Exploratorium

Chaotic when there are school trips, not much interaction or presentations with staff to engage kids like at the Ontario science center. Admission is a lot for a bunch of homemade attractions.

Interesting and fun for science. Lot's of interactive displays. Parking is atrocious.

3.5 stars. I have been a huge fan of the Exploratorium for years, although the change to their new location on the pier has made it less appealing to me somehow. They don't have enough staff on the floor - which is a problem when there's an emergency like a lost kid, etc. (We discovered that the hard way.)

Excellent for kids though the appeal starts to fall down the curve as the age increases. Some of the exhibits are interesting, some are educational and some look pretty dated. Admission is relatively inexpensive for San Francisco and there's enough here to keep an adult entertained for 1-2 hours. The cafe is bad even by museum cafe standards so get fueled up before you arrive.

The exploratorium is a collection of hands on science projects. It is interactive and fun for children. Be warned that this place gets very busy. Just about every station was occupied during our summer visit. There were countless day camps at the place. Recommend buying tickets on smartphone as the ticket line was very long and slow. They have a nice cafe on the water.

Fun mini exhibits for kids, but gets tiring for adults.

Mostly for kids, and kind of expensive. Avoid unless you have little ones

penguins kept in captivity :( they need more space!!

Good museum to take kids! Adults also have fun and learn!

Nice for kids, you interact with the exhibits and learn the principals they apply, I recomand an aracade better.

Too crowded. Don't eat there! It's a rip off in terms of pricing.

I had high expectations for the Exploratorium after such high reviews and enjoying previous exploratoriums in Canada. This one is huge with an open floor plan. That being said, all of the activities are interesting and science based, however, if the Exploratorium is crowded, you have to be patient to try each one. After the waiting, reading about the inventions, and taking pictures, we got tired real fast. So if you want the full effect of the Exploratorium, make plans to spend at least three hours (if you want to try everything). My kids are 4 and 8 and weren't into the reading so much. I actually wished they had workers in science labs to share and add to the effect of making each item more enjoyable. Despite that, most of the concepts there will reinforce science concepts your kids are learning in school. I expected the environment to be colorful and lively, but it felt like walking through an ancient, tin, drab war station or something, (I guess that's a scientist dream, but not mines). Overall, it was a good, not great experience.

It's a place to take kids but please don't ignore your kids.

Rather boring for adults. Only bring small children.

Place is pretty cool. The children enjoyed themselves however the restaurant inside it was just awful $18 for disgusting corndog and plain fries was just messed up

This is an amazing place with lots of interactive things for folks to try. Unfortunately I went on a weekday when it seemed like the entire San Francisco school district was there. I could barely get near any of the exhibits.

Great museum for kids. Rude, snotty cashier at the shop ruined an otherwise good museum store.

as usual with these places, caters to kids at the expense of adults.

went here on a date for a thursday after-dark event (adults only) and felt like the activities were a tad bit too geared to young students (I'm 31). I think a better night out for after-dark can be had at the Academy of Sciences

It s a fun place filled with shenanigans but the price is a bit too high for what it is. I don t think it was worth it but still a cool place to check out. That being said, if you are on a time crunch, skip it.

This is quite a large museum hundreds and hundreds of exhibits they've taken a lot of care for people with disabilities but still very few of the exhibits work very well for a blind person

Interesting but especially for children ... which are many on site ...

We went for After Dark and got there just as the doors opened. It was fun, but ultimately it was just too crowded, especially as the night wore on. The drinks, while admittedly tasty, were just way too small for the price.

Great for kids. Meh for anyone beyond high school, I guess.

Really nice place but overwhelming to the senses. There should be a bit more green space with seating areas. The view is absolutely beautiful from the deck! And the cafeteria is brutally overpriced. One small hotdog is $8.50 ...

Love the new location. Could have better food selection

The place is engaging. There are lots of informative things, like playing with a gyroscope, artificial tornado creator, among other things. Food was really bad (for vegetarians).

This place is for CHILDREN. I did now know this when I purchased tickets and it was a waste of $60 between my husband and I. We were there for less than 15 mins.

Good location, but I enjoyed the old location and displays much better! Now it reminds me of a rabbit warren.

Came here on a free admission day. Seemed like this place is more for kids than adults. Much prefer the California science academy of San Francisco. Probably come by again, if it's free.

Super crowded on weekends and good for families with young kids. I don't have any young kids so it's hard to have fun when it's crowded or really see any exhibits

Have not added any new exhibits. Boring after a while and expensive.

I liked it it's a lot of walking and a great place if you have kids

This museum is fairly dark/dingy, which I think may be it's intention. It's not a 'normal' museum by any stretch. I hadn't been to the new building and was expecting more.

This is a review for Exploratorium After Dark - Every first Thursday of the month from 6PM-10PM - Adults only. I m probably going to get judgmental looks for saying this, but man I have to be honest. I was kind of bored by Exploratorium After Dark. I love tech, geeky things, and gadgets, and yes, the alcohol helped a bit, but I just didn t really find anything here that fascinating. I thought watching the special cow eye dissection would wake me up a bit, but it was still kind of a snooze fest. I felt like I was part of an 8th grade science class. Also, eat before you come. As nice as the restaurant Sea Glass looks, it pretty much tastes like cafeteria food. I would highly recommend going to Academy of Science After Dark over the Exploratorium. There s much more to look at and explore, and the exhibits over there are quite enjoyable with a glass of wine, in particular the aquarium.

