Museum of Science & Industry — Attraction in Tampa

Pretty weak. The IMAX theater is cool of course, but it's no different than any other one. The museum seems half-finished. There's bare, unfinished concrete everywhere and a number of exhibits that are open to the public but seem incomplete.

The small exhibit on 3D printing is neat but was lacking in some sort of demonstration aspect - which is exactly the strength of the technology! The disaster exhibit, similarly, had a couple props that were interesting to look at but was lacking in any real depth. Most of the displays simply discussed how to prepare for each disaster type. The electricity and magnetism section had the expected Tesla coil/plasma globe/Jacob's ladder displays, which were neat. The turbine blade which they claimed was generating electricity was clearly driven by an electric motor. The rest of the displays were either unimpressive, lacking in detail or broken.

The rest of the museum was taken up by a very large exhibit on health and the human body. The overwhelming number of displays here were simply bits of text to read with a video or quiz. Pretty dull overall - I felt that most of this was covered in my high school health class, and the rest could be found on a short trip through the internet. We got halfway through before we started skimming the countless PSA's on a healthy lifestyle and moved on.

All told, the supposed kids zone ended up being the best part! It had a large number of interactive exhibits, puzzles, and even a cool NASA-funded area with a pre-show, light-up moonbase model and some moon-themed simulations. (Though it's just running Moonbase Alpha, which you could download and play at home.) They had a number of life-sized displays, including an Apollo heat shield, a lunar lander model, and what appears to be a real biplane!

Outside, there's a a garden with some trees [descended from trees] that were in historical events, and a small butterfly garden. We didn't pay for the ropes course.

Overall, I'd say it's not the worst thing you could do if you're looking to kill a couple hours, but it's pricey for...

I booked Arcadia Earth Tampa as part of my son’s birthday weekend, and unfortunately, the experience fell far short of expectations.

It started on the wrong foot when I couldn’t locate the tickets in my email. There was no phone number to call, and by the time someone replied to my email, our time slot had already passed. After about a week of back-and-forth, I finally received the tickets. I even purchased an extra ticket for my son’s friend, hoping this would be a memorable outing.

Once inside, we were excited by the 360° screen and visuals—but quickly noticed that a large portion of the screen was blacked out, clearly showing the laptop interface. Just a few minutes in, the system crashed and had to be rebooted. Glitches continued throughout the experience, which made it difficult to stay immersed.

The content itself was disappointing. While the visuals had potential, the storyline was cheesy and, at times, awkward (an astronaut speaking with a woman who declares, “We are making science sexy”). The tone often turned dark, with music that my 10-year-old son and his friend both found unsettling. The message leaned heavily into climate-change themes—without explicitly saying so—but came across more like propaganda than an engaging, educational experience.

To make matters worse, the promotional Instagram highlights immersive visuals from their Ontario location, which does not reflect what you actually get in Tampa. Between the technical issues and misleading advertising, we left early.

For $80+, this was absolutely not worth the cost. At best, it felt like something that should be a $10 add-on at the museum, not a standalone experience. Save your money and find a more worthwhile...

We visited MOSI while in FL on vacation from the West coast. We took advantage of our local science museum's membership reciprocity with MOSI and were able to visit for free. We hoped to occupy our three kids, ages 5 thru 9, for 3 or 4 hours in at least a semi educational way. This proved... difficult. We started out on a high note with all three engaging well with a staff-directed Lego technix drawing robot project for at least 30 mn. This proved to be the highlight of the visit. Very few of the other exhibits leant themselves to real engagement for more than 5 minutes, if that long. There were exceptions: they all beat their heads against the controls in the cargo loading robot for 10 mn or so, and spent quite a while building an impressive structure from a nice collection of wooden blocks. They cut and folded paper whirligigs and tested them in a wind tube. The whole family tested the "one sided tug-o-war" and the magnetic pendulum. But very little else held their interest. A handful of the exhibits were in disrepair. Others had plenty of flashy lights and fancy screens, but delivered pretty minimal information or inspiration. Others had interactive options (like the moon exhibit), but the overly loud, distracting atmosphere, and single user design, made concentration unlikely. . A great number of the exhibits we'd remembered from a visit a couple years ago were nowhere in evidence, and my impression is they have sealed off or otherwise decomissioned a large portion of the facility. Overall we had trouble keeping the kids busy nearly as long as we'd wanted. Especially in comparison to our local museum (which all else to the side is at least 4 times as large) it was a...