Thinkery — Attraction in Austin

Don’t buy tickets online. It’s pointless it doesn’t save time and it’s confusing because there isn’t a line for online tickets. I walked looking for somewhere to scan our tickets to enter and finally asked the guy at the register of the store. He said I had to make the line where you buy tickets which had grown while I walked around looking. Meanwhile him and two other employees were standing around with no customers. My family had already went inside and I waited for 15 minutes to get scanned in. The same guy from the register walked in and found my family and brought them to the front because they didn’t have stickers. My sister said he was really rude when she asked if they could just wait by the toys in the first room while I checked in because we had toddlers that could not wait in the gift shop. He ended up checking us in when he realized I was with them and that he screwed up because he could have checked me in 15 minutes earlier. I wish I knew the situation because he deserved to hear it from me. I was with family from out of town that I haven’t seen in years and only had one day to spend with them so he robbed us of 15 minutes we could have been together. But of course everyone else in line had their kids inside. The person in front of me even had 9 kids with no tickets inside when I had tickets for my family but they got kicked out. Then the person behind me was complaining about the member line not being open. They have a remote scanner so all of this is not necessary. It’s just really unorganized and there is clearly a lack of management. This was a Wednesday I couldn’t imagine a weekend day.

In general the employees are terrible. They walk around acting so inconvenienced by customers. They close whole stations and put up a lot of the toys over an hour early. It’s only open until 3 pm it’s not like it’s 8 or 9 pm. The outside area was even closed. From a management perspective there were way too many employees doing nothing when their schedules could be staggered and the place can be opened a little later.

The water station had way too much chlorine. It should be tested regularly because there is no way it should smell so strong. Id worry about chlorine gas especially with the kids being shorter and closer to the water than adults.

Overall the concept is a great idea and kids will always have fun with rooms full of things to play with but disappointed in the management. As a scientist myself I don’t agree with the lack of interaction as it does nothing to encourage STEM. Employees should walk around explaining the science and getting kids excited about STEM not walking around trying to make people leave...

You hear a lot of good about this place but I think it's mostly because Austin lacks a true children's museum. Sure the water exhibit is fun, the market gets a lot of activity but isn't all that special, the outside is good too. However having gone for over 3 years now there's some really strong areas for improvement:

Awful member experience: with the high prices, we thought the membership was the best way to enjoy this. However it's been pure issues from the moment I bought a too high membership for our family and they declined to downsize it to the right one because "no refunds" even though their website is soooo unclear on what ages need to be in your membership, to having to wait in general lines without priority when it goes around the block (feels like an easy perk to give), to having to still pay for event like baby bloomers - just why?

Bad use of space: I'm so baffled every time I go by how they've built this museum. The big space with cogs and sticks on the first floor is barely ever used, the fortlandia has been mostly empty whether upstairs or down, and the upstairs space besides babies section was such a waste with random things thrown around even before fortlandia. It seems they don't really think through how to make it better and aren't quick to react when things fail. Even making the popular things bigger would be a win like the painting and air blowing things or some of the things in the 2 rooms so there's more space. I get this is nonprofit but there's some cheap things that can be done to improve experience

Target ages: it feels like they try to target too many ages at once and end up providing very few things for each age group. For instance at babies there's really 2 tiny sections, once the can walk the water things become fun but outdoors climbing still out of reach while science rooms are mostly uninteresting. Then older toddlers or preschoolers get the most with climbing, painting, wind things, some of the science things, market. Then older kids may be most into the science things and fortlandia maybe but too old for the rest though some enjoy the market and that's part of what makes it a gong show if you want younger toddlers to enjoy it. The space is not big enough to target that big a spread and it actually makes it less enjoyable for parents with under 5s. I feel they could use a rethinking of what they're...

Overall this place is a good way to entertain your kid for a couple of hours, but the annoying thing is a lot of the displays are always broken and many are literally made of junk. Another big problem is that the most popular interactive exhibits such as the “spinning patterns” sand thing is overrun with kids waiting to use it causing everyone to wait.

Surprisingly the purple haired workers with all the face piercings may not be so well aware of how to properly manage a kids museum. Go figure 🤷‍♂️… Management should pay attention to the most popular exhibits here and make them larger so that more kids can use it at once. A lot of the more boring ones never even get used and is clearly a waste of space.

Some of the exhibits upstairs look like they literally just went to Goodwill and put together a bunch of used junk they found or that was donated. You should expect more from a children’s museum that has such a high cost of admission along with so many corporate sponsors.

On a high note, the restrooms were pretty clean and overall this place is as a cool chill vibe to it. I just wish there were more things to do and it was managed it a more proactive way.

We also observed several people walking in without paying admission while the workers in the front simply did not pay attention at all. They have signs that show you have to have a sticker, but we were not given any stickers when we paid for admission. It really makes you wonder who is managing this place and how all of the corporate sponsorship money is being used.

To be frank, the “keep Austin weird” vibe is cool, but tends to ruin a lot of things due to lack of proper management skills. The management and workers are simply too laid-back and not really interested in providing the most interactive experience for children. The honest truth is a lot of them probably don’t have kids themselves and therefore do not understand what kids want to do for fun. I’m sure they could run a wonderful cat...