In September I had a Dinosnores sleepover birthday party at the Natural History Museum. My friend Suki liked it so much she decided to have a sleepover party at London Zoo. I am going to compare the two.
Dinosnores
I thought Dinosnores was great. We slept in the central hall of the Natural History Museum with 200 other people right next to Dippy! When you arrived at Dinosnores you were put into groups so you knew which activities you did. The first activity was called ‘Master Plaster Caster’. I liked it a lot because we got to make casts of real fossils and to take them home. The talk ‘Revenge of the minibeasts’ by entomologist Erica McAlister, who works at the museum, was the best activity because it was really funny. She talked about why girl bugs are tougher then boy bugs (hurray!!). My friend Sasha and I got to wear killer bee masks and chase Erica’s friend Tom round and round the room
The final activity was a torch lit tour around the dinosaur gallery. It sounded exciting and it was fun to see the moving, roaring T. rex in the dark. But it wasn’t very good because you were meant to be finding clues but no one really knew what we were supposed to be doing. And it was almost midnight and everyone was tired.
The breakfast in the morning was a cereal bar, an apple and some water. Then we had our last activity which was the Animal Man, who did a show with live animals including tarantulas, meerkats, hedgehogs, giant snails, snakes and owls. I had seen him before at Suki’s birthday party but he bought different animals with him this time. Suki and I got to hold an owl. I was extremely excited.
London Zoo
I thought the trip to London zoo was brilliant. Everyone was sleeping in the bug house. When I first heard about it I wasn’t very keen because my friend Maddy said the ants tried to eat her. But it was fine. There were less people there than at Dinosnores (about 180 less!). The first activity was a talk about bugs with by one of the keepers. She brought a spider and a cockroach to show us. The spider was crawling everywhere and trying to get onto the carpet so she had to put it back in its box. Then we went on a hunt for letters around the bug house. The letters made up a mystery word. Every group had a piece of paper with clues to where each letter was hidden. Our group (Suki, Suki’s friends Katie and Carla, and I) almost got the word which was Partula, a type of endangered snail. We got the word ‘Paltula’ because I read a letter wrong.
The best part of the sleepover was definitely when we went on a nighttime tour of the zoo which was made even better by the fact that it was a clear night. We saw lions, tigers, tortoises, otters and lots of other animals. My favourite animals were the servals. Then we had a story to settle down. In the morning we had croissant for breakfast and then we visited the zoo shop. I would definitely recommend going.
The Dinosnores photos were taken by my dad. The night time photo of the serval was taken by Suki’s mum.
Carmen Malik 
Comments on: "T. rex v Serval" (4)
What a great article! Thankyou so much for sharing your experiences with us!
Both events sound like they were lots of fun but I think the lure of seeing animals in their enclosures at nighttime, when many are at their most active, would certainly entice me to London Zoo!
Do they do sleepovers for big kids (ie adults!) at both venues? I’d love to try them.
Thankyou again for sharing, I look forward to your next article!
Xx
Thanks for saying you like my blog! They do sleepovers for adults at both the Natural History Museum and London Zoo.
Hi, Carmen
So envious Carmen that you live in such a wonderful city with what looks like very exciting attractions and a lot of history.
Really enjoyed reading about your experiences at the London zoo and the Natural History Museum. Great pictures too. The one in the hall where you slept looks very atmospheric. It must have been really exciting to sleep in such a place.
Thank you.
Thank you. I hope you continue to read my posts.