McWane Science Center

Be prepared to wait in line
Even if you bought your tickets online… be prepared to wait in the ridiculously long line because they aren’t clever enough to have separate lines (for people who purchased tickets online or who are going to the Star Wars movie). Of course, when confronted, they «don’t know why» and have no motivation or forethought to rectify the situation. I hope the experience inside is better. U fortunately the zoo was a sad sad experience. I hope birmingham has more to offer.

Every place we travel we go to their children’s museum. This one is by far the BEST! They had an area where the kids could pet stingrays, be covered in their own bubble, ride a train and an ENTIRE half a floor for toddlers that my son would’ve stayed in for hours if we let him. Wish we lived closer because this place is amazing!

Super great place for kids!!!
Have been to many different kid Science museums, this so far is my favorite!
Lots to do and the itty bitty city is the best!
A lot of creative play!!!

On a family vacation staying one night in Birmingham as we travel. Needed to kill time before check in and ended up spending all day. Our 12, 7, and toddler all had a blast. Even we the grown ups had a good time milling around playing.

McWane Center continues to be a great spot for us, at least once a week. It’s hard imagining my 1 year old getting bored with it anytime soon.
So many options – café, grocery, train table, vet, fire truck, car shop, water area, air vacuum area, music spot, farm, and jungle gym! Can’t forget the under 2 climbing area.
Today was the first day I heard them say over the intercom that it was clean up time. While my LO doesn’t totally understand, I really appreciate and encourage them to continue that every once and a while. Also, the reminder to parents to keep an eye on their children – doesn’t hurt since we all get distracted visiting with friends or typing away on our cell phones.
We went up to the third floor to check out toytopia and the permanent projector exhibit was really cool to watch. Toytopia is def still mature for my LO buy glad they have it there. It was quiet on the third floor. so glad my family can be a part of this museum at this time – and I hope we can continue to return and support this science museum for a while. Bham natives and out of town visitors, you should check out our McWane Center — otherwise you’re missing out!

REALLY impressed with McWane Center!!! Itty Bitty Magic City was amazing for our 3 ½ year old. Although she has cerebral palsy, nothing in the attraction held her back. She stayed engaged in everything for the entire hour we were in the exhibit. This exhibit and her enjoyment in it make me want to buy a membership.

I just left and I was highly disappointed. The place is over priced, and the exhibits aren’t even that great. Ive been to other children’s/ hands on learn museums and this is one of the worst I’ve been to. It’s kind of pathetic, but does a few good things, but your better off taking you kid some where else for a lower price and a better time.

Worst experience my family has had in years!
Very poor planning by staff on people flow.
When the McWane advertises an event choose an alternative for your family. The administrators are barely able to handle the attendance on a routine Saturday and are woefully unprepared for an Event.
I will never return!
The Café is as bad as the ticket booth. If you are forced to come eat first. The conditions the servers live in is deplorable from a support perspective. And, the pretty menus falsely represent one’s options.
Bill

My (literally just turned) one year old was in sheer heaven here. I was afraid he’d be too little to actually do anything but that couldn’t be further from the truth. En route to the regular old art museum (which I also love), it was suggested we go here instead and I’m so happy we did.
There are… water play tables, sand play tables, tubes, slides, trains, light play areas, giant pianos, giant blocks, fish, rays you can touch, light-​up dance floors, plenty to touch, climb, spin, shake, and rock. There was enough to keep us (him) busy for over three hours and we didn’t even hit the nature floor.
I can only imagine how much fun there is to be had by older children. This was a really top-​notch experience. As a visitor to the Birmingham area, I was blown away with the quality of the center, the knowledgable staff, the variety of things to see and do for children and adults alike. I am NOT a «kid» person. I prefer a nice wine tasting and a peacefully napping child over a building full of other peoples’ insane kids any day. But McWane was different. Kids seem really engaged, my little guy was able to really interact with different activities vs just tearing things apart. That interactive quality is really the draw for me. Unfortunately, many of the other parents were just hanging out on their cell phones (but that’s no reflection on the center– I’m just being judgy), which is too bad because this really is a great opportunity to have fun WITH your child vs entertaining your child :)
Adults are $ 13 ea, kids under 2 are free (!), and it is well worth it. I’ll never be a «Disneyland» kind of parent but I can definitely see myself bringing my son back here over the years as he gets older and we’re in town to visit family. 10 stars! Go here!

