Griffith Observatory is truly an international landmark spanning generations of visitors and a fantastically free experience. Being on top of a mountain, it boasts beautiful views with the classic Hollywood sign in view. They also have free small telescopes set up pointed to visible planets and the moon for nice viewing. Inside, there are a variety of great exhibits with great tech to help people easily understand concepts like seasons, eclipses, elements, telescopes, planets and more. Downstairs is an amazing planetary exhibit with fun details and information.

There are some downsides to the logistics of the place, however. Coming at evening, traffic is blocked to the observatory, with cars needing to take a detour around the place to find parking along the side of the road for $10/hr. If you can find parking, then it's a long trek back over to the place. The night I went, parking was non-existent, requiring us to go all the way around back to a parking lot by the Greek Theatre where bus service nicely could take us to the observatory. The sign says 50cents but the driver said it's free, so the signage is confusing and wrong. If staying till closing though, consider going back to the dropoff early or risk not having a return bus. I started leaving the premises at 10pm closing and there were no buses in sight with security saying the last transits had gone. Luckily one more bus did come and took us back, but not without fear that it'd be a long walk back. The headache with parking and confusing information about transit makes it a poor experience to get there and back.

The other bad part was outside on the roof area. It's a beautiful area, one where we could spend a lot of time just gazing out at the city and stars. Understandably, when people sit on the edge for a photo, a staff person would tell them to get off. But right at 10pm closing, the staff person started aggressively yelling at people that they're closed and they need to get out. No more photos! THEY'RE CLOSED!!! I previously used one set of stairs to get up there, and going there she turned us around to go to the complete opposite side. I don't know why that side was closed when they both just lead to the front, but she was rude about it. I was also tired at the end of the night and wanted the elevator but she corraled us forward saying we weren't going to be using it, it's closed. What if we needed it for accessibility? Very rude old lady who needs to retire or learn how to more politely handle crowds at closing. They also start flashing strobe lights at people taking photos past closing. And there's police right at the bottom of the steps to intimidate anyone from arguing about anything.

From confusing transit, uninformed security, aggressively rude closing staff and discourteous strobe light use to ruin photos, it's a poor visiting experience when it comes to the personnel.

But if you don't have to interact with staff/security/police, it's a nice and relaxing place to spend time with friends and family