Children's Museum of Virginia — Attraction in Portsmouth

First let me start off by saying I’m not here to discourage anyone from visiting this location because it’s a nice big scenery for yourself and kids of all ages. However I wouldn’t recommend booking a birthday party as the staff are not welcoming and doesn’t seem to want to hold their position at the door greeting your on coming party guest, when you arrive they will practically rush you as soon as you sign in as the rental space is only available for 1hr.. 1hr to gather, eat, sing happy birthday & shower the birthday girl/boy with gifts no actual time to sit and converse whatsoever but hey that’s what you booked so cant complain about that. Just expected a little more decency as everyone one knows 1hr to set up clean up and all other birthday things is not very much time. However You can still choose to stay after but don’t expect them to offer to hold your party things like candy bags/ etc for your guest you will practically be walking around the entire time with all of your belongings that’s not suitable to sit in a hot car. & just before your rental ends exactly 2 mins before you get a unpleasant reminder you have 2 mins to vacate😊 although nobody was actually being rude the energy of all the staff at the door was just distasteful the staff on the floors was kind and & helpful for finding things like the bathroom which is very far from your rental space which is not ideal for a older guest definitely beings though they don’t have wheel chairs either. Lastly if you do decide to book in the summer bring some personal fans the overall building is a little nippy but the enclosed party rooms are hot definitely with your party group In it. ** After reading others reviews for the past year the front desk staff has been unpleasant, rude & distasteful to people of all kinds children, disabled, elders & unfortunately color those aren’t the reviews you see they are suppressed unless you go looking for them and I really wish I had before booking a birthday party here as my party group was diverse with all those kind of people that they had been previously being rude to i would have known then that this wouldn’t have been a good experience for us! Imagine having to book a birthday party and then after leaving the birthday party you have to pay to take your child somewhere else because you wasn’t the happiest you could have been there because someone was continuously over your shoulder nagging about every...

The place itself is “okay”. It’s fun the first couple of times, but the activities do get old quickly. The major drawback is the RIDICULOUS process to even go!

So you pay for a subscription. When you decide to go, you have to go online to “purchase” a ticket (even though you already have a membership). It’s free, but you have to go through the same process as if you weren’t a member. EVERY TIME.

When you select your “member” ticket you have to put in your member number. Which is on your virtual card in your wallet. But guess what? You can’t copy and paste from that. And it’s a long number. So you can go through your emails to where you purchased your membership and copy and paste your number from there. Of course it won’t auto populate or anything, that would be too easy.

Then you have to go through the actual purchase process to reserve a time slot. You have to manually enter in ALL of your info. Email address. RE-ENTER your email. Name, physical address, phone number. Everything. Nothing is saved in your account. Why would it be?

Then when you get there you ALSO have to provide not only your ID but your membership card. As though you didn’t need to meticulously enter in your member number when signing up for the time slot to begin with. And if you don’t have it ready they have the nerve to get snooty and say that you should have known you would need to have that ready as they tell you when you sign up. Like, you are expected to remember all of these heinous steps EVERY TIME.

It’s a deterrent. There are so many barriers to actually using my membership. The thought of having to go through this entire process makes me just say forget it half the time. None of this is necessary- if you have a membership you should have a login that remembers most of your information. Streamlining this process would be so easy but they make it as difficult as they possibly can. I won’t...

The Children's Museum of Virginia is arguably the best children's museum in Virginia. As such, expectations should be just that - a children's museum - and not that of the Liberty Science Center (New Jersey), the Orlando Science Center (Florida), or any other major metropolitan children's museums.

It is enjoyable for all ages - even as an adult, I found some of the exhibits rather neat and interesting. As a parent of a 5 and 2 year old at the time of writing this review, I reckon that this museum is suitable and will entertain kids up until the mid-teens (0 - 16 year olds).

Comparing it to the Children's Museum of Richmond (just another hour and a half northeast), the Children's Museum of Virginia in Portsmouth is more of a museum than an indoor play space. I like how the venue highlights the importance of ports and maritime activities which is based on and true to the local area itself. There are a lot of things for children to interact with, with a total of two levels (floors). While I don't recall entirely all the exhibits available, I assure you that you will not be disappointed with the Children's Museum of Virginia.

The venue is in an ideal location. There is convenient garage (self-paying) parking adjacent to the museum, but at the time that we went (April 2023) it appeared to be going through some construction which made navigating it slightly confusing. Other than that, getting in and out of the area proved to be hassle free which is great. There are also a lot of dining options geared towards families around the venue itself, which really makes it...