This has become a total disappointment. From the website you'd think this was amazing, as I remember it being in the 80's. For the price, there was very little to do and there wasn't as much thought put into managing the exhibits, signage for parking,

There are no dinosaurs or anything like that anymore. The whale isn't fun to climb on bc it's burning hot to the touch. The staff appeared to be disinterested college students who probably were forced to do hours. The staff I interacted with seemed bored to death and unhappy being there. The keeper who gave the animal ambassador talk was a lovely lady and I believe her name was Fira. She had the patience of a saint as kids interrupted her left and right! She had good ways of redirecting off topic questions. She was showing... a bearded dragon? We were expecting something that was a bit more unusual I guess.

The AC was off, in August. I was sweating like crazy especially in the main floor. It was stuffy and humid. The 3D movie was shown on a lecture projector screen with some kind of weird blotch in the top right. Oh my god the other people there were so rude. They were coming in and out during the movie, shining flashlights, and calling out for each other, totally disregarding the staff's directions.

The Well Played room was kind of a weird joke. They had several pinball machines, basketball shooting machines, and skeeball machines set up and some inexplicably lousy golf putting areas. This was a big room and it felt very much like a waste of space.

The snack bar was closed. In the gift shop, you could by a Lunchable... for $5.99! Wowza. One of the toys we bought at the gift shop (a kaleidoscope) broke right away. It had 3 sharp long rectangles of mirror in it held in place by thin cardboard and that goes right by your eye... Uh. Not recommended for kids.

I wish that the proprietors of the Hall of Science had been to the San Jose Children's Museum, the Orange County Children's Museum (Discovery Cube), the Monterey Bay Aquarium, or the CA Academy of Sciences. These are well done with plenty of well-designed and thought out things for children of all ages and stages to do. The signage helps guide guests and traffic. Parking isn't based on "hmmm uh, I guess we park here?" Films shown are shown on a screen large enough for the 3D to actually like... work. Animals shown aren't ones that people probably have as pets already. There is a dedicated, well stocked area for under 3's to play unimpeded by bigger kids.

All of these would improve the value of the visit. As it is, I paid $100 to get in for 4 people and my kids were continuously frustrated by setup flaws or with activities lacking signage which kind of explains what to do. I really liked the paper airplane shooter though!

All in all, for the price/time, I wish we had gone to SF Academy of Sciences or San Jose Children's Museum. I cannot recommend coming here.