Very good experience and great exhibits. Make sure to visit the planetarium if you go. Good family attraction and not overpriced.
Get the "package" that includes the Pirates traveling exhibit. Great (local) museum. Well done and well laid out. Could have/should have allowed more time.
In my opinion, the museum was a lot better when I was a kid and it was in its old location, but I'm probably the only one who thinks so. The exhibits, now, are a little sparse. A lot of them are simply hung on the walls in the hallways. The Streets of Old Grand Rapids exhibit is good, but I really loved Gaslight Village as a kid, which was a lot bigger, darker and just more awesome. Some of the exhibits are, quite frankly, boring. The furniture exhibit is very large and takes up most of the second floor. See it once, be completely disenchanted, and then you can skip that exhibit when you go back next year. Same for the Newcomers and Anishinabek exhibits. Semi-interesting once. Boring thereafter. And a membership, in my opinion, is a joke. I can hardly stand to go once a year because there just isn't much to get excited about. The carousel ride should really be included in the admission price - it's an additional $1 per ticket, and we were a bit amused at all the instructions about how to mount a horse, how to tell which horses go up and down, and to not touch the horses' tails. This carousel operator takes her job very seriously. Especially for a group of three adults and a child. Is that much instruction really required?Once in awhile they'll get a decent traveling exhibit, like the Pirates exhibit we saw today, but the designated hall for temporary exhibits isn't huge, and the exhibits they put in tend to be more about walking through the maze they install than actual artifacts available for viewing. Pirates required a lot of reading, that my 3 year old was NOT interested in. She did like that she got a map to follow to look for letter clues to fill in a puzzle, and a gold coin when she finished, and she was interested in looking at the cannons and artifacts that were brought up from the ocean floor.A word of advice - if you go, go early. Almost every time we've been in the past few years, we end up being there close to closing time, when an event is being set up on the main floor. This means the main floor exhibits are blocked by food and dining tables and you can't view them. Not that they're all that interesting in the first place, but make sure you see what you want to see on the main floor first, because someone seems to rent the place out every darn day and they close at five, which means they begin setting up for the event around 3:30. It makes for a distracting visit, since the floors are all open and you get the sound of moving furniture, vacuums, etc. I really feel the city spent more on making the museum a big, attractive rental venue for weddings and corporate parties than in finding really interesting exhibits that you'd want to see over and over again. All in all, a decent thing to do if you have a boring afternoon or a traveling exhibit interests you, but could really be improved by more interesting permanent exhibits.
Great for kids. Less so for adults. Half the museum is pretty much dedicated to kids learning, and that's good. But for adults, plan on being bored after 2-3 hrs.
Being a member at this museum, we like to visit when there are new exhibits, so we visited for the Real Pirates exhibit. I thought the member prices could be a little better, I compared the member prices vs general admission included with the exhibit, oh well. The exhibit itself is pretty nice, though it kind of looked like just another museum exhibit. Would have been cool to have a couple "pirates" walking around instead of security guards to entertain the kids. But overall, still a fun museum to take kids to.
The Grand Rapids Public Museum is located on the Grand River in the heart of Grand Rapids. I don't know how many times I've been to the museum with my family, but there is always something new to see and there's always a special display. I recently visited with my wife, mother-in-law, 11-year old daughter, and her friend...Everybody enjoyed their time and got to experience the museum at their own pace. We saw the "Real Pirates" exhibit at our last visit which featured a bit of history, many artifacts from a pirate ship, and some pirate stuff to suit the kids' taste (and mine). While something new is always nice, it's also nice to take in a few of the old standards like the carrousel, whale skeleton, and the giant working clock. The museum is small enough to take in with any age children, but large enough to fill the better part of an afternoon. Parking is a piece of cake. There are many other museums within walking distance including the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum and the Grand Rapids Art Museum. Many restaurants are also within walking distance.
里头展示了全世界最大的75英尺脊鳍鲸骨骸,还有1928年开始运作的旋转木马~另外透过仿真的展示空间重现1980年代大湍市的复制品,让我们更深入了解到大湍市的历史~
Took our 8 and 10 years old grand kids here on their day off from school. Very interactive, up to date. Scavenger hunt of exhibits was a great learning experience. The Pirate exhibit was good too. However the entree fee was very high ($59 for 2 adults and 2 kids).
We had free general admission tickets but they won't apply that to the special exhibits. It was $46 for my husband me and my 3 year old son. Also don't bring any food or drink in. They made us bring our coffees back to the car. However they do have a café where they sell food.
Enjoyed the experience very much. Very clean, and full of fun!! My family will return in the future.