Traveling with Kids: Return to the Miami Children's Museum

Due to torrential rain, my initial plans of Venetian Pool with my son were curtailed and we fell back on the Miami Children’s Museum. Recalling that the food there was just a crowded and surprisingly unkid-friendly Sunway there, I Yelp’ed up a restaurant in downtown Miami called the Lime Mexican something or other at 7 W Flagler. It was noted as kid-friendly and did have two high chairs but no changing tables in either bathroom. The food was OK – good salsa collection at least – but I was really disappointed to learn from the young manager (from Kentucky of all places) that it was a chain and just bought up by the Ruby Tuesday group (I hate that place). So, I gave it a 3 out of 5 on TripAdvisor and we were off to MCM. There was a cool Pirate exhibit going on, but it was reserved after 3pm for a birthday party so my son had about 40 minutes to check it out while I trundled off my daughter to the changing table. I reviewed the museum (and the drunk Bob the Builder) last summer, so I won’t describe everything except to say that for adults, a second visit is not nearly as interesting as the first. There is something uncomfortable, at least for me, about the commercial aspect of having all the displays promoted by some south Florida brand (the Publix mini-supermarket, the Carnival Cruise Lines cruise ship mockup, etc). My daughter was only slightly interested in the various exhibits and started to reek so we were back to the changing table once again. Meanwhile, my son had a fixation with the tugboat exhibit where they have some remote control boats. The thing we explored a little more with my daughter after the nappy change was the art area which was actually really cool because they had a long table with tons of supplies such as glue, bottle cleaners, paper shreds, crayons, scissors, chalk…that kept her interest for a good 15 minutes or so. There is also a workshop area presumably for older kids in this section that we’ll explore once the kids are older. The admission price was $15 for adults and children ($12 for Fla residents) so it is not a cheap afternoon. Another highlight though is the small climbing wall. Overall, I think that it is a pretty good thing to do with the kids but that the ideal age here is about 4 to 7.

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