At-Bristol

This review only relates to the café as we stopped in here for lunch as I heard it was a good place to go with kids.
The café is a good size, spacious, good for groups and has a great little play area with toys to keep little ones entertained.
The adult menu is pretty simple, breakfasts, sandwiches, burgers, salads and a few other dishes, I had Mac and cheese. The options for kids were great, there is a packed lunch station where for £4.50 you can select 5 items that go in a cardboard box. Or a hot food menu for £5.50 that comes with a drink and yogurt or fruit. My son went for the Mac and cheese too.
The food was delicious but both dishes came out lava hot and when you’ve got a starving child the last thing you want is to have to sit and wait while the food cools down. I also thought the hot kids meals were a little over priced but then it was kind of expected considering this was @bristol.
Overall great experience though and I’d recommend this to anyone with kids looking for a good lunch spot in the centre.

Ein wundervolles Wissenschaftsmuseum. Eignet sich super für einen Ausflug mit Kindern, aber auch für große Kinder. Hier fand sogar ich Phänomene wie Magnetismus, Schwerkraft, Reibung etc. spannend! ;-) Man lernt wirklich viel und es gibt Sonderbereiche, z.B. zu Animation (mit Wallace and Grommit Figuren) und zur Weltraumforschung. Einziger Minuspunkt: Der Preis. Der ist wirklich sehr hoch. Meine Empfehlung: 1,5h vor Schließung bekommt man Rabatt so konnten wir als Studenten für unter 4 Pfund rein.

Good for kids with lots of buttons and wheels to play with. Fairly expensive for what is there, but fun and kills 2 – 3 hours, esp. when raining.

This is an engaging, hands-​on science museum located on the Harbourside in Bristol, aiming to to show youngsters (and older folk) that science rocks! Located near the Watershed, the Explore attraction packs in some 300-​odd exhibits, including technical gadgets and giant, eye-​catching structures, with enough to keep everyone entertained for a few hours.
Visitors get to learn about flight (and build their own flying object), control a digger arm, join children’s character Morph to learn about animation, stand inside a giant bubble, and walk inside a huge treadmill to see how many buckets of water you can lift out of the pool.
You can get some idea of what you’ll find inside by going around to the glass-​fronted side of the building parallel with the main road, from where you can see many of the big interactive displays.
It’s not cheap to get in — at £12 for adults and £8 for children — so once you’ve emptied out your wallet you might want to spend a while here to get your money’s worth. It’s definitely aimed mainly at educating children, and it’s far more fun to go there if you have kids with you — but it’s also interesting for adults who are inquisitive but don’t really understand a lot about science. As part of the admission price, you can also watch a show inside the globe-​like mirrorball planetarium that you’ll no doubt have spotted outside in Millennium Square.

I came here on a school trip when I was teaching in Bristol. I don’t have a scientific mind but was blown away by the activities and resources that At Bristol had to offer. I had so much fun and felt like a little kid again — everything was bigger than me and there were so many things which caught my attention. Science has never been so exciting! There are over 300 exhibitions to explore, live shows and even a Planetarium to satisfy curious minds. At Bristol is primarily for educational purposes so is great to go to if you have children or have an inquisitive nature.

This is an interactive science museum for kids and although it is probably a lot of fun, it falls drastically short in one of the fundamental reasons it exists. The teaching part. I’ve been through the museum twice, and it’s safe to say I didn’t learn anything from either experience. Then again, I’m not a child so it isn’t really aimed at me, but when I walked around and watched the kids playing with the various games, they didn’t appear to be learning anything, even accidentally.
As a venue this place is pretty good though and it can attract some big names in the world of science. I recently went to a talk there by Richard Dawkins and I enjoyed it immensely. I credit the Explore @ Bristol staff for having their heart in the right place and at least trying to educate the young. Unfortunately, science is simply too complicated and therefore boring for a child to really grasp playing some tenuously related games.
Take you child there if you wish, but don’t expect them to walk out budding Einstein’s. They’ll probably have a lot of fun, but at £12 for adults and £8 for children, this is pretty expensive fun.

At £12 for an adult, this is a bit steep for me, being child-​free I feel a bit mean having a go on the machines and gadgets. However I did manage to get a free ticket one day and got there nice and early in the morning. It has the gadgets similar to the Science Museum in London, and has the space to take little’uns getting over excited and running about without feeling cramped.
There’s a fair bit to do, the shop downstairs is very good and continues on the educational science theme. What I didn’t realise at the time is that the ticket includes a trip to the mirrorball planetarium in Millennium Square — you have to book a seat in that but there are regular shows throughout the day. Now I just have to find a child to borrow so I can go to that as well…

I was transported back to my childhood when I went into this place and I don’t think it had anything to do with science, not directly anyway. If you’re interested in gadgets and how the world works, @ Bristol is a marvellous place to visit on a rainy day, the prices aren’t so fantastic though. At nearly £12 for an adult and nearly £8 for a child they aren’t so credit crunch friendly. Then there’s the gift shop to walk through on your way out, making it a pretty expensive trip.
At Bristol is, however, in a pretty good location, 2 minutes walk from college green and close to all of the other Bristol tourist attractions. Check out their website for special events and exhibitions.

This is Bristol’s science museum. Kids will enjoy themselves most here, but it is probably one of those places that wants to be fun for all the family. An engaging day out, and a lot more refreshing than a stuffy art museum.
Aiming for that (at least for most teachers) impossible goal of making learning fun, it certainly is a fun day out but I’m not sure if too much is learnt there. The exhibits are all interactive, you can pedal to generate power for a T.V. and lift a four foot diameter globe with a very long lever (this is some sort of reference to the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes, for those that care). This means almost any kid will enjoy themselves here, and you’ll see plenty of ten year olds hurtling between each thing, eager to try out everything. The staff are young and keen, and will earnestly explain the science that each exhibit is meant to teach you about. With lots of glass and primary colours it generally feels fresh, something most museums are nothing like.
Go there if you’ve got curious kids to distract, or if you’re just a bit of one yourself.