Save your money (and your standing as a parent) (Our Dynamic Earth (Edinburgh))

Member Name: delith

Product:	Our Dynamic Earth (Edinburgh)
Date:	25/02/07 (104 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Educational (if you don't mind being preached at)

Disadvantages: Not much fun and too many things broken

My, my husband and our two boys, 7 and 9 visited this. They are quite keen on volcanoes, dinosaurs, space, etc, so we thought this would be a great day out. We came away over 30 quid poorer but wiser. Many things were broken (the polar room was out of commission). My eldest son complained that it was like doing science homework - it was heavy on the reading and light on adventure. Some of the material was pitched too high for my 7 year old and there were lots of younger children than that looking bored.

The place was clean and the staff (apart from a rather surly chap on reception) were helpful and friendly. The assistant who valiantly gave the presention in the tropical rain forest even though her microphone and torch had conked out deserved a medal (and she made her subject matter very entertaining for small children)

The "interactive" future trip was good fun, and the glacier film were okay, but they didn't make up for the poor all-round experience. It was also terribly worthy about everything and it felt like a two-hour lecture on the merits of population and environment control. Probably acceptable if it was free (or as a school trip). Save your money and watch the Discovery Channel for a couple of hours when you get home instead.

Summary: Only for those very interested in the environment and willing to read lots of text