did a good job with the visuals. Otherwise, this place is ridiculous and I hope everyone...

I have mixed feelings about this museum.

There are very few real fossils. The displays are almost entirely replicas, both of skeletons and life-like recreations. The replicas are extremely high quality so that's good.

There isn't much information for each display, just a few sentences. More info would be appreciated. For example, there is a neat series of ceratopsians of different species that shows their evolutionary history and trends towards large body size. I could figure it out but there was nothing that stated it outright.

There is little to no information about fossils in Indiana. It's a shame because there are some great fossil sites here. For example, the Crawfordsville formation produces some of the best crinoid fossils in the world but the only crinoids on display (which looks like a replica) is probably from Morocco.

I noticed some errors in the info plaques. I'm not an expert, so it makes me wonder how accurate the rest of the information is.

Before entering the museum we had to sit through a 4 minute intro video. It mostly praised the owner and felt like a weird addition. The voiceover sounded like a knockoff David Attenborough.

The prices are expensive for what you get and not worth the value. The tickets are on par with (adults) or more expensive (children) that the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, which has much larger displays with more information.

The "fossil dig" costs $10/child. The dig consists of a large room with sand that is seeded with common, inexpensive fossils like shark teeth and crinoids. The kids were allowed to keep two small fossils they found, which cost pennies to purchase. At other kid-friendly "digs", the kids get an entire bag of similar fossils and rocks for half the cost. This especially felt like a money grab.

There is a room that displays a collection of Jurassic Park franchise movie props that are on loan from a collector. It was well laid out and had some neat props.

My overall impression is that the owner is a fan of dinosaurs and wanted an outlet where he could indulge that while also funding his...