Mud Island River Park

So proud of this place being in my hometown! As a child and adult I have had a blast coming here. This park is the true essence of what Memphis has to offer! The view is unbelievable.
Starts off with a super cool ride to the park on the monorail! My kids love it… they are fascinated… With how the monorail works.
The replica of the Mississippi River is so cool. Definitely a inventive way to show natural history.
To sit on a bench with the Memphis bridge and Mississippi River at your feet is one of a kind!
My husband and I shared a bite to eat from the café. The café was dirty and needed a good cleaning. The food was just okay, but overpriced.
The museum is older and some parts need to be repaired. As a whole it just needs to extra TLC. I had a lot of fun showing my husband, (who’s a Yankee!) why the south is truly one of a kind. As a museum junkie this place is definitely on my top 10 list.
I truly recommend that you look at the Memphis area coupon books. Admission is a little pricey, especially for me… As a mom of five. The coupon books can and will save you some change. I generally stay about $ 10-​$ 20 every time we go.
Overall, I highly recommend!

People have consistently rated things OTHER than the park itself. So far as parks on the bank of a river go, this one is quite nice. Yes most things in Memphis get built and then poorly maintained over the years. This is certainly the case with this park BUT the ambience of Mississippi and the cool river map and picnic areas on the island are nice and usually not over populated like most rivers. I always walk over the monorail as it’s part of the experience. The monorail costs but the walk over is free. It does close early, but it’s a nice river complement that’s certain. Worth a lunch picnic in spring and fall for sure!

This was so much more fun than I thought it had a chance of being. It was great from the moment we got on the tram. That was cool and gave a great view of the area. Beautiful.
We got there at a bad time — millions of kids on a school trip. But they, loudly, quickly went on ahead and then we got to enjoy the museum. I loved he audio tour that went along with it. It was fun and kept me entertained. I normally hate tours so having the audio tour was a great tool. I loved the video on the floods and yellow fever. It was so interesting and l learned that the city actually lost it’s charter because they lost so many people during the problems.
The ship in the museum was awesome to walk through. It really made you feel like you where there 100 years ago. And seeing how much progress was made was cool.
I loved the river walk and kept putting my feet in. It was cool, pun intended, to be in the river.
Trust me when I say this is somewhere you should visit in Memphis. It’s more fun then you think.

So it $ 6 to park and they don’t take cards. Oh and the monorail is not working so we have to walk across. So I paid $ 6 dollars to walk a mile. Welcome to Memphis. You would think that the parking attendant would have mentioned that the monorail was not working or they could have hung a sign up. Talk about the worst customer service ever.

Very nice park. The scale model of the mississippi river is pretty cool. From pictures that if seen it looks like you can splash in the water a bit, but in reality you can only dip your feet in. So thats the only reason why I took one star off. And the gates close at 4! So dont be last minute trying to catch the monorail. Bring water if its hot! We were the last people there and im glad I bought water when I could because when we were leaving from the paddleboat area the lady selling drinks was gone! It was 3 $ a bottle I dont care if it was $ 20, if you arent used to memphis heat bring water.

I love Mud Island for it’s amphitheater and the fireworks show they have on the forth. I’ve seen a lot if great concerts there and they put on an amazing fireworks show. It’s improved a lot since we started to go see it. They’ve progressively started to bring in live music which is awesome. There’s tons of room and they even let you bring lawn chairs! One thing I haven’t done at Mud Island is take a tour of the museum but I’m hoping to soon!

Well, let me start out by saying that my friends and I had never been here and it is so beautiful! I cannot believe I have taken this long to see this part of my city. I loved to see downtown from the walkway that leads to the park! Aside from the good stuff, my friends and I went down there to go kayaking and get out on the river. Online it says they offer kayaks and paddle boards for rent. When we tried to call (for a few days straight) not one person answered the phone, the voicemail box was full, and we never got a call back. So, we went down there to investigate and try to get some more information– turns out, they do not offer kayaks or paddle boards for rent at all… though the website still says it. The only thing they offer are paddle boats, which is fun but not what we were looking for. So, anyone who is looking to kayak on the river through Mud Island River Park, unfortunately it is not an option anymore.

