Real Party: Dinosaur Party at the Royal Tyrrell Museum

The Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller is an easy drive from Calgary. It is a great museum with fantastic admission prices for families. This year (as in past years) we planned to camp in Drumheller for the September long weekend, but it also overlapped with a certain boy’s 5th birthday.

I was surprised to learn that Tyrrell does not have a birthday package available. Nevertheless, the museum seemed the perfect locale for a 5-year-old’s birthday party. After a bit of research on their website, I decided to pay for fossil casting for the party-goers, and to get each of them a museum activity book. I didn’t have to get goodie bags since they would get to take home their cast.

Unfortunately the museum doesn’t have a space for cake, but since we were camping I made sure that everyone could come back to the campground for lunch and cake.

I made sure that parents of non-campers were willing to travel and booked the kids in for fossil casting online. I didn’t pay for admission for the adults, as it would have brought the cost of the party to well over $600.

People were free to explore the museum until lunch and I found it worked out to be just the right amount of time for 5-year-olds to see what they want and not get bored, although I am looking forward to the age when he actually wants to read the signs!

Would I recommend a birthday party at Tyrrell? If you want to do something different and be accountable for a lot of the leg work then yes! But have a plan other than the museum for cake as when it gets busy they don’t really have space for a bunch of people to take over.

$8 per child for fossil casting

$5 for each Museum activity book

$9 per adult admission ($11 regular price, but you get a discount for over 15 people)

Thank you for writing about your party at the Tyrrell Museum, Leslie!

Disclaimer: prices and details are subject to change, so check with the Museum before you plan!