I don't know about you but after 6 months of limited interaction with the outside world we are going a bit stir crazy. We have been hiking, biking and swimming our way through the summer but with so many things being canceled this year we wanted to bring a little normal back to our kids lives. So when we got a postcard in the mail from the Museum of Science welcoming members back we decided to do a little research and see if it was good fit for our family. After visiting the website and reading their Code of Conduct and we decided to book tickets for a Friday morning at opening.
Booking tickets online is really easy! You just pick the date and time you want to visit, select the number of people visiting and add it to your cart. If you want to visit The Science Behind Pixar temporary exhibit you need to book a timed ticket for that as well but it is included in the cost of your museum tickets. Members need to log in to your account before booking and you will see your discount applied at check out. When we first went to log in we couldn't figure it out and had to call customer service. They were really helpful and got our issue solved quickly so don't hesitate to call if you have problems. You can also call the museum to purchase tickets if you don't want to book them online.
If you are traveling to the museum by car and parking in their garage make sure to take your parking ticket with you into the museum. The parking fees are based on length of time you are parked and there are kiosks in the hallway connecting the garage and lobby to use as you are exiting the museum. Once you leave the garage the hall to the lobby is divided. Keep to the right. When we arrive we try to use the restrooms in this hall as they are generally bigger and quieter than the ones in the exhibit halls. There are also several hand sanitizer station in the entry hall and lots of them all over the museum. We make it part of our visit to sanitize our hands between exhibits and the museum is cleaning high touch surfaces frequently.
We were so impressed with all of the safety measures put in place by the Museum of Science! Capacity was really low allowing for plenty of room for social distancing as well as one way directional flow, visitors and staff were really good about wearing masks, staff gently reminded visitors of their masks policy if masks were being worn incorrectly, there was increased cleaning, and lots of options to use hand sanitizer. It was such a nice opportunity to safely engage with something we all loved to do before the pandemic that we visited again the following week - member perk!
Our biggest tips for visiting the Museum of Science …
- Book your tickets online, or by phone ahead of time.
- Masks are required for anyone over 2 and they must cover your nose and mouth. Staff will quietly and politely remind you about the nose if a masks slips (as they can do often with kids) so make sure you have well fitting masks before visiting.
- Pay attention to signage. There is a lot of good information around designed to keep everyone safe and having fun including directional information, and Stop, Scan, Scrub at the entrance to exhibits encouraging visitors to stop to make sure there is space within the exhibit to remain 6ft away from people in other household groups, and clean your hands before entering the exhibit.
- Restrooms are open and visitors are encouraged to limit who is in the bathroom to one household group at a time.
- If you need a map you can download a digital version before your visit or use the QR code to pull one up on your phone once you arrive.
- The Omni and 3D Theaters are closed. The Hayden Planetarium has recently reopened and we have tickets for Monday so I will update this article once we have had that experience!
- The Riverview Café and gift shop are open. Outside food is not allowed to be consumed inside the museum but visitors can bring food to eat outside - seating is limited.
- Bring a few crayons for the Designing Future Boston exhibit. We LOVED this new interactive exhibit but due to the need to clean items between use the colors for the kids were limited to two. A friend recently visited and had crayons in her bag which kept her kids engaged with the exhbit for much longer than mine when we visited.
- If you aren't ready to visit the museum in person yet check out MOS at Home.
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