Cape Cod Museum Of Natural History — Attraction in Brewster

2023 Update to review: experience today unfortunately was not as great. We happened to arrive about 10 minutes before opening and were planning on just taking the kids on the trail while we waited. A woman approached us and said that we absolutely could not park there if we were going to use the trails. I explained that we were also planning on going to the museum. She asked us to stand there and wait while she unlocked the office so that we could buy tickets first. We were waiting and my kids were getting antsy so I took them on the trails while my husband stayed behind to pay. They then told him that they had to physically put the wristbands on each person and he had to explain that we were already on the trails. Do they just not trust people at all in this place? Overall, this experience was extremely off putting. Seems like management is promoting an overly aggressive parking policy.

Another thing, admission tickets are not exactly cheap and if you want to enter the tiny butterfly area it's an additional $5 per person or $8 to "feed" them with a sponge. Then outside if you want to use the "mud kitchen" playspace, you apparently need to pay for a timed ticket just for the experience of letting your kids dig around in the mud with a few tools. I don't understand why they feel the need to nickle and dime everything here.

At Heritage gardens, once you pay everything is included- car museum access, the giant kids playarea (so much better than this tiny mud kitchen, the carousel, etc). Why can't they do that here? Just very disappointed overall. This place used to feel more special in previous years. Management, please take note. We won't be returning. It's not worth the price.

The trails are lovely, however, so just go to those.

One of the best nature museums around for little kids. My 2 year old and six year old both had a blast. This place is a gem! It's just the right size for little ones. Focus is on birds, fish insects and amphibians. There is a wonderful tinker/stem room and lots of other hands on activities, puzzles. This place is...

Small ,nice blend of activities, excellent special programs, and many kind hearted staff members who were polite and eager to please. Today's visit was well enjoyed and received by our group of three. We attended the special Reptiles show as well as the Butterfly exhibit both activities were well worth the extra money and our time. The museum is small so they have to make good use of all the available space and the items are very dispersed and arranged in a strange manner. There were many people today but spacing and wait times were minimal. I also saw a steady stream of new customers while I was there.. There are many exhibits worth viewing and while it isn't a full day event it proved to be an enjoyable day. Finally I must say the staff members were present in good numbers and they were all professional an went out of their way to please everyone from the people taking the reservations right down to staff members who gave quick content comments to help engage the kids and adults. If I were to focus on 1 item to work on I'd say it would be the trails. Here I would work on the condition of the trails, a better trail map, and more staff and activities directing people and roaming or stationed at points along the trail talking with people like they do inside the museum. Again this was an excellent day trip and well worth the...

This was our first visit to this museum and it was very enjoyable. Much of it is geared to kids, (we are two adults whose grown children were not with us) but it was still interesting. Be prepared to share your space with the small ones. We were drawn to the museum because of the advertised wood carving demonstration. We talked to the artist, who was very interesting, but we were a little disappointed that he wasn’t actually carving, just showing some of his tools and pieces he had worked on. The people of the land, geological formation of the cape, local archeology and biomimicry exhibits were interesting, tho brief. The live osprey cam, beehive observation, bird alley and aquarium were very interesting; we spent most of our time there. The highlights were the butterfly house ($5 extra fee) and outdoor trail to Wing Island. The trail was about 1 1/2 mile easy walk through boardwalks (think literally pieces of wood on the ground over a marsh, some sink down into water a little), forest, field, ending at the ocean. A beautiful view - at low tide you can walk out a long ways. There were more trails across the road which we didn't have time for. The walk alone was worth the trip, but the museum...