I visited the Mid-Hudson Discovery Museum with my two and eight year old daughters while passing through Poughkeepsie. The museum has potential to be quite nice but had several major shortcomings, the most substantial of which was the number of exhibits that were broken or missing critical components. Slinky treadmill? No slinkies. Create your own flying machine at the wind table? No supplies. Tube tunnels? Clogged. Magnetic sculpture? Maybe a half dozen pieces with which to create. Imagination playground? Closed. Art studio? No supplies. Much of Rivertown was just empty bins. Then a lot of buttons just didn't turn anything on like they were supposed to.

Not directly the fault of the museum but we were there at the same time as a camp group full of children who were just repeatedly screaming at full volume and seemingly had no supervision. Neither camp staff nor museum staff seemingly made any effort to control this despite a posted museum rule to "use inside voices." It was such a huge relief when they left. If anyone in my party had sensory sensitivities we would have had to leave. Even as someone without sensory sensitivity, I found it hard to stay. Non camp patrons were generally more respectful of volume in the shared space.

We had a weird staff interaction while eating lunch in the designated eating area. We were approached and told apologetically that we needed to leave as they had to set up for something. It took me a minute to process (leave ... the museum? The eating area?) and I asked if there was anywhere else my children could finish lunch and was told that we could sit at the table against the wall. So... We didn't need to leave all together, we just needed to change tables. It would have been a much friendlier interaction had we just been asked to move to the other table. That was the only interaction I had with staff circulating around the museum and it was just odd. I did not see any other staff making any effort to interact with guests in any capacity.

Overall it was a half decent option to get out of the car for a bit and not be outside in the oppressive heat, but it wouldn't be worth the money for me to bring my family back if we were passing through again.