As much as I wish this review was for the museum itself, it’s actually for the facilities that are available to rent within the McWane Center. I recently attended an all day workshop that was located in an event center on the second floor of the McWane Center and thought it was a really nice area that could be used for a variety of occasions.
A negative about using this space is you can hear everything going on in the museum. While I love that kids are having a wonderful time at the McWane Center, it was a bit distracting. Fortunately that’s the only negative, there’s many more positives. They offer a 30% discount for non-​profits to rent this space, and there’s several screens and other technological resources available if you choose to use those amenities.
This space could even be used for holiday parties, birthday parties, or even wedding receptions! My inner kid made a promise to come back and explore the actual museum soon.

I have been coming here since they opened in 1997, when I was in third grade. I volunteered there as a teen, and now I’m a patron taking my own kids here. I sincerely love this place.
It’s always growing and changing. From week to week, it’s different. The staff are more than helpful and always willing to teach you something cool. I especially love the small programs there, like when they make liquid nitrogen ice cream or when they’d have the Harry Potter book release parties. The bubble room they have right now is super fun.
I’d recommend MSC to any family with kids 12 and under. There’s more creative science for the older kids, archeological digs for the little kids, aquariums for the adults, and the Just Mice Size area for kids in kindergarten and younger. We are so lucky to have such a cool museum around!

The museum itself was 4 stars. It is definitely geared towards like 4 – 12 year olds. Some of the exhibits are educational for older kids, but most of the stuff is more hands on for that age range. There were several exhibits that were down (~10%) and that was kind of annoying, but not everything can be working at once.
So why two stars? We ate at the food court. I wish there was a different entry for the food court, but since they are sponsored by the museum it goes here. The first thing I noticed is that most of the tables were dirty, the floors were sticky with crap all strewn about (Napkins, forks, straw wrappers, etc). The coke fountain had a mountain of ice where people had dumped their ice out, there was coke all over the counter, and big surprise the machine was out of ice (see picture). Four of the eight dispensers were also out of syrup.
We were going to get pizza for the kids, but the pizza was out (This was around 1:30PM) and nobody was even back there. The «serve your self» cabinet had two boats of onion rings, a couple of chicken nuggets ($ 4 for 6), and two or three hamburgers. I heard someone ask an employee if they were cooking more french fries and they said they were out of french fries. We ended up getting some of the chicken for the kids and went to the asian bowl place for my wife and I. I wasn’t there when she ordered but I know hers came out swimming in water. I went to order mine and they were out of about half of the items on the menu… including garlic, broccoli, brown rice, and several other pretty standard «stir fry» type ingredients. I ended up with the «Stir Fry mix» which, by the way, counts as all three of your vegetable choices. It is essentially a scoop of the $ 1.49 «Stir Fry Mix» you can buy at walmart that has frozen chopped broccoli and cauliflower. For my sauce I asked for Sriracha and the lady just said «well, I’ll have to go get that, we don’t have any up here» so I waited for her to go get it and she eventually came back with a bottle of sauce. It seemed like she was having a hard time with the plastic holding the lid on, so she just used her teeth to tear it off. I’m sorry let me repeat that in case you missed it.
She put the container in her mouth and used her teeth to tear the plastic off.
Now, as part of my military training I’ve actually eaten from a dumpster. I decided to brave it through this meal since it was really our only opportunity to eat, but now I’m starting to doubt the sanity of that decision since I’m not sure what else goes on behind the counter if they’re willing to go all carnivore on the product dispensers.
Back to the cleanliness issue. I understand a lot of kids come through there, kids aren’t clean. My wife and I at least try to clean up after ours, but I understand not everyone does and that can be overwhelming especially at a busy time. At the same time though, I saw multiple employees standing around in the back shop and one standing out in the seating area (Where all the mess was) that were not doing a thing. The one in the lobby area was chatting away with some people off to the side. The only individual in the entire operation that seemed to be making an effort to do anything was the dude running the cash register (Stephen according to my receipt) who was going around between customers to try to clean up some of the messes.
So maybe this is an unfair accusation, because this seems to be par for the course during our time here in ‘Bama. Most service industries we’ve had contact with it seems like we are interrupting the employees and inconveniencing them when we show up to buy something from their company. There will be a line 10 people deep and the employees are all huddled up behind the counter on their cellphones or just chatting with each other. Honestly, I don’t know how businesses make any money here…

