Jen & I wanted to take our granddaughter Op somewhere before she started school so we headed to the…read moreArizona Science Center, we had a great time seeing everything and being in side an air conditioned building. We got there early before it really started to get busy so was able to see everything without bumping elbows with other people. We had a good time and sure you would as well so plan a date and enjoy a trip to the Arizona Science Building.

I grew up with a family that regularly went to museums. We slowly walked through every exhibit and…read moreready everything, saw every show, and participated in anything that was on the schedule. At the time, as a kid, I hated it as it was boring and far less than hearing about my friends spending their vacations on the beach. But looking back on it I learned a lot and I'm grateful for my parents pulling me through those museums. Now I'm a parent and taking my kids to museums. However, I am a much different parent than my parents were. My kids are there to have fun and so that is what we do. So there is no slow trudging through reading every placard or watching every scheduled demonstration. It is whoosh, off to the next thing. With that said, there is plenty of fun things to do. And admittedly, there were a few times I was reading a placard and my kids Houdini'd on me. No learning for you, Dad! The line to get in was... pretty atrocious. We had the Go pass, but still cost a lot to get in. I almost bought a season pass just so I could come back alone. Maybe later in the future. I would have loved to sit and watch all the shows and presentations... but I don't know if my kids would have had the patience/interest. Park in the Heritage garage and get your ticket validated.

Had a great time at a showing yesterday afternoon. The film was designed for kids but the message…read moreabout Earth's seasons was great. The person in charge of the planetarium was super knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and friendly. The chairs were comfy and the view from the back row was awesome. Deff will be back for a future showing!

So good! My friend and I loved this show. What a great escape from the great and a unique activity!…read more James the man in charge of the planetarium is wonderful! So personable and brilliant! If you get there early you might get lucky enough to do a few minutes of Q+A with him. So cool!! Check Mcclanetarium.com For upcoming events and even dome free shows! Let's keep this going!

"The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple…read morepies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff." ― Carl Sagan, American astronomer and astrophysicist Come view the stars. The Gilbert Rotary Centennial Observatory is open on Fridays and Saturdays, from sunset - 9:30PM, weather permitting. The cost is free but there is a suggested donation of $5/family or $3/adult. Donations are gratefully accepted for the maintenance of the equipment. See the moon, planets, double stars, open clusters, and other wonders of the night sky. Join them on the second Friday of each month for their Public Star Party. An astronomy talk is presented in the adjoining public library at 7:30PM and is hosted by the East Valley Astronomy Club (www.evaconline.org). Visit their website (www.grcoonline.org) for special events, solar viewing, and to book private group bookings.

Although they have public viewing sessions, we reserved a private session for $40 for our family of…read morefive. It was over an hour looking at the sky, learning about astronomy, and getting a crazy view of the moon and several stars. I never realized how awesome the stars were going to look thru a powerful telescope. Claude and Gordon led our session and their passion for astronomy really came through. Our kids 8-18 yrs were all engaged and thought it was really wonderful.

The Superstition Mountain Lost Dutchman Museum, is set on a 15-acre parcel in the shadow of the…read morebeautiful Superstition Mountains. The museum, itself, showcases the Apache origins of the land while the outbuildings include what remains of the Apacheland Movie Ranch (it largely suffered in a fire in 2004), a working 20-stamp gold mill, the chapel Elvis filmed "Charro!" in, the Apacheland barn, a historical model railroad, Western storefronts, a gift shop/bookstore, and a labeled nature trail. Things of note The Apacheland Barn houses a number of horse-drawn buggies and carts used in 17 television series, 29 full-length feature films, and hundreds of commercials filmed on the site. The buildings scattered around the land include a few Old West scenes and full-size dioramas, complete with plenty of mannequins depicting the scenes. The "crown jewel" is the "Elvis Chapel" - a mini-museum and wedding chapel dedicated to "the King" and his unique western movie, "Charro!" also filmed on site. It is a GREAT way to spend a couple of hours!

To be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect, but my son and I are on spring break and I have to keep…read morethis 4 year old busy! I learned several things here... 1) it's a bit of a hike, which I wasn't prepared for 2) Always carry water in your purse (I didn't) 3) carry tweezers and bandaids (splinters happened) 4) these volunteers were the most knowledgeable and friendliest people I have ever met 5) Elvis Presley spent time in AJ. I think it is definitely worth the trip out and it was interesting enough, until my son strayed from the path and a cholla stung him. I took several photos. It was a gorgeous day in March.

This museum is hard to find but it's in an old elementary school building…read more I was very underwhelmed. The best part was the portable planetarium show.

This museum exceeded my expectations! First, it was larger than I expected. Next, the collections…read morewere more comprehensive and interesting. I LOVED getting to a "tour" of the Space Station! Great for adults as well as kids. My only suggestion is to have much better signage on the outside. People driving by don't realize you are there.

