The Regnier Family Wonderscope Children's Museum of Kansas City — Attraction in Kansas City

3/28-I booked the Ultimate Birthday package for $250 for 24 people-children and adults included ($271 after tax to be exact). The package was to include 24 cupcakes, juice boxes, napkins, gift bags for each child and a t-shirt for the birthday child.The website states it is a place for all ages to enjoy and very interactive. I had never been before so I thought it would be something different and interesting to do for my 7 yr old. Well we get there early for the children to play (party was the last one for the day) and we start with the first room-the "Garden and Barn area". There were toys EVERYWHERE it was a complete mess. We proceeded to the other rooms and they were just as bad. We went to the art room and there were no supplies for the children to use and it was a complete mess. In my opinion I think that the staff should every half hour or so do a "Sweep" of the rooms to tidy them up. They cannot expect a bunch of kids mainly toddlers to do this. Every room we went to had toys and supplies from the other rooms in them.The rooms could have had at least someone to supervise it. To pretty much sum this up the children were very disappointed. This place is designed more for kids 5 and under. We finally get to the party room and I guess my expectations were a little too high. There were outdoor patio tables and chairs for the guest to sit in and we had to unstack the chairs ourselves. Our "attendant" was nice but not very attentive, seemed very rushed. She only came in to bring the cupcakes and juice boxes, never offered any napkins (glad I had my own) and the last time she was seen was to come and ask me to pay the remainder due for the party. Needless to say I was not too pleased with the whole experience. After arriving home later that evening I realized the children did not get their gift bags and my daughter didn't get her birthday t-shirt as promised. I immediately left a voice mail and received a return call on Sunday the day AFTER her party stating I could come to pick up the gift bags and t-shirt. I explained to the woman Chou that it was irrelevant at that point, the party was over and I wasn't going to try to track down people to give them give bags. She then stated I could get a family pass to return. As I stated earlier in this review, my children were NOT happy with their experience due to it being too young for them. I told that to her and she stated she would have to talk with her executive director, John to find out what to do. As of this point and time I have not gotten a response back from anyone which I am not too happy about. Paying $271 for a birthday party here is not worth it, even if I did get the items and good service that was promised. So a bit of advice, do your research before you go there to plan your party. I wish I had visited it before booking the party, which was my fault but there is NO excuse for the staff not to have available all that is promised to you as stated on their website. NOT...

January 2025 update:

We still love this place, but will not be renewing our membership for a while. I have been annoyed for several years that there are staff stationed in every exhibit who either do absolutely nothing or try to parent my child in front of me (when I am clearly already in the middle of dealing with the situation). This would have been a manageable annoyance, BUT they made an unannounced increase to the cost of membership at the beginning of 2025, and I’m guessing it’s to pay for labor of the unhelpful staff.

It’s almost $200 for a membership for my family of 5. I understand that’s technically a good deal since a single visit would cost my family $72 … but frankly, I just don’t ever spend $72 to take my kids anywhere 🤷🏻‍♀️

Shout out to Wonder Camp though! My kids LOVE Wonder Camp every summer! Hands down our family’s favorite summer camp 😊

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Oh my goodness, the new Wonderscope is amazing! We were so attached to the old Wonderscope, but the new one is truly better. It retains a lot of the allure and charm of the old Wonderscope (hands-on art space, water play, grocery store, etc.), but just improves on that. The layout is so well thought out — all the space is used so cleverly so that there are tons of little nooks for kids to play in. There’s tons of bench seating for the adults, so they don’t have to stand around as much as before. There’s a diaper change station centrally located in the play space. The outdoor space is basically its own play space — my daughter could have spent the entire 2 hours outside if I’d let her 😂. And possibly my favorite feature: the spacious carpeted under-4 area. My son crawled for about a year, and it was nearly impossible to find good places to take him during that time. This space would have been amazing for him...

What a blessing this museum is to anyone in the KC area! My daughter and I will typically take 3 day weekend trips to when school is out. They usually always involve a museum, and we finally got to mark one off in Kansas City area. This might be our 2nd favorite after the Cincinnati Museum. I felt bad that we did not get there sooner because even after 5 hours, my 6 year old was not ready to leave. We found the items in all of the different play areas were good quality. We have been to other science/play museums in which that was not the case. We found the staff VERY attentive and maintaining their areas. In the art room, the staff assisted my daughter with a couple of different projects. In addition, I did see the employee in the sports area actively encouraging kids to move and play. At one point, my daughter got away from me. Since I was not familiar with the climbing area, I could not find her. The second I approached a staff member, they helped me locate her hiding in the bus (which I did not know you can access!) There was no shame as they had processes in place. For adults, they are numerous locations to sit. My daughter loved the cafe, which was a perfect area. I realize parents may not understand why they get charged, but that is to maintain the volume of people on site. We were there for the Gabby meet and greet, so when we were there, while there was a lot of people, it did not feel hectic. Finally, I will say the staff we interacted with was AMAZING! Since we were traveling in, we called in a few weeks prior to get information on the location. Buck and Dani were so helpful on giving information on the museum. When we met them, there were excited to hear about our KC trip. If this museum was an hour drive away, we would buy a membership...