Explorium Denton Children's Museum a Program of Denton County Friends of The Family. — Local services in Denton

I have been following the Explorium's progress since 2010! After 8 years away from Denton (and me having access to local children's museums in other states) I was so excited to visit. I was underwhelmed.

Let's talk about downsides:

So hot inside! Do they not have AC in Texas? There were large industrial fans everywhere (with power cords being plugged in INSIDE play spaces that you needed to monitor, to make sure your small child didn't touch it) and fans were so loud!

-Staff seemed annoyed at every thing. Their motto is to foster play and explore yadda, yadda. I watched employees show openly that they were annoyed at the play mess that was happening. The staff seems to have been told to pick up after the kids, which I can only imagine is tedious and exhausting. There is nothing to asks kids to clean a station before moving on and this is clearly creating some kind of vibe between staff and the kids that isn't jiving.

Many of the activities aren't even kid friendly. (Ex. There is an Operation style game that is too wide for kids to play and they can't climb on it because it wasn't built to support them so it's like a giant toy they can't touch. There is a Coop with a slide (that's super unsafe. PVC pipes that roll. How has no one gotten stuck in this yet?) a bridge (railings also unsafe, idk how a kid hasn't fallen off already) and a fireman's pole that is 100% not safe for kids under maybe 12. As in there is a 2 foot hole with no railing, warning, anything on the top of the Coop. Just asking for a lawsuit it seems. (You are told by staff to go with your under 4 year old on the structure upon arrival. You are also told to wear shoes as the Coop is made from materials that'll give you splinters. So a play thing not thought through enough to make it play friendly.) Other smaller activities were old, broken, not in the area they were meant to be in. There were also mirrors at the bottom of the Coop that had broken frames and no signage or caution tape to warm kids of sharp edges.

It is one open big space with no structure. There is no path marked out for a child's brain to go "This is the path I'm exploring and then this what I'll do next" it's just an open space, ADD, free for all so it takes a while for kiddos to actually see what's in the space.

-They are trying to be clever with some pieces but it's confusing to kids. There is a Canoe library (a canoe on it's side filled with books) and all my kids wanted to do was get in the canoe! Either have the play spaces be 100% play friendly or put the library off to the side with the reading nook! There's no clear answer for kids, "Can I play on everything or is it structured play?"

I've worked in several museums with low budget and not a lot of space and they made it work. This seems like a great idea that got tired and now MEH is the theme. This is from my experience with a 6 and 3 year old. I know it's not everyone's experience. But my takeaway was that it was a neat experience and I had no need to go back. Which is...

My kids love going to the explorium. We have a membership and try to come almost weekly. I’ve come to a point, though, where I will no longer be bringing them in. Almost every single time we come, I experience the same unwelcome feeling from one of the staff. One of the last times we came, I was sitting at one of the craft tables helping my oldest daughter with the project they had going that week. My youngest daughter brought a basket of food to the table to show me and then headed back to play. I didn’t realize that she had then put the basket down on the ground and moved on to something else. If I had realized, I would have made her bring it back to the play food area. I know the rules and we try to abide by all of them (namely cleaning up after ourselves), however, it is a children’s play place and a little mess should probably be expected. A staff member saw the basket on the floor and walked over to pick it up, saying loudly enough for the whole table to hear, “oh for God’s sake. Pick up after yourself.” I was appalled as were the other parents at the table. There have been other experiences that have left me feeling unwelcome or that kids are an inconvenience but that one stuck out to me. The last experience I had today, though, has solidified my opinion. The staff were decorating for an event that was planned for the following day. They had blown up balloons and put streamers up. Unbeknownst to me, a child (not my own) had taken a balloon from the entrance area into the play area. It was left on the floor, so my daughter started playing with it, which I assumed was fine because it was in the play area. We walked out of the gate to get something and she took the balloon with her. A male staff member saw her playing with it and rolled his eyes saying, “uhh we need that back.” I told him it was on the floor of the play place so I assumed it was for the kids to play with and he condescendingly said “no, some kid took it from the table” and grabbed it back from me then promptly put it in the office. I get that it wasn’t a toy and that’s just fine. The way he made me feel like an idiot, though, was uncalled for. It was just a balloon. Someone with any amount of customer service would have knelt down, smiled politely and asked the child to have the balloon back, and it would have been fine. My daughter didn’t understand at all and started crying. We’ll happily find another place to play as our membership is up in a couple of months anyway. It’s such a great place for kids and I appreciate that most of the staff are young and that it’s a non profit. Spending a bit of time on customer service training would go a long way for retaining...

We haven't been in a while but I remember Explorium as a very neat place to spend a couple of hours. I wish I didn't have a reason to leave a negative review, but I feel the public needs to know about their treatment of customers.

My family doesn't live in Denton but visits the grandparents there at least once every 2 months. We were given a "gift certificate" (a small piece of paper" to Explorium a good while ago and misplaced it for a long time. I point out that it's a small piece of paper because it's not the easiest thing to find a safe and accessible place for. I found it recently, but noticed that it had an expiration date of December 2024, about three months earlier. I contacted Explorium, explained the situation, and asked if they might extend the expiration date, then emailed a photo of the gift certificate as requested. A couple days later I received a short reply that they would not extend the expiration. No explanation offered; I have to assume they just don't feel like honoring it.

I found this very disappointing and a little surprising since they already have the $25 and are not out anything by allowing customers to use a gift certificate that's a few months past the expiration date. In fact, they may be in violation of the federal CARD act, which says that gift cards and gift certificates can't expire for at least 5 years from the date of issuance. I believe we received this gift certificate for Christmas 2023; it certainly hasn't been 5 years.

Legalities aside, instead of earning our patronage this time and in the future, Explorium chose to lose a customer. This treatment makes me not want to go back just on principle....