Houston Museum of Natural Science — Attraction in Houston

Shocked and bewildered at all the 5 star reviews…

This place is absolute highway robbery. It’s $25/adult + $30 for parking. Parking you’re not allowed to exit/re-enter if you want to go get lunch btw. $80 a visit for just two people. If that hasn’t scared you off yet, what if I tell you about 40% of the museum exhibits cost EXTRA on top of that. Not like $5/pp extra… $35/pp extra… Walk through just a few exhibits and you’ll encounter an exhibit that’ll cost you $35 extra PER PERSON. I believe in total we came across 4 of these. So if you wanted to get in, park, and see all 3 extra exhibits, for two people that would cost you nearly $350…. UTTER INSANITY. Not to mention they sell planetarium tickets and butterfly exhibit tickets as well. If you wanted to do EVERYTHING this place has to offer in one day, it would cost you well over 2x the cost of a ticket to DISNEYWORLD per person. Let that sink in.

On top of that, there are about 4 security guards PER ROOM throughout the entire museum. It was extremely off-putting. Some of them had firearms… Surely criminals and troublemakers can’t afford the $300 price-tag of a visit to this place to warrant THAT many security guards?

The signs outside the museum said no selfie sticks, and I had brought a tripod. Not a selfie stick. So I thought it might be okay. I set my tripod up to take a picture of my husband and I. Before I could even step into the frame a guard came rushing over to me to tell me I wasn’t allowed to use it in the museum because “kids could trip over it, they’re running around everywhere”. No one was even in the room we were in at all. It was very disappointing and I felt like the least he could do was offer to take the photo for us…

Within 10 minutes I saw another guard pestering a family with two small children. The kids weren’t even doing anything wrong. Just standing BEHIND the ropes and pointing. Perfectly well behaved kids, but the guard was chastising the parents for not making sure the kids didn’t “get too close” they were staying BEHIND the rope!! Just odd.

Then on our way out, a security guard started to scold two boys (likely brothers) who were pestering each other while waiting in line for something. They weren’t bothering anyone. Just two brothers bickering a bit. But the guard took it upon herself to tell them to “settle down”.

The dinosaur section was AMAZING. The native South and North American peoples areas were incredible! Nothing like I’d seen before. The Egyptian section was also really good. Then genuinely everything else was confusing, chaotic, and difficult to interact with.

My husband and I have STEM degrees, yet we found ourselves scratching our heads in confusion trying to make heads or tails of most of the exhibits. We exchanged “I don’t get it” about a hundred times in this museum. We had more questions than lessons learned coming out. It’s hard to exactly explain - the placards just sucked and used confusing and sometimes grammatically incorrect sentences.

Not to mention the entire 4th floor is an OIL COMPANY propaganda playground.

Save your money and go to Disneyworld instead. I cannot comprehend the...

We absolutely loved all the exhibits here! How everything was categorized and the hands on experiences were especially fun, my son loved them so much! We were stuck in the astrophysics area for what seemed to be an hour because he was so fascinated on space and the black hole exhibit and the huge screens showcasing the universe and planetary systems.

The fossils, gems, and ecology and other exhibits were so well themed and unique, that our planned short trip turned into a good few hours because we were in awe of its beauty and its educational tidbits. It consists of four floors, plentiful permanent exhibits with other special exhibits available for an additional cost, such as the planetarium, butterfly exhibit, shark exhibit, and more.

The museum gift shop was enormous too! There was so much stuff I wish I could buy, and more luxurious items that were interesting to see priced, just to view the value of them, such as jewelry, prehistoric bones, and gems.

I am unfortunately giving three stars because at the end of our visit, we bought tickets to the planetarium for a show and the female ticket checker with glasses was extremely rude. Not directly towards my family in particular, but towards the whole showing group. Scolding us for "blocking" the entrance for the prior showing audience to come out, spoiler, they exited another way. Stating, "come on, we should be more considerate," in a condescending tone, and then finishing it off telling us to be quiet because our voices can echo for the current showing. I totally understand, but what threw me off was when another group member apologized to her and told her they would whisper, the cranky employee rudely said, "yeah, no." The silence was so awkward because of the tension she created in the air, and then when it was time to finally let us in, she barged open the doors and was just overall hostile and uncomfortable to walk past. Thankfully, the planetarium show was awesome and my son loved the dome screen.

Overall, museum, security and ticket checker staff were extremely pleasant and 5/5. That single planetarium woman unfortunately put a stain on the conclusion of not only our museum trip, but our overall family spring break vacation too, due to her unwarranted and unnecessary...

Let me start this off by saying this is such a nice place and we had a great time. My kids and brother enjoyed it so much. Me, my 3 year old, 1 year old, and 11 year old brother visited the museum today. My 1 year old stayed in her stroller for the entirety of the museum until we got to the 4th floor. There wasn’t as many people so I was going to let her walk beside us. We sit at one of the benches provided and I take her out of the stroller and sit her on the ground. An employee then walks up to me and says “I’m going to go over the rules with you”. We’ve already been in the museum close to 2 hours at this point. I say “okay”. She then proceeds to tell me with an attitude “no food or drink is allowed” and then “remember children are supposed to stay within 5 feet of adults”. All I say is okay because I was SHOCKED. My children stayed beside me the whole time. There are children everywhere in the museum. This employee then REPEATS the “5 feet rule”. I then tell her “okay we have been in the museum for close to 2 hours and I know how to watch my children”. She walks away and we continue looking at the exhibit. I then see her again and I decide I’m going to ask her name and report this since it was absolutely crazy I was singled out and embarrassed like this. I walk up to her and ask for her name. I never lost my cool. I was never rude. I was visibly upset and almost in tears because people were looking at us. She doesn't say anything so I ask her again. She the get on her little walkie-talkie and calls someone else over. I never heard her name. No one ever told me. The woman who came was very nice and told me how sorry she was and that there isn’t no “5 feet rule” other than when it’s big parties/field trips. She said she would go over it with the employee. I told her I am only saying something so it doesn’t happen to someone else. I am still in disbelief that an employee said this to me and I was treated this way. We immediately went to the butterfly...