I came to the river park specifically to kayak… to rent a kayak and go kayaking on the river. This not only did not happen but the staff were extremely misinformed about services leading to a waste of my time and disappointment. Here is my story… I originally drove up to the parking lot on the island. The attendant there rerouted me to park in downtown but assured me they were renting kayaks. Even told me the price. So I went back to the downtown entrance and walked to the entrance on Front Street. There were signs up advertising kayak and other adventure rentals. I asked an employee about renting kayaks and he directed me to the other side of the pedestrian bridge (mud island side). So… I walked all the way across the bridge. All the while seeing signs for adventure rentals (including kayaks!). Well… when I got to the other side I found out that they not only do not rent kayaks anymore, but they are doing no more adventure rentals… that means no bikes no canoes — nothing. This whole thing must have wasted at least 45 minutes to an hour of my time. It was very frustrating how misinformed the employees were (not to mention how unfriendly they were), as well as annoying that the park has numerous signs advertising rentals. One would expect that they would have addressed these false advertisements prior to opening this season. What really made this terrible is that I had a friend in town. We could have kayaked else where but we kept moving forward with mud island rentals because no one knew the correct information until we were already over on mud island ready to rent. I would have been even more heated had I had to pay for parking or paid for the museum entrance fee (something a tourist might do). For the satisfaction of tourists and any locals wishing to visit — they should really get their systems together. It looks poorly on us here in Memphis to have a place where there is consistently wrong information and rude employees. Get it together river park!
I don’t know what else they offer here, but I’d proceed with caution if visiting here!

It’s only $ 10 for all admission and monorail. The outside river view is gorgeous and the water way model is very cool. The museum is very tired and many areas are breaking down. It’s a great idea and low cost so give it a try but please please put a little money into upgrading the place.

What a missed opportunity for Memphis.
The river replica itself is great fun for kids and very informative for adults. The museum is pretty cool and mostly well-​done. But the overall feel of the place is that it’s old and run-​down. It just feels neglected and the addition of shining new homes just up Mud Island accentuates the feel that you’re in a Soviet bunker system. Staff don’t tend to be helpful either.
It’s also rather poorly marked, so if you don’t know where to park or where you’re going, you could get lost and end up at the semi-​creepy ruins of the old Memphis Belle pavilion.
And as other people have pointed out, don’t bother trying to buy any concessions here. $ 4 for a Sprite? This ain’t a football game and that’s highway robbery. Again, a missed opportunity here for good food and more of a tourist attraction than the current mixed bag.

Mud Island River Park was our first stop on «The Firm» Day. (Totally unplanned, but it worked, and was on the 20^th anniversary of the movie!) We rode the monorail over, which was fun, and then waked through the museum, which wasn’t quite as fun…
The best part, though, was the park itself. It was beautiful, peaceful and had a wonderful location on the river. The scale model of the Mississippi was really cool! Make sure you wear flip-​flops so you can go wading! We’ll definitely go back, probably with a picnic. I can’t recommend this spot enough!

Tony, Noelle and I enjoyed a few hours on Mud Island at the museum. it was fascinating. For only $ 10 each of us.($ 30 total) you get to ride the Monorail over and back, admission in to the museum with 18 galleries and the access to the entire River Front Park which has a lovely walk way and 5 block flowing water monument of the Mississippi River.
It opened at 10am. The Monorail ride was nice and short. You can walk over if you want, but the Museum cost $ 10 so you might as well ride the Monorail. it is the same price. Inside the museum, its a self paced tour. You can rent head phones if you want, but it is just as nice to view the museum without them. There is a replica of a full size Riverboat you get to walk on (a portion of it anyway) and there is a replica of one of the Ironclads from the civil war. It was very interesting to tour it.
There are a lot of nice displayed items of pictures, uniforms and guns/ammo.it is a great set up. Near the end it talks about the music and the influence of the music. it talks about the recording studios and the of course «THE KING»…Elvis Presley.
I enjoyed the museum a lot.
There is a gift shop and then the outside area to explore.
I would go again!
The park is free for you to walk over via the bridge. You can actually walk above the Monorail ride. You can have access to the park for free but the museum by it self cost $ 10…If you have already seen the museum or you just want to attend one of the concerts at the amphitheater then you can ride the Monorail for only $ 4 per person. great bargains… and a gorgeous park with great views back at Memphis and of the Mississippi River. I highly recommend. I will definitely go again and again and again… one of the many nice things that you can actually do absolutely free if you don’t mind the walk…

