Science Center of Iowa — Attraction in Des Moines

We’ve been members of the Iowa Science Center for seven years. We usually visit once or twice a year and have always had a great experience—until now.

On Memorial Day, I brought my two daughters and met up with a neighbor dad and his sons for a fun outing, giving our wives a well-deserved break. Upon checking in, I showed our digital membership pass that clearly listed both my name and my wife’s. Monica at the front desk told me my name wasn’t in the system and wouldn’t honor the pass—even after I showed her the confirmation from my wife’s phone showing both of our names on the same account.

After ten minutes of back-and-forth while she tinkered on her computer (and my wife tried to help via phone and text), Monica still refused to let us in. I calmly asked her to do the right thing and provide good customer service, since we clearly had an active membership. At that point, another associate, Desiree, stepped in and—completely unprovoked—aggressively told me to stop with my “condescending” tone or she would kick me out. I was shocked. I hadn’t raised my voice or been rude. I was simply trying to advocate for a fair resolution.

To avoid escalating the situation, I stepped away from the desk. When I returned five minutes later, Monica admitted she had made a mistake and allowed us in. My neighbor had the same issue, costing us about 30 minutes of the two hours we had planned for our visit.

This was disappointing and not at all the standard of service we’ve come to expect. We’ve supported the Science Center for years and are the type of members who definitely give more than we take—but if this is the direction customer service is heading, we won’t be renewing...

Review of the IMAX dome theater.

I'm 6'3", so I write this as a fair warning for taller people.

I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens on 2015-12-22.

When we walked into the theater, it was sooo warm. It never cooled off. If you like watching movies while sweating, then you'd be happy. I wasn't. As I went up the steps and started walking down our row, I knew there was going to be another problem: leg room. I could hardly walk without touching the seats. Then I sat down. It was horrible. There was nowhere to put my feet. My legs were stuck in one position for 2.5 hours with no relief. The seat was very narrow, as well. Did I mention how horrible this is and how badly your knees will hurt during the movie?

I had high hopes for the movie itself, since J.J. Abrams apparently shot large parts of the movie in the IMAX format. Those hopes fell flat when it came time to actually watch the movie. The darks are horrible and you can't make out the details. You also spend all your time moving your head back and forth since you can't see everything happening at once. Regular movies in this dome theater just don't work.

Also, in case you liked 1977 quite a bit, you get to watch "worms" again. These are bits of dust or threads, or something on the lense of the projector and they are very distracting.

These were the highlights, if you will. I've been in other IMAX theaters and didn't experience these issues. I have no desire to ever watch a moving in this...

This review isn't about the science center but about the science center preschool my grandson graduated from there as the only African-American student in their class he really enjoyed it but when it came to graduation is where I have a problem he was called last for his certificate which is not an issue I don't know how they're doing it may be alphabetical order so that wasn't an issue but when it came to the graduation video they showed he was only displayed in the background of three slides while the other kids were prominently shown in multiple slides at first I thought it was an issue of he may not have had enough photos but his grandmother had shown me multiple photos at sent her of him on different field trips doing different activities which struck me as odd that they wouldn't use any of these in any of the slides we had sent an email inquiring about what the issue could possibly be was there a slip up somewhere and we're still yet to get a response it's just kind of disheartening when other children are shown in multiple slides in the foreground when your child is put into the background and the only reason he's appearing in these slides is because he happened to be in the slide that one of the kids that they're showing prominently...