Houston Museum of Natural Science

Surprised at the exhibits and the professionalism of the staff, with three kids in tow, the interactive section was their fav and the dinosaurs were limited in my scope but kids liked it tremendously.
A cool place to be on a hot day, lucky we scoped out a Groupon coupon.

It use to be the old jail that housed Huddie Ledbetter (better known as Lead Belly) who created the Midnight Special song. Also the place is reported to be Haunted.
Too bad I didn’t experience anything paranormal as it would have made the visit much more entertaining.
In short, the building is short. It is very small and about the size of Kroger grocery store.
You can complete the whole attractions upper and lower levels in under 20 minutes and that is just by normal browsing.
It’s hype and nothing special, but a nice spot to take the young ones for the first museum experience.

This is the local branch in sugar land. Employees are friendly and helpful. Enjoyed the quiet atmosphere. It’s small but a nice diversion within a close distance of home.

The Sugar Land location is smaller with less exhibits but it is also less crowded and has more room for kids to dash around. Adults may find it lacking but my toddler loves this location. We’ve taken him to the main one in the museum district and he doesn’t enjoy it as much because it’s always so crowded. Parking here is free and ample.

Over hyped. The exhibits were nice but few. Nothing compared to the one in museum district. When a four year old is disappointed and ask to go to the other museum with the dinosaurs, you know it didnt deliver.

We took our year and a half year old here hoping for a few hours of fun. I was really excited about the dig pit because they said there was one for 2 and under. I was a little disappointed to find out that the dig pit was a ball pit. My son would have had more fun in the dirt dig pit right next to it. This place is very small. We got through it all in about and hour, and we took our time. Next time I will take the extra time to go to the Houston location because there is so much more to do. As far as price goes $ 12 per adult isn’t bad, but I didn’t feel like we got our money’s worth.

Long-​time fan of the HMNS Hermann Park, off I went to see its baby sister museum in Sugar Land. Now, I was a little confused as you kind of drive through a residential area to get to it, but I powered on. First off, lots of free parking, compared to the Hermann Park museum. I won’t even compare the two museums, as I think they cater to different audiences. The Sugar Land museum is much more hands-​on, visually oriented, with lots of knobs, dials, and buttons to push, so if that’s your child, this one is for you. It has a «temporary» planetarium building, much smaller than the one in Hermann Park. I couldn’t watch the show as I was not far enough away from the screen, and it made me dizzy. But that’s me. As a big plus, the planetarium show is free in Sugar Land, vs. extra pay in Hermann Park. There were also some live toad exhibits (they were behind glass) of different looking, unusual toads. Really enjoyed that. Just a very lovely museum, spacious, comfortable, well worth the trip.

For a local museum this place is great! It isn’t very large but can occupy an afternoon. They had some very informative and interactive exhibits for children on basic physic concepts. If you are in the Sugar land area, I would recommend you stop by here at least once!

Wife and I took our daughter to the Museum in Sugarland this past weekend. It is a nice little place to take kids to. They had several dinosaurs to look at. My daughter loved the «cave» with the glowing rocks. Don’t think they should really chage more for you to do some of the other exhibits considering this place is so small. We were hoping to let daughter do the dig pit, but they had it closed for a birthday party.

The younger sister of Houston’s main Museum of Natural Science, located in Sugar Land, may be a smaller venue but that doesn’t mean there isn’t much to do.
There are always cool and educational activities to be experienced for all ages. HMNS offers membership on different levels and it is good for both this and the downtown area location. If you have a museum membership, which I can promise you is well worth it if you take advantage of it, there are plenty of events going on to keep some free time occupied.
Recently we partook of the Masters of the Night event featuring bats. I love animals and enjoy learning even more about them. Not to mention I think bats are just adorably cute.
You’ll find the permanent exhibits like the salt water aquarium, space science, discovery works, paleontology, children’s art gallery and much more. There’s usually a Friday Family Fun night with various themes.
Most events have food and beverage on hand. When we went to the above mentioned event we were expecting food in the form of light bites. We were surprised. They were serving carved roast beef, potatoes, salads, vegetables, fruits and an array of desserts and beverages. All was included with admission. I’m not sure of this holds the same for every special event but if so it’s a winner of plan. The food was actually very good to boot. They for certain didn’t skimp on quality.
As mentioned there are many activities centered around children. It’s the perfect opportunity to let your child gain knowledge in science and history while having fun at the same time. Some of the most popular experiences include reading night, summer camps, classes and various science labs. There are also activities offered for school field trips and organizations. Areas of the museum are also available to rent for birthday parties and other events.
This branch of HMNS is well worth checking out. The downtown area is bigger and has more exhibits but that doesn’t mean good things can’t come in small packages. Check out
, click on the Sugar Land tab, and see what’s happening.

