Review: Eden Project Cornwall – Beyond Imagination

We’ve recently visited the Eden Project in Cornwall for the first time in 10 years and it really is beyond imagination.

The Eden Project is a truly fascinating day out and if you have never made it before then it’s an absolute must for the family ‘to do’ list.

What is the Eden Project?

We visited during the school holidays so were lucky enough to get the fully immersive Dinosaur experience. There is plenty to inspire kids and parents all year round at the Eden Project, but during the school holidays they add extra activities to bring the magic of this magnificent place to life even further for little ones.

We learnt all about different types of dinosaurs in the Mediterranean biomes and the kids got to meet a baby dinosaur.

It was such fun to watch a ‘real life’ dinosaur stomp through the park and thrill the kids. Our 6-year-old really wasn’t sure about it and some of the small kids were absolutely terrified. One small boy was literally trembling with fear as the Dinosaur roared and the park keepers tried to keep it under control. Most of the kids were absolutely fascinated and chased him trying to touch him, but he was super fast! Our 10-year-old thought it was hilarious when he raided the café and tried to climb over the counter.

Beyond the fun there were some really interesting and educational displays created inside the cleverly converted stage which also hosts Eden Sessions. The music line-up for the Eden Sessions sounds great but it’s worth signing up to the newsletter if you want to catch a concert as they sell out pretty quick.

The two main biomes are the main attraction at the Eden Project and really are incredible. The sheer size of these huge greenhouse bubbles is just magnificent. It’s hard to get your head round the structure of the individual hexagon window panes and how it all fits together with very little support. I am still fascinated by the construction of it all, and when I discovered the design was based on a ‘bubble’ to sit within the moving landscape of the old chalk-pit, I just couldn’t get my head around it.

We did not weave the web of life, we are merely strands in it. What ever we do to the web we do to ourselves

The messages that the Eden Project hopes to instil in its visitors are powerful and important. It certainly leaves food for thought and I hope the kids learnt a lot during their visit. The pressure on them to ‘have’ and ‘need’ is a constant battle in our house and I am always nagging them about the environment and being wasteful. It felt good to be somewhere where a whole movement of people want to treat the world in a positive way and support each other.

We are currently planning a trip to Sri Lanka so spent ages in the rainforest biome, which is the biggest of the two. If you are taking kids, make sure you don’t over dress them as it gets ridiculously hot in there. That sounds obvious but our kids were literally down to their pants by the time we reached the end. We could have stayed in there all day if they’d coped with the heat a little better. God knows what they will be like for three weeks in this heat!

As you weave around the rainforest biome, higher and higher, the controlled temperature climbs. There is an opportunity to climb the final steps to a suspended platform right at the top of the dome. my husband didn’t copy well with this at all as the steps sway slightly and he is not good with heights.

A well deserved super food rum cocktail greeted us at the end of the tropical dome. (non-alcoholic version for the kids!)

We’d taken a picnic with us but the food courts looked amazing and you can watch the chefs cook lunch in the open air kitchens. There was loads of great healthy food to choose from and nothing looked over priced. The eco-friendly ethos is taken right through to the responsibly sourced food on offer, the recycling and all the packaging. I enjoyed some herbal tea sampling and found out all about the plants used from Pukka tea.

The kids loved the many ice cream flavours to choose from and we chilled out for a while in the sensory garden.

There is so much to see and learn at The Eden Project we are going to have to go back again soon. The kids were shattered by the time we made it though the Mediterranean biome and to the education centre. We’d planned to take the Hangloose Adventure where you can zip wire over the entire Eden Project and get a birds eye view, but we just ran out of day.

Find out what’s on at the Eden Project here and save 10% by booking your tickets online here. You can save even more if you arrive on foot or by bike.

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