Children's Museum of New Hampshire — Attraction in Dover

I am living proof this museum is absolutely worth visiting. Childhood is fleeting, but memories of this museum will last your children decades. I must admit, I've never been to this new location, only the old one in Portsmouth. I went there many times as a child decades ago and I just have the most wonderful memories of that place. Whether reality could live up to my 5-year-old memories is debatable, but as a child, I thought it was the coolest place in the whole wide world. Dispite the move to the next town over, I still recognize nearly all the exhibits from the pictures. This place is absolutely wonderful. I've never been back in person, and for parts of my life I definitely had to wonder if I fabricated some of my memories because they were just so vivid and happy and wonderful. At least 2 decades later my mind is splattered with kaleidoscopic images of a big colorful wall that made noise, a fake kitchen, a bunch of magnets, the little wall of red pins you could shove your while body into, a little room with headbands and a ball game I could never win, a massive submarine, a place to dig fossils, and a trolly car outside where I ate pizza lunchables with my siblings. I remember when I was even too little to be able to make the colorful wall make noise. I also remember the year I was finally able to do it all by myself and how excited I was and how excited my dad was. This planet is better because this place exists. I want to work in museums for the rest of my life because this place exists. I love knowledge and learning and science and expiramenting and submarines and everything else because this place exists. Bring your kids here. Please bring your kids here. There are not enough stars in the known universe to properly rate how wonderful this...

The pandemic was awful. I get it. But the pandemic shouldn't be propped up as the reason this joint seems the same since it moved to Dover...(checks notes)...15 years ago!

99% of the exhibits are still aimed at the pre-K crowd. That's cool and all, but when you're paying that kind of money (did I mention they charge 10x more than they're worth?) I'm gonna need my 7-year-old daughter not to say, "Daddy, I'm bored. Can we go home?" Maybe she wouldn't be so bored if it didn't seem like a junior high intern designed and built everything. Did I mention that some of the exhibits date back to the 90s? Trust me, you can tell.

This place has been coasting, to put it mildly, for the last 10 years. Staff seem checked out, impossible to find, or just plain unengaged.

The front desk worker told me to reach out to the "office marketing staff" with my concerns. Three emails. All ignored. Super customer service. 🙄

On my next visit, I asked to speak to the person in charge after I was ignored via email and was told "The President doesn't work weekends." I think that says it all.

I waited for way too long for this place to prove me wrong.

I'm done.

Oh, and maybe sweep, mop, and disinfect your exhibits...because my family and many others we've talked to can't get over how filthy and nasty the museum always is. If I'm one of the first families in your door on a Saturday morning, you have zero excuse for dirt and strange stains and old coffee cups inside your exhibits.

Stop making pretend you're a big city museum when you have the creativity and engagement of a small...

This museum was a fun educational place to take our daughter! We had never been here before and it was quite a surprise for our daughter. She had a blast! We got there early, shortly after they opened. There was hardly anyone there at that time. I was able to go around and take some pictures. We were able to try a lot of what the museum had to offer so that was fun! We loved the USPS letters throughout the museum. My daughter loved delivering mail! It was just such a fun time.

We did visit on a weekend so we had a feeling it would be a bit busier than a weekday, but we didn't expect a party to show up. It got a bit overcrowded by 1pm so that was a bummer. (Super packed) Too many kids hovering around exhibits by that time. So we ended up leaving much earlier than we wanted to.

I think the cost of admission would have been fine had we been able to stay longer. But it was so over packed with people it made it not feel like the price was worth what we paid. We were told we could leave and come back that day, but there was absolutely no parking available. People were lined up hoping to catch a spot from anyone leaving.

Again, it was great before it got overwhelming busy. I would say this museum is great for kids 5 and under. If we paid this price on a sunny Tuesday, we would have probably had the best time where it wouldnt be over crowded. But when you take a busy cold Saturday and throw a kids birthday party in the mix, it's...