For our last family outing before I go back to school and the chaos begins again, we went to the Chesapeake Children's Museum in Annapolis. Although it normally costs $3, you can get in free if you bring some school supplies. Let's just say it's a good thing that we didn't have to pay.
The place was actually an old run-down house, and everything was pretty dirty and unkept. Although they did have some turtles, snakes, fish, etc. that Caleb enjoyed, a lot of the "museum exhibits" were actually things we had at home! They had a train table, books, blocks, a play kitchen, ride-on toys, etc. While he loved playing and we got some fun pictures, I didn't see where it was anything special. There were a bunch of unsupervised kids there that were not very mindful of others, so I was constantly watching them to make sure they didn't plow over my son!
They did allow the kids to touch the turtles, and you could handle the snake with assistance (we didn't). The poor turtles were permanently scarred by the hooligans that thought it would be fun to pick them up out of the water and see how far they could drop them. I finally had to say something, and so did the other woman (who was actually watching her children!) but the mother of these boys seemed oblivious. We decided that the turtles had had enough trauma for one day and just let Caleb do a one-finger stroke before quickly washing his hands lest he put them in his mouth and contract salmanella!
They had a whole room of dress-up clothes and a stage to perform on.....but after seeing the condition of the rest of the place, I opted out of the whole wearing-clothes-that-probably-haven't-been-washed-or-disinfected-in-ten-years idea. There was supposed to be an herb garden and a playground---the herb garden may have had a few illegal plants hidden in there, but no one would be able to find them for all of the weeds! The playground was nothing but a few plastic pieces in a sand pit.
So....while it was fun to be together as a family and kind of officially say goodbye to summer, I certainly will not be recommending this place to any of my friends. In fact, my sister was going to meet some people for a play date there tomorrow because she thought it looked pretty cool as well....I called and told her to make other arrangements!! :)
The place was actually an old run-down house, and everything was pretty dirty and unkept. Although they did have some turtles, snakes, fish, etc. that Caleb enjoyed, a lot of the "museum exhibits" were actually things we had at home! They had a train table, books, blocks, a play kitchen, ride-on toys, etc. While he loved playing and we got some fun pictures, I didn't see where it was anything special. There were a bunch of unsupervised kids there that were not very mindful of others, so I was constantly watching them to make sure they didn't plow over my son!
They did allow the kids to touch the turtles, and you could handle the snake with assistance (we didn't). The poor turtles were permanently scarred by the hooligans that thought it would be fun to pick them up out of the water and see how far they could drop them. I finally had to say something, and so did the other woman (who was actually watching her children!) but the mother of these boys seemed oblivious. We decided that the turtles had had enough trauma for one day and just let Caleb do a one-finger stroke before quickly washing his hands lest he put them in his mouth and contract salmanella!
They had a whole room of dress-up clothes and a stage to perform on.....but after seeing the condition of the rest of the place, I opted out of the whole wearing-clothes-that-probably-haven't-been-washed-or-disinfected-in-ten-years idea. There was supposed to be an herb garden and a playground---the herb garden may have had a few illegal plants hidden in there, but no one would be able to find them for all of the weeds! The playground was nothing but a few plastic pieces in a sand pit.
So....while it was fun to be together as a family and kind of officially say goodbye to summer, I certainly will not be recommending this place to any of my friends. In fact, my sister was going to meet some people for a play date there tomorrow because she thought it looked pretty cool as well....I called and told her to make other arrangements!! :)
Comments