Nagasaki City Dinosaur Museum — Attraction in Nagasaki

Dedicated building with many displays of dinosaur bones (some original and some replicas). Good descriptions on all the items and fully translated to English (some places only translate the headings). Very clean. Attentive staff. I really enjoyed the behind the scenes area where we saw some of the workers cleaning up samples. The steady hands and removing only the rock from the bone was really fascinating to watch. Also had an animatronic dinosaur which was freaky when it stared right back at you! My only complaint was how difficult it was getting to the place from Nagasaki City. Nagasaki buses are not numbered. Destinations are only in Kanji. By the time you figure out if it's the right bus it's gone and they only run once every 45 minutes or so. Besides that, cheap entry is always good and you can get a joint ticket for the museum next...

I would give 4 to 5 stars however, we managed travel all the way to the museum (roughly 2 hours from our stay in Nagasaki) just for it to be closed until the 6th of March due to Covid. We didn't see that it was closed on Google maps or the website at the time, so made the mistake of going during the pandemic sadly. It's also a bit far from any food so with it being closed we had to do double the distance to get food. It was a bit of a wasted day so I recommend not going until March 7th. There is a small park around the other end of the museum which is nice for kids, so if you happen to do what I did, there's at least something to do there. The hills nearby also offer a beautiful view of the ocean and Islands which was nice to see. All in all, just wait to go until Nagasaki's...

The main exhibit hall is just in one room, so depending on how interested you (or kids) are, it might take a half hour to go through it. But the receations are well made, and certainly very varied compared to some other city museums. The view of the sea also helps display the dinosaurs in a more awe inspiring sight.

The playground right outside the museum is free of charge and where the kids spent another good half hour to make up for the substantial trip from the city center. Bonus is the drive over had some great scenery. And you can see the famous "battleship" island...