It's interesting just that I think it's a little bit of urgency that lacks something that caught the children's attention.

As a homeless person, I have not the funds to purchase admittance and lurk the exhibits, but from the impressions of its primary visitors, it is essentially for the more innocent and youthful crowd, than for grown ups. Unless you like simple least complicated fun, with a date. Also it is clearly posted that smokers are unwelcome by the quantity of "No Smoking" signage posted around the place. That the hint is obvious. Bring a jacket, even if its sunny outside, the breeze off the bay is always very chilly.

Great interactive museum. Probably suited best for families with children. Still very interesting exhibits.

Fun for the whole family. Evening events are fun. Food not that great for the inflated costs

The target audience for this museum is definitely kids but still fun to visit as an adult. The focus is interactive exhibits that teach various scientific facts. The layout and style makes it fun since everything feels very industrial. It's packed on weekends and parking is challenge but tickets are fairly cheap given the amount of things to see. Not a tremendous amount of re-visit value. If you go here once, probably not worth going again for a while. Overall though a fun a fun experience.

A museum that is not one, a new place of learning quite awesome!

Expensive. If you have EBT, it's free. Not sure of the full details. Interactive, but a bit crowded, I went on a Tuesday.

Went with a group of co workers, and found out just okay. Maybe it's more for bringing kids to.

Pretty pricy, lots of stuff to see and do. The gift shop has great affordable prices though for some super neat stuff.

I was there on normal working day and it should be open but it was not. There was a sign on main doors that I should use some backdoor. I've followed the 'map' but no luck. Thankfully there are some exhibitions outside e.g. the miniature of Golden Gate Bridge with some history. Based on what I saw from the outside it looks like a place than I should visit next time I will be in SF.

Well this place. It has so much potential but it really is more like a playground for schools and kindergarten. Although it seems like a place of great knowledge it really is a museum of basic physics an biology. It really is a sad part. That however does not mean that it is a bad museum. If you want to get into science (and meanwhile get surrounded by hundreds of children because the place is stuffed until 2 pm.) it has your name written all over it. It does however still do a great deal of fun. But really do not expect much if you want a little more advanced stuff. To conclude. The Exploratorium does what it name implies. It lets you explore its contents with a great deal of pleasure and teaches about a base knowledge of science.

The Exploratorium is a fun place when it is not over crowded. For the Cannabis exhibit they recently had I wish they had more visual attractions focused around Cannabis or even interactive units that can be participated in by legal medical users. Overall the content they have within is interesting. Maybe it was just the Atmosphere!

Kind of disappointed. Some of the displays look old and beaten up. Place needs a makeover.

In my point of view, not too many things to see but the fee is high.

Not worth the exorbitant price just to walk through.

It is a great place to bring your kid. There are like 6 times a year where it is free. I didn't like the fact they buy mice and euthanize them for one of the exhibitions.

Went for the chocolate event and was very disappointed. So many people, so little to do. Only a few things to actually do and way too crowded at all of them.

Cool gadgets, family friendly. Gets a little crowded and pretty pricey as well.

More for kids - I went with my boyfriend and we liked it enough but I think we've outgrown science museums.

Interesting science show. Tickets are more expensive.

We got the annual membership... I like going on weekends, when it is less crowded, otherwise it is a made house.

It's a hands on place. Great for 6 to 12 year olds. Really expensive.

Small, Narrow and food looks nice but bland, overpriced and disgusting

With this new location I assumed there would be newer interactive activities but it just look wider only...nothing really to excite me and nor the 4 groups of children...good to kill time only

29.95 to get in and watch kids in chaos. The exhibits are more time fillers than explaining the 5ws of science. Great for parents bad for persons interested in "science."

So generally everything was really cool, but long lines to get in plus the ever large number of young children coughing on everything made the experience quite a bit dulled, having gone to the bathroom to wash my hands multiple times after seeing something not so pleasant done to the exhibits by young children - but i guess that should be expected. The exhibits themselves were really interesting, and did a great job of showing experiments, results, and explaining the results. It's probably mostly me, and not wanting to get sick that caused a bit of a mental block on the whole trip, but I don't think I'll want to go back for a while. Don't forget if you're an SF resident you get a solid discount. I would recommend checking it out if you've never been, but once is enough for me.

liked when they had the tech days when you could find the new inventions of food and food technology

Only children will be curious, adults do not have to spend time on it if they arrived without children

Overwhelmingly huge. Very expensive. No comparison with other science museums, it's the archetype for all modern interactive science museums. When it was created by Frank Oppenheimer (J. Robert Oppenheimer's younger brother), it was a participatory, hands-on, hippie kind of thing. Most of the original exhibits were made out of recycled surplus and junk. Now, a nominal few of those original exhibits are banished to obscure corners of the museum. The space is dominated by expensive corporate-sponsored professional shows that are cold and not-so-interactive.