To all those who rated low, be grateful for what you have in Sugar Land or drive a few minutes to Houston and visit the museum there.
I am grateful for something right down the road from me. A stones throw when I don’t want to drive into the city :)

We visit the main campus once every year or two when they have a new exhibit or hall open. Never been to this one but gave it a try since we had a living social deal, two for $ 10. I wouldn’t pay full price for this place, $ 12 an adult. We spent maybe an hour to an hour and a half there. I wasn’t expecting much but I’ll drive the same distance to the main campus instead. Yes, plenty of parking and free. I did like they had some hands on exhibits and their gem and minerals had some nice specimens. The building’s history was more interesting to us than the exhibits. Planetarium was disappointing, didn’t go in but would have if it was actual star gazing experience and not random movies. $ 3 for a ball pit, thankfully we didn’t pay for. $ 1 would be a better price in my opinion. And check their website for hours, Unilocal incorrectly says it is open at 9a on Sundays. It doesn’t open till noon on Sundays.

My family enjoyed this museum. We decided to go to this one rather than the one downtown. Parking was great and it wasn’t too far. Being that it was Saturday, it still wasn’t busy which was nice. I loved the gem rocks! Only thing I wish was different was if they would put a big sign out front dating that it was that museum. I don’t recall seeing a sign at all. We just sort of guessed and then walked up to the door.

Unfortunately, this was very disappointing. First of all, the admission is very steep. $ 15 per adult and $ 9 for my 2 and a half year old. We also paid an additional $ 3 per person for the amusement park ride exhibit so before even making it into the museum we’d spent $ 50. Also, we arrived at 3:30 on a Sunday afternoon and the museum closed at 5pm so some kind of discount would have been nice. Fortunately, an hour and a half turned out to be more than enough time. Only a few exhibits, not much to see, and oddly enough everything was at adult-​height instead of kid level. My daughter loves the children’s museum in the museum district, the aquarium downtown and the Zoo and we’ve been taking her since she was just a few months old and she can spend hours at each of those places so it was pretty disappointing for this to be the same price with substantially less value. This is within 10 minutes of our house so had it been cheaper, we might go back for an hour of entertainment but not at those prices. We won’t buy a membership because even though the bigger location is awesome, there are too many other great things in this city to stick to just one so price will always be an issue. Sad because we were looking forward to spending a rainy afternoon here.

Reading some of the other reviews for the Sugar Land location of the Museum of Natural Science made me very sad. Without going so far as to call my fellow reviewers total nincompoops or brainless automatons, I would like to note that this is supposed to be a satellite location. As in the moon, which is a satellite of the earth, will necessarily not be as big or have as much nifty stuff as the planet it orbits. So I for one was not expecting the grand hall of the Houston Museum to be scanned, 3D-​printed and plunked down in the middle of Sugar Land (Go Skeeters). What I expected was an offshoot of the main location with some fun stuff for the kids without the hassle of a drive (and parking) in downtown Houston, and this museum certainly delivers on that count. I have three children, ages 10, 1.5 years & 2 months, and the Sugar Land location entertains them for a few hours, which is really as much of an outing as I usually want or can handle. The Houston location is so big and wonderful that it really takes several trips to take everything in, and sometimes – let’s face it – mama ain’t got time for all that.
I am a member of the Houston Museum of Natural Science; in my opinion anyone who plans to visit either location more than a couple times a year would be well served by getting a membership: the entrance fees for both locations are included in the price of a membership, plus they occasionally send you free tickets to other exhibits and you get a discount in the gift shops, so shopping in them is merely like being robbed – not beaten, robbed and left for dead.
In fact, even though the Sugar Land location is smaller and less spectacular, I would have given it five stars, were it not for the fact that most weeks it is closed Mondays-​Wednesdays. I’m sure they can’t afford to staff the place on what would likely be the slowest days, but the only way that will change is if more people go there.
Please don’t let some of the negative reviews put you off, but please do have reasonable expectations for what you will find at this location: a fun diversion with excellent parking.

