WonderWorks Destiny — Attraction in City of Syracuse

Definitely overrated. Nothing but a glorified and overpriced Chuck E. Cheese for older kids. To be fair, my expectations were probably too high going in - I was thinking it would be of similar caliber to many of the Ripley's Museums we've visited across the country. Instead, it was headache-level noisy, poorly organized, chaotic and drab. Our first experience was so blah that we didn't even bother to go back and use the free birthday pass we later received for my son via Wonderworks' Professor's Club marketing promotion.

Many of the "attractions" were either out of order or unstaffed during our visit. The activities that were semi-working still looked the worse for wear. Since the most interesting activities (gyro ride, wind tunnel, bed of nails, theater) require staff operation and supervision, this was especially problematic. Stood waiting for up to 15-20 minutes at times, while the few attendants on staff wandered around aimlessly to other areas. The layout and lack of staffing discourages a natural flow from one activity to another, leading to large groups crowding into relatively tight, chaotic spaces to wait their turns at the underwhelming exhibits.

Despite the fact that there are hundreds of little hands touching every surface in the place, we saw no one cleaning or sanitizing anything the entire time we were there. The bubble area is a slip and fall waiting to happen, as the bubble solution constantly covers the concrete floor in a thin coat of slime. 3 kids fell and banged their heads/arms in just the few minutes we spent in that area. The one area that didn't utterly disappoint was the lazer tag arena. I use the term arena loosely, because it was actually very small. But my younger kids (3, 7 and 8) were impressed enough by it. Again, a case of the space for the activity being too tight to offer much challenge for kids much older than that.

My recommendation - skip pricey Wonderworks and visit the reasonably priced MOST museum a few miles up the road instead. Same emphasis on hands-on, science based activities for all ages, but the staff is much more attentive and the activities/facilities are in considerably...

I must say, Wonderworks isn't bad. I mean the price is a little pricey, but in all it was a fun experience. Although.. Thing is. Staff. The people at the front desk were DELIGHTFUL. And my family and I had a rather well experience with the staff at the counter! Although. On the actual floor where the exhibits are is a different story. A group of 3 females had stuck together the entire time, talking, and not even half doing their job. And one of them had a major attitude as well. You could say thank you to her, and get absolutely nothing but a smug look from her. We had rode on the roller coaster simulator asking for wild and she shut the door rudly and put us in the medium mode. When I was younger wonderworks was a fun experience for me. Although this group of girls really just ruined the mood in all. My family and I even went to do Lazer tag as the group of 3 went to hide! My dad went out and said you guys are pretty ridiculous today. Which in all they were! Remind you we were sitting in the Lazer tag area for a while. And to top it off my family and I were the only ones there too. Wonderworks was extremely empty when it came to visitors that day. All in all my opinion they need to get replaced and need to realize Customer service is apart of your job. Please do better. Your job is not hard there. I mean even the bathrooms were very gross and extremely unkept... In my opinion (this does not include the staff at the counters.) The floor staff need to be let go if they can't figure out they don't get paid to talk all shift. Being a paying customer you shouldn't feel like asking someone to assist you and do their job to be an inconvenience. Other than that wonderworks was a fun experience. But I recommend you guys look into replacing...

We went to WonderWorks for the first time and inside the exhibit there was like 8 of the things weren’t running or on. My oldest enjoyed the rollercoaster simulation and the lady was so nice and asking if my son was comfortable and ok with the ride. Then I sent my two sons who are 9 & 7 to walk on canyon climb. They were initially excited and my oldest was great on the rollercoaster so I thought he would be ok. They walked over the bridge and my younger son broke down upset he didn’t want to go further and he was scared. I told him to turn around and get off as he was turning around my other son had a panic attack and didn’t want to continue without his brother. As they were coming back my younger sons rope got caught and he was in tears trying to get off the climb. We waved at the staff member to get my son unstuck and he looked at us and walked in the other direction. My husband processed to go inside to ask the staff for help to help get them unstuck. The staffed laughed and said “they are just playing and they aren’t stuck.” My husband asked again to get them unstuck because they were crying upset and scared. My sons were panicking more because they could not get the rope lose. My kids stood there crying for five minutes as my husband asked them and then yelled at them to help them. They continued to laugh and did nothing to help. My older son finally wiggled the rope loose to get them off the climb. It would of taken them a minute to walk over and help the kids get unloose there were four sitting at the entrance doing nothing. And one staff ignored us on the climb. It was not a good or pleasant situation. I will NOT be going back to canyon climb if that is how they treat the kids and laughing at customers...