Dinosaurs at Gilroy Gardens

Not only does Gilroy Gardens have moving dinosaurs but it has some of the less glamorous aspects of the extinct creates.

“The poop was gross, I didn’t want all those germs on me,” Jamie Klein, 5, said. “My brother held it and wanted to keep it.”

Tour guide Rylee Card, decked in a safari outfit, led the first tour and let the kids see how things can stay preserved over millions of years.

Dinosaur Bones Fossils, Skeletons and Stories began its first set of tours Sunday at Gilroy Gardens Theme Park at 3050 Hecker Pass Hwy. The 3,000 square-foot exhibit has animated and automatic dinosaur models, large models of bones and energetic tour guides. There are also two dig sites where the kids can dig through the sand to uncover bones and footprints.
The exhibit will be open through July 10 with tours beginning every 30 minutes.

During the tour, kids asked questions and showed they knew what they were talking about.

“I learned a lot about fossils. I liked seeing the dinosaurs that moved. I am actually a paleontologist,” Malcolm Vinson, 4, said.
Planning for the Dinosaur Bones exhibit started in February.

Dinosaurs Unearthed owns and installed the models. They are the only company that has a feathered juvenile Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur for the exhibit said Dana Everitt, executive assistant at RWS and Associates Entertainment. RWS and Associates Entertainment handles entertainment for theme parks and were the third party that organized the exhibit.

Everitt provided the scripts for the tour guides that would make the experience interesting to kids and parents alike.

“We are actually performers, we are hired on with the company that set this all up. We did had to study a little bit to prepare for the opening,” Card, 26, said.

Everitt wanted to gather all the fun facts about dinosaurs and leave out the boring stuff.

“We compiled the research and took out the facts that were age appropriate and to select the right facts. We also included some dinosaur jokes so it would be more interactive,” Everitt said.

Gilroy Gardens Theme Park is open daily, Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Ticket prices for ages 11 to 61 are $44.99. Children from ages three to ten and seniors ages 62 and above are $34.99.