Children's Museum of Atlanta — Attraction in Atlanta

We joined the museum before visiting because we figured it would be a fun place to visit when we needed to leave the house but weren't able to do outside activities.

We enjoyed the ball machine area the most and generally found that the rest of the museum was hard to access for enjoyment with the number of people present. Since we visited on a weekend, we are hoping to find a day we can be off work to visit and try out the activities. Our child loved the different train tables and enjoyed the problem solving of the central climbing structure. He really wanted to try the Farm to Table exhibit but found that it was entirely chaotic. It's really hard to fully structure play, so I understand the challenges of creating exhibits that encourage play without limiting it. I think parental/guardian involvement is key. Adults helping children return items to the shelves and farm areas would immediately improve the exhibit. Maybe the checkout area could be some kind of queue like the ball machines that cycled the groceries back to a sorting area for the children. The water exhibit was fun but could be slightly revisited to encourage more play. The fishing poles were almost too weak to pick up the fish. The Minnesota Children's Museum has different water play pieces, cups, etc to encourage more sensory engagement with the water.

I think older children would really love the science area. Our 3 year old could access some of it but wasn't completely ready for all of the content.

We are excited to try different parts of the museum on each of our visits. I wish the museum would create a partnership with one of the decks or lots to offer discounted or free parking for members like the High Museum does. It helps eliminate the high cost of parking in exchange for membership support.

I would love an option of "members' hours" to help with the crowding from tourism.

The wait outside before the afternoon playtime was also tough. The queue wasn't completely clear and several different lines were created by people waiting to enter. With the limited capacity for COVID, getting tickets onsite on the weekend is not possible. Make sure to schedule your tickets at least a day in advance.

The Centennial Park playgrounds are super close, so we would choose to wait out the line at the playground in the future.

Update: 9/24/22 We visited again this morning for the member preview and play session. It was far less crowded and...

This place is fine for an occasional visit. Me and my 2 year old have been members for 3 months now and coming once a week starts to show the cracks. The toys are pretty beat up, the permanent exhibits all look like they were installed in the 90’s. The story time and other “show” things they have every couple hours are 5 minutes at most - they only read one picture book and then it’s over, and often the employee is wearing a mask and that’s not great for engaging kids with expressive stories. For the last 3 months the art project in the art room on Mondays has been the exact same thing - pompom painting. I think it’s safe to assume the activities that change on each day of the week have been the same as well. The 2 rotating exhibits I have seen have been quite boring to put it mildly. Wallace and Grommit looked pretty cool but did nothing to interest my 2 year old or even other kids from what I could tell. Both exhibits have had to have a paragraph of written instructions next to their activities which I suppose is fine for a reading age child but isn’t that around the time kids stop going to the children’s museum? I couldn’t even figure out what to do in a couple of the W+G activities. The boggling thing is there’s so many employees working at once. I came once on a Monday at 9:30 and we were the only customers in the place yet there were 5 employees in the lobby area. Truly unsure of what all the employees are doing because they’re not resetting the grocery store, I can tell you that. I see people walking around wearing polos acting important and I assume they’re having important museum meetings - I can hear it being broadcast on the walkie talkies on their hips - yet what they’re accomplishing by these meetings are unclear.

I have only been to 2 children’s museums - the other one is the Florida Children’s Museum and it’s incredible - the place is clean and updated and the employees are engaging and they always have new activities planned for the kids multiple times a day.

Like I started my review, if you’re looking for a place to spend a few hours every couple months then your kid will have fun here and you may not notice the lack of effort to keep the museum engaging. We are 3 months into our membership and I already know I’m not...

UPDATED: One year later we returned on the same holiday weekend because my kids did enjoy it and we needed something to do, and it was a completely different experience!

The time limited entry is gone, so the museum felt much less crowded because of the natural ebb and flow of energy from those who has been there awhile, those just arriving, and those leaving.

The sound was much more manageable, possibly from the lower key overall energy.

The staff was much more relaxed and benches have been added, so parents can now sit and watch their kids from the perimeter instead of having to trail them.

Overall this was an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon, and if I had realized how much had changed, we would have come earlier in the day! Because my kids weren't sensory-overwhelmed, they wanted to stay much longer than before!

Original review: INCREDIBLY expensive for what you get. $20 per person for a hard 3 hour limit, which will really be less because the start time is fixed and the line to get through the door is long. Even adults have to pay full price, even though there's nothing remotely enjoyable for them. Adults are supposed to stay with their children at all times, so good luck if you have more than one child; either you pay for additional adults (making it $40 per child when you factor in the adult) or your force your children to stay together the whole time, because despite the whole museum being in one, giant, echoey room, the sightlines are terrible. It is also a sensory nightmare as the sound reverberates around, parents trailing kids adds to the constant being bumped into, and the lights are somehow simultaneously painfully bright and dim enough it's hard to see.

0/5 stars for me, but my kids did generally enjoy it so I bumped it up from the...