Gulf Coast Exploreum

Very hands on, great place for ages 8 and up and probably best for middle school age children. We visited with our group aged 4 – 7. I think our 7 year old had the most fun although the 4 year olds did run around and push every button in the place and seemed to have fun. There are many many hands-​on build your own «experiments» (for lack of a better word) in the exploreum and if the adults can find their inner kid, they can have great fun building and playing alongside their kids. A really great place for little minds to explore and investigate. There is a section dedicated for little ones 4 and younger but for the most part this place is really for ages 7 – 8 up through maybe middle school/​early high school. The health section is interesting and could appeal to high schoolers. Particularly those considering careers in health care.
The DaVinci exhibit was a huge hit with all of us, particularly the interactive build-​your-​own section. This is a great exhibit on early robotics!
We did not explore the IMAX so I will not review that.
Along the way, exploreum staff members were friendly and helpful!
It was clean and orderly on our visit today.
Overall: recommended! Definitely geared towards kids and their inquisitive minds!

Excellent! Had a great time and learned a lot at the DaVinci exhibit. First class facility. Highly recommend. We didn’t do the theater this time, but we will be back.

We started with the IMAX was broke. The idea of hands on activities sounded great but a lot of them were broken! They advertised a lot about a penguin exhibit. And there were 4 birds total. Overall we were not impressed and will not be upset if I never went back.

Meh. We have been to the Exploreum twice. The first time was in 2009, and it was fantastic. Everything worked, the exhibits were a ton of fun for my young son. Fast forward to 2014, and we have been stationed here again, so we decided to take our kids. It was so disappointing. At least a third of the body works exhibits were broken or functioning incorrectly. The butterfly ‘exhibit’was just a bunch of dead butterflies pinned to boards on the wall. Try explaining that to your four-​year-​old daughter. We thought it would be like the butterfly room at the zoo we lived near in NC.
Overall, I found it too expensive for what you actually get to see. It looks large from the outside, but most of that is atrium and the IMAX dome. We won’t be visiting again, and I don’t think I’d recommend it to tourists.

I took my 20 month old there Feb 2013 He couldn’t do everything but he had a blast running around and touching everything. The ball pit area is designed to put the kids in a harbor with bells and whistles so they can make noises.
There were a lot of older kids there that day. That was ok if some got too rough most entertainment areas had sections for under 2yrs old. In that area was also a semi secluded changing area and breast feeding area. I look forward to going back here again and would highly recommend it to others.
I have visited a lot of children’s science museums and I would put this one in my top 10. The children’s science museum in Nashville, TN is currently my #1

The Exploreum is kind of like a mini version of the Smithsonian. I used to come with my kids as a chaperone on school trips, but since they’ve gotten older, we have not been in a while. Well, we decided to visit again, and I saw it that it has not changed a bit. The museum’s exhibits are pretty cool, and a lot of them are hands on. But, you just can’t really enjoy them much because there are huge groups of kids running around the place and crowding around everything. And I also agree on the hand sanitizer. You can see all the tiny handprints collecting on many of the surfaces inside. The Exploreum always features a new movie every month or so. We watched an IMAX movie about Megalodon and also saw the exhibit. Overall, nothing really special about this museum.

I’ve been here several times and now have a Family pass for the year. This place is fun. My 2^nd grader enjoys coming here. Every year the 2^nd graders from my son’s school take a field trip to the Exploreum in October. They have hands on exhibts illustrating some science facts which the kids (and adults) can play with. They also have an IMAX theatre. They have a whole section that’s devoted to healthy eating and exercise but in a fun way. They also have «extra» shows/​exhibits several times a year. We enjoyed the special Australia exhibit last November, they had Kangaroos, Wallabys, Sugar Gliders, etc and small Australia themed things to do throughout the facility. They just opened an exhibit on Megaladon (giant shark) and my son has asked to go this weekend. I’m assuming this extra exhibit will be structured in a similar way to the Australia one, although I don’t think they’ll have a Megaladon in a Fish Tank! The snack bar is nothing to write home about, is pricy and doesn’t have much of a selection. Eat at one of the restaurants within walking distance and then come back to enjoy the exhibits some more.

GreaT for 5 to 95. Don’t miss it. You’ll love every minute! Lots of hands on and lots of learning. Can’t make it through here any faster than several hours. Challenging for young and old. A real Gem!

The Exploreum is weird. On presentation, you’d think you were walking into a mini Smithsonian, and yet… when we were there, half the exhibits didn’t work in this ‘hands on’ museum. At least I don’t think they did; Things were working, indeed, but but when you went to play the laser harp, for example, some propeller thing would start flying 20 feet away. Push a button here, a reaction happens in another room. Maybe the planets weren’t aligned or something.
I’m not completely illiterate, but I found the explanations of physics exhibits difficult to understand, and therefore — boring.
We’re not all Stephen Hawking, guys, can we take it down a notch?
So we attended a science presentation in a small auditorium, but we didn’t know what would be presented. Little Daughter, age 5, was able to suspend her belief that they were cutting open a real sheep’s eye, so she got through it.
Some hand sanitizer throughout the place wouldn’t be overkill. All these sniffly little kids putting grimey little hands and sometimes faces on the exhibits, to the point you can see a build up of their little paw prints — yuk.
(Sorry — I’m a nurse –I push elevator buttons with my elbow or shirt sleeve. What can I say? There’s alot of crud out there.)
Parking is every man for himself. The lot didn’t have an attendant, but when we left the Exploreum, it took the barrier FOREVER to let the car in front of us to figure out that it was OK to raise up and let him out. This was a Sunday, and there was no one to call. I can’t remember how long it took, but it was somewhere around the time it take for an elephant to give birth, which, if you didn’t know, is the longest of any land animal, and that’s something I didn’t learn at the Exploreum. Anyhow, C decided to make a break for it, and tail the other car while the barrier was still up, hoping to high heaven it didn’t come crashing down on the roof. It didn’t. But it would have been funny if it had. Definitely worth half the exhibits not working. Then again, I would have felt bad for the damage to his car. But only after I laughed really, really hard.