Took my three year old for the train exhibit and the other areas. So very disappointed. This is not the McWane Center from my childhood. Very few things would work, and it looked almost empty of exhibits in some areas.

The McWane Center is the perfect place to take your kids of all ages. They have a blocked off area for the little kids to play that has a huge play castle with slides, a water area with pails and shoves, and a sand area.
There is a fossil area, small aquarium area, and many other exhibits to enjoy.
There is a food court but unlike many other places like this they allow you to bring food in to save a few bucks.
There is Dome IMAX great for educational films and the occasional major movie.
All in all a great feature of Birmingham

Anytime and everytime a parent calls me to ask where they should take their kids, Mcwane is the first word out of my mouth. It has three stories interactive activities for kids and adults alike. All of the hands on displays are so cool, you (the parent) will want to be involved as much as the kid that you’re forgetting to watch.
The activities are always changing, so this place never gets old. If only there would have been a magical place like this when I was a kiddo. Oh, and I’m not convinced Billy Nye doesn’t live in basement.

WOW! What an amazing place to take kids! AND the staff is amazing.

This is one true gem in downtown Birmingham. Yes, the Civil Rights Museum is also wonderful, but it is so sad to visit and think of the waste of human potential that Birmingham still represents to many people worldwide. Our bad reputation is well-​deserved, no denying it — we are the Ndamukong Suh of American cities.
McWane is free of such history and baggage, and really evokes the opposite emotions: it shows all kids that there is a better and brighter future out there for them if they want to learn about it. There are fish and aquatic animals in the basement, and you can pet sharks and stingrays. There is a special little section for kids 6 and under called «Just Mice Size.» (hint: do not let on that you can fit into the labyrinthine climbing house! If you do, your kids will insist that you climb in with them. You don’t want that, unless you really liked basic training).
There is a permanent dinosaur exhibit — who doesn’t like dinosaurs? There are dozens of clever machines that teach kids some basic principles of physics. There’s a show where they blow up stuff! (awesome!)
The top floor houses traveling exhibits that keep you coming back, but my kids have been going for … well at least 10 years I think, and my older one (7^th grade) just went on a field trip there to learn about forensic science — yup, genuine CSI stuff, including doing a DNA gel electrophoresis. If you already know what that is, kudos to you, but I bet you don’t, even though you’ve seen the results many times. (hint: see
)
It’s much more than just a place to take the kids on cold and rainy days, especially as everyone in the Birmingham-​Hoover Metropolitan Statistical Area seems to have the same idea on cold and rainy days. Between here and the Zoo, you’re pretty much covered for educational kid entertainment.

My kids loved this amazing center. They were plenty of hands on exhibits that allowed them to be creative and play. They were learning, and having a blast at the same time (imagine that!); what they thought to be a giant playground was in reality an outstanding classroom! My kids were five and three at the time, and I could see that it would have been even more enjoyable if they were older. This may be the jewel of Birmingham, and I just wish we had something of a similar magnitude and quality in ATL.