Excellent museum love it

I was pretty stoked when I found out about a museum opening up on the South side of town. I live far away from the museum district, so I figured this would be more convenient. Museums in general have a lot to offer in terms of exhibits and such, but not this location. I don’t want to knock this location down because it is relatively new and they are adding more things. However, it was small and limited in exhibits. After being spoiled by the other location, you can’t help but to expect more. If you want to avoid the crowds, then this is a good place to go, but if you want your kids to experience more, I’d say drive out to the museum district.
I will give this location another try after 6 months to see what kind of changes they have made and keep you posted fellow Unilocalers!

Is this museum worth going to without kids in tow? No. Would I go here over the downtown museum? Probably not. The exhibits are small, and there’s not even many frogs and such in the aquariums. But, if you have kids under 6 or 7, there’s a cool hands on interactive area that toddlers and above could spend a couple of hours in. They have an area to be scientists and observe objects with magnifying glasses, and a cool section on the wilderness with caves to play in and «grass» floors to feel. My toddler loves it anyway.
This is separate from the dig pit, which we were looking forward to, but they don’t give any member discounts ($ 5) and it doesn’t come with the entry fee for nonmembers. Seems a little steep for essentially a sandbox and ballpit. The «snack» area is just a few vending machines with tables and chairs.
Overall, it’s a nice place to kill a few hours if you are in west /​Katy or sugarland, and have young children and a membership to the downtown museum so you just have to pay for the dig pit. In my opinion, this one is better than downtown for small children.
**Edited: The fun hands-​on kid section I wrote about was apparently a temporary exhibit. Now they have a lame conservation exhibit (sponsored by an energy company) that has very little hands on interaction for the kids. I would give this museum 2 stars now.

I have visited this museum on two occasions with my 4-​year old and 2 year old. The first time was just to go to the ‘dig pit’- charge is $ 5 for the older child, and $ 3 for the younger child. It was near closing time so we did not pay for the museum itself. They really enjoyed it and the other kids did, too, so I was looking forward to the next visit.
The 2^nd visit, I decided to get a family pass so that we can come back more regularly to see the exhibit and enjoy the dig pit. Unfortunately, the displays were so disappointing and lacking that I knew the dig pit would be the only redeeming factor. Come to find out, it was not included in the annual pass! The Spy lab was also an additional fee, the classroom activities were also extra– no discount offered to members.
We checked out the claustrophobic ‘dome theater,’ and the personnel assured me the show was for children. What a disappointment– it was some weird episode from Phineas and Ferb or something of that sort. We stayed for 2 minutes.
At the end, I had to get a refund for my pass because I couldn’t even see myself going back another 2 – 3 times just to make up for the cost.
I strongly suggest skipping this museum, go around the corner to the nice playground, and head to the Houston Zoo instead!

When I first heard that the Houston Museum of Natural Science was building a location in Sugar Land, I was ecstatic! I’m a pretty big fan of science and I think that the Houston location has some amazing exhibits so this made me pretty intrigued to see how they would bring this to the Sugar Land location. The sad part, however, is that this location is just way too small!
The prices are similar to what you would pay at the Houston location so you might expect the same amount of detail to the exhibits, however, the exhibits here just barely give you a glimpse of what the Houston location offers. Granted, the location is still somewhat new and they are still expanding. Needless to say, I think that my experience here was rather disappointing.
They essentially offer the same exhibits that you would find at the main location but don’t provide as much variety. There are a few dinosaur bones on display, some gems to looks at, and a couple of frogs and fish. The best thing they offer is the domed theater (a video projected onto a domed-​shaped projector) which plays a video on topics ranging from space to dinosaurs. They also offer a special exhibit but the tickets are sold separately and cost just as much.
Overall, if you’re looking for a museum to take the kids or to spend a day at, I’d recommend avoiding this location and instead making the trip to the Houston location. For just a few more dollars you’ll get to experience a much larger selection of all things science. I’d say that this location still has some growing up to do before I make another trip here.