This was our second visit to UFO Experience (my mom, my nephew, and I came last year too) and I…read morehave to say, I really like the new layout! The redecorating makes everything flow better, and it's still packed with fascinating UFO exhibits, fun photo ops, alien-themed tv show and movie memorabilia, and all kinds of cool, quirky things to explore. It's definitely one of the most unique attractions around. Unfortunately, this visit wasn't quite as magical as our first because a lot of the interactive exhibits were no longer working. The alien shooting gallery only had one working gun, and even that didn't keep score...it just flashed red and green lights while making gunfire sounds. The listening station had several damaged, missing, or broken headphones, and seemed to have fewer stations than last time. Out of the three View-Masters, only one worked. The moon bounce had large holes where the seams had split apart (which seemed like a tripping hazard), plus it was pretty dirty and even had a wad of gum stuck to it. There were also a few technology issues. The interactive touchscreen maps didn't respond at all and were missing buttons. One of the MUFON touchscreen displays was completely out of service, and while the other one turned on, trying to read the articles just brought up a login screen asking for a username and password that wasn't provided. I completely understand that it must be difficult to stay on top of maintenance, especially with the number of kids who probably aren't exactly gentle with everything. But that's also why I was surprised, because when we visited last year, everything was working and it made the experience so much more fun and immersive. I really hope they give the exhibits a little TLC because this place is genuinely awesome. It's such a fun, fascinating, one-of-a-kind attraction, and when everything is working the way it's supposed to, it's absolutely worth visiting. We'll definitely come back and hope to see it restored to the great experience we had the first time!

Staff quoted 45 min to 1.5 hours to get through this attraction. But honestly you can get through…read moreit within half an hour, even with eight different galleries, especially if you don't have kids with you. I don't think reading every single description is necessary because some share very similar details. The various rooms and exhibits included reports of sightings throughout the years, a "moon walk" which is just a jump house pillow (kids play), depictions of aliens through time, aliens in pop culture, a documentary about an abduction, items from the 1994 film Roswell on display, and of course a gift shop for all your alien needs (selling mainly toys, shirts, and water bottles). Also, speculation into the creation of pyramids across cultures as an indicator of alien encounters, including the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico, Tomb of the General in China, and Borobudur Temple (world's largest buddha temple) in Indonesia, among others. It's a little bit of history, a little bit of sheer entertainment. The alien shooting range was cool, though only two of the 4 guns were working, some headphones for other interactive exhibits also broken/out of order. I did enjoy listening to a Jimmy Fallon recording as he interviewed Chris Colfer about a UFO sighting. So I wouldn't say you won't learn anything new here. The re-creations of characters and sets didn't look super cheap, so the quality of displays here wasn't bad. I thought it was worth checking out. And if you go with the right person, you'll probably enjoy a lot of it and have some laughs. If stuff wasn't broken during my recent visit, this would be a solid 4 stars IMO, good for a one-time experience.

We visited the museum on a weekday morning. We enjoyed the displays of rocks from various parts of…read morethe earth, the Arizona-Mexican artifacts, and of course the dinosaurs, especially the aquatic dinosaurs. This museum has an active dinosaur fossil dig - you can watch and even talk to the paleontologist working on it! There's lots to see and enjoy here, including real elements from a jail that held prisoners from the 1830s to the 1970s!! The gift shop is reasonably priced and you can even purchase a "memory bag" filled with pencil, notebook eraser, etc, for only $2.50 each.

Paid $14 and only stayed about 40 minutes. There were multiple groups of school children that were…read morerunning around, screaming, jumping and bumping into everything. I expect that behavior to be tolerated at a children's museum, not a public museum where a basic level of respect and decorum is expected for EVERYONE inside. Wish I could say I enjoyed it but the hundreds of screaming children ruined any experience I could have had and left with a migraine. **Would appreciate museums to have specific days for "field trips" or hours for school days. Unfortunately many museum experiences are ruined due to the behavior of unruly children, and I'm still the one paying full price.

I've been to a lot of automobile museums over the years, some bigger, some fancier, but none as…read moreall-around nice as this one. As of our visit on 7/11/2026, entry prices were; Kids (0-5): FREE, Kids (6-12): $5, General Admission: $15, and Seniors (62+): $12. We visited a couple of weekends ago and enjoyed several hours of walking amongst the cars, tractors, and various displays. They offer free use of wheelchairs, which was perfect for my 93-yo mother-in-law, and free bottles of cold water which were situated outside of the various bathroom locations around the museum. I saw at least three event rooms of varying sizes, I'm sure for weddings, corporate events, etc. I believe there were about 170 vehicles on display and several of the vehicles are "hands-on", meaning you can open the doors and sit inside which provides for great photo ops and lots of fun for the young visitors. We even got to meet the owners who were cruising around in a red golf cart and stopped to chat with all the visitors. Whether you live in the Phoenix area or are visiting from out of town, I highly recommend that you check out the Martin Auto Museum.

Absolutely 5 stars!…read more I'm