Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wah, wah, wah. Bunch of big, entitled babies.

Oh, the national mall is soooo boring. Oh, the zoo is sooo boring. Insufferable!

We went to the zoo once and couldn't find any animals. They were all in hiding or sleeping or eating or something. Seriously that's boring.

Maybe they should create super small enclosures with no hiding places, right? Then you'd always see the animals.

I can't believe the amount of entitled people here that are complaining about a large, free zoo being overrated.

BTW, the aquarium was almost $50 between admission and parking-- and that was when DC was free under three and I got a MD discount.

Anonymous wrote:We are very fortunate to have so many free attractions here. But folks may still find some of our attractions lacking when compared to the flashy attractions in other cities. The question is would you rather go to the basic National Zoo for free or pay for the bling of a San Diego Zoo or even the Baltimore Aquarium.

The National Zoo, because I live here. I'll grant that the Baltimore Aquarium is nicer in most (not all) ways, but price makes a tremendous difference, *because I can go frequently*. That's huge, especially when you're a SAHM with a 2-5 yo. It's like, which is better? An excellent Michelin Star restaurant that costs $300 for dinner for two? Or a great little place in your neighborhood where the food is better than decent and it's $50 for a family of three? The first is probably *better* and I'd recommend it to people visiting, but the second adds a lot more to my life and is therefore "better" to me.

We are very fortunate to have so many free attractions here. But folks may still find some of our attractions lacking when compared to the flashy attractions in other cities. The question is would you rather go to the basic National Zoo for free or pay for the bling of a San Diego Zoo or even the Baltimore Aquarium.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish we had an actual children's museum. Most other cities have awesome children's museums and I don't understand why we don't!

I know! We drive to Fredericksburg to play at their branch of the children's museum of Richmond. It's in a strip mall and nothing great, but it's more than we have here for sure.

Are there any DC natives here who remember the Children's Museum in the 1980's? Oh my gosh it was amazing. It was in a rough-ish neighborhood. Either SE or NE? My grandmother used to drive me there from MoCo and it was so much fun. They had a gigantic indoor maze, a room with slanted floors, a firemen dress up room with climbing stuff, some sort of early washing machine with a crank. I think there was a Native American themed arts and crafts room. I miss it so much on behalf of my little kids. Luckily, we get to drive up to Pittsburgh every so often to visit my DH's family and they have a great children's museum too.

Never tried the Playseum.

Glad you like it! I worked at the capital children's museum when I was in college, it's always nice to hear people with good memories from the place. You're probably remembering the Mexico exhibit-- where I worked.

I went here as a child too (when we were visiting DC from the midwest.) Totally remember it, even though I was only 7 or 8 at the time.

Anonymous wrote:I wish we had an actual children's museum. Most other cities have awesome children's museums and I don't understand why we don't!

One is under construction at the Fort Totten metro. That's my metro, the sign says "coming spring 2017." Boyfriend and I think early 2018. People are working all the time, but apparently, they have "found " a lot of issues during construction...who knows, but at least, its coming.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is just a craptastic area for kids.

This is insane. The freaking Smithsonian (including the Zoo) is here and FREE. Not to mention many other paid attractions and many great playgrounds. And not far from Baltimore, within 5 hours of Philly and NYC. Is it the most kid-friendly area in the world? Probably not. But craptastic? Really?

Plus 1.

+1
Do you guys not know how good you have it? We moved from DC to another large city. Here There are 10% of the opportunities the kids had in DC. And everything is super expensive, no free museums and zoo.

I think the zoo disagreements are a transplant vs dc native thing. I mean, I love the zoo and have a membership and my kids like it. It is vastly improved now after downsizing considerably and giving their remaining animals more space (elephants and Asia trail). But growing up, it was just deplorable. Animals were dying all the time and it was really poorly managed. Lots of front page Washington post scandals.

I too remember the old children's museum decades ago, and bemoan the lack of one today! We go to port discovery in Baltimore but this is one thing really missing from the dc area. The smithsonian museums are beloved and great, but more like an attic of American antiquities, and not really interactive or child-centric. I went to NC recently and the children's museums in Raleigh and Durham were freaking AMAZING.

I agree we could use a better children's museum. The Please Touch Museum in Philly is AMAZING.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish we had an actual children's museum. Most other cities have awesome children's museums and I don't understand why we don't!

I know! We drive to Fredericksburg to play at their branch of the children's museum of Richmond. It's in a strip mall and nothing great, but it's more than we have here for sure.

Are there any DC natives here who remember the Children's Museum in the 1980's? Oh my gosh it was amazing. It was in a rough-ish neighborhood. Either SE or NE? My grandmother used to drive me there from MoCo and it was so much fun. They had a gigantic indoor maze, a room with slanted floors, a firemen dress up room with climbing stuff, some sort of early washing machine with a crank. I think there was a Native American themed arts and crafts room. I miss it so much on behalf of my little kids. Luckily, we get to drive up to Pittsburgh every so often to visit my DH's family and they have a great children's museum too.

Never tried the Playseum.

Pittsburgh has the best kids museum! St. Petersburg also has a good one.

My parents live near Raleigh snd they have an amazing Children's museum. It baffles me that DC has more museums per square capita but no children's museum. I know there's a little play area in the us history museum but that's a joke

I love the Raleigh children's museum!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish we had an actual children's museum. Most other cities have awesome children's museums and I don't understand why we don't!

I know! We drive to Fredericksburg to play at their branch of the children's museum of Richmond. It's in a strip mall and nothing great, but it's more than we have here for sure.

Are there any DC natives here who remember the Children's Museum in the 1980's? Oh my gosh it was amazing. It was in a rough-ish neighborhood. Either SE or NE? My grandmother used to drive me there from MoCo and it was so much fun. They had a gigantic indoor maze, a room with slanted floors, a firemen dress up room with climbing stuff, some sort of early washing machine with a crank. I think there was a Native American themed arts and crafts room. I miss it so much on behalf of my little kids. Luckily, we get to drive up to Pittsburgh every so often to visit my DH's family and they have a great children's museum too.

Never tried the Playseum.

Pittsburgh has the best kids museum! St. Petersburg also has a good one.

My parents live near Raleigh snd they have an amazing Children's museum. It baffles me that DC has more museums per square capita but no children's museum. I know there's a little play area in the us history museum but that's a joke

Ive taken my kids to that one, it IS awesome