The admission was decent if the attractions were better! Most of the staff was rude. The museum was not worth the money. The best part was the music section, which was way too small! Walking in the scale of the Mississippi was fun, but we were rushed. Near closing, there were no announcements or any information from the staff. Thank goodness I happened to check the time. If not, we would probably have been locked in. Would not go back!

It was okay. I would give it 3 stars, but I really ilked the museum with the steamboat replica. A lot of fun history about the geographical area and musical history. The river model down the island was neat, but was the same thing after walking down it for a while. The swan paddle boats were cute but the area to paddle in was small. The monorail was neat, but a short ride. It was from the movie The Firm. Kind of cool. The park seems mostly fun for children.
The food courts only had junk food like pizza and hot dogs. The area that was for kayak rentals was locked and some of the trash cans smelled pretty badly as i walked by. $ 10 includes the monorail and museum for adults.

My bf and I decided to visit this place since we were in Memphis. Parking was $ 6. The whole package for the park, monorail, and museum was $ 10 per person. The monorail really is not worth it if you can walk. It’s a nicer view anyways. The park itself was decent, but some things needed attention. I would not walk in the riverwalk because it looked filthy. I enjoyed the museum, and the riverboat was pretty cool. We rode on the swan paddle boat– not worth $ 5 per person since you can only paddle about 100 feet around. This is a cute place to take children, but it’s not worth a second visit.

We have only had the chance to go here once, but my kids loved it. They have a scaled down Mississippi river that the kids can walk thru while getting their feet wet. The sky tram to there was a lot of fun and I recommend doing it at least once for the experience.

Nice park with historical views. Walk your dog and grass picnic. Bicycle parking. View of condos across the street.

It is a scale model of the Mississippi river. Enjoyable to take the walk. Really enjoyed being on the island during the 4^th of July fireworks.

We randomly decided to check this place out after being here for nearly a year, just to see if it would be worth brining any future visitors to go see. Sadly, it won’t be on the list of «sites to see.» Let’s run it down:
Pro’s:
— Interesting info about the river, and the history in the area
— Museum gives a good chronology of the area, and walks you through the Native American tribes of the area, the numerous European ‘explorers’, into the civil war and steamboats era, and finally where we are currently at
— Kids will enjoy the walk through a replica steamship, ironclad, etc.
Con’s:
— It was built in the late 70’s, and maybe updated in the mid-80’s… it’s aged, and it’s showing it
— The «river walk» that everyone speaks about was a bit nasty… my kid would not be wading in that thing
— The «monorail» (reminds me of that Simpson’s episode where a guy rips off Springfield by selling it a monorail) is a bit ridiculous, and it was actually broken when we tried to ride it back… and guess what, the walk over the bridge (which is covered from the heat), was great, and a much better way to make the 500 yard trek between parking area and museum
— Slavery… kind of a big deal… kind of a huge part of Memphis’ history… kind of ignored completedly in the museum… oversight much? Yes.
I don’t know who runs it, because it needs a complete overhaul… but of all the things to see in Memphis as a local or visitor, this one can be skipped entirely.

This may not be the most exciting of the tourist venues in town, but it’s definitely worth checking out if you’re in the area, especially if you have kids.
Start with either a tram ride over to the island, or walk or bike over the pedestrian bridge. Then check out the miniature replica of the Mississippi River that kids love to splash around in. It’s actually pretty interesting seeing how it meanders and winds throughout the delta.
There’s a nice museum, full of interesting and historical facts about the river and the Mid South area. They have over 5,000 artifacts and even a couple of life sized boats that you can tour through.
Also on the island is an amphitheater that hosts some great concerts in the summer. And the views of the river and the Memphis skyline are great. Be sure and take your camera for some nice photo ops.