The Imperial Centre for the Arts & Sciences — Attraction in Rocky Mount

Extremely unprofessional establishment. Went on a field trip with group called Michael’s Angels. We serve a low income and black population. Called two days in advance to schedule a reservation and spoke to a woman named Adrienne. Adrienne said she would schedule us for 1:30. I asked her to confirm this multiple times over the phone. Upon arriving at the establishment, we were told they did not schedule us for a real appointment. Instead they put us down tentatively which was not mentioned over the phone. The entire staff treated me and my group extremely disrespectfully. As a non profit group, we are used to being treated less seriously, but the utter disrespect this “museum” showed us is unbelievable. Not scheduling us for a real visit is unacceptable. The actually facility is not kept up properly. Found many bugs on the ground and in play areas. Exhibits were below average. One showing was actually a health hazard as it included flashing lights and lasers with no warning for epileptic children.

Edit: Throughout this whole experience, the staff were yelling and following our kids. One white man in particular grabbed one of our children and pinched her while reprimanding her. He also blocked her path when she tried to disengage and find a staff member of the camp. After that encounter that I witnessed, he stated that “he didn’t want us here.” His major complaint was that the children were not cleaning up and were not well managed. Unsure what this meant considering we were in an open play area with various toy sections in which many children were running around and playing freely. He only chose to yell at...

2025 Update: The new parrot is super stressed out and pulling out all his feathers, it made me very sad to see he looks so unhappy, but he does enjoy if you sing to him. I hope they move him some he is more comfortable and happy.

Very beautiful facility! Completely ADA compliant with elevators and wide spacious areas throughout. Friendly and professional staff. We had a very enjoyable experience with the whole family, there are things to do for children as young as six months all the way up to 14 years old. The activities are not only entertaining, but engaging and educational. We planned to spend an hour and a half here and we ended up staying for 3.5 hours, just took our time on a Friday afternoon and it wasn’t busy so it felt like we had the place to ourselves. The planetarium is incredible and worth the visit all on its own. Accessible and clean restrooms on each floor equipped with baby...

We went during Feb 2019 with out of town company. The interactive play stations made it the perfect place to take a 3 year old. Some of the child-oriented stations included: giant bricks to build with, a grocery store with child sized carts, a kitchen, and a doctor's office. The Connect 4 game was literally child-sized...the framework (to drop the disks in) was as tall as our 3 year old. Most intriguing for the grown-ups was the pvc piping that made music while using flip-flops. Yup, you got to see it! There was a small alcove that had stuffed bees (the insects) to play with and other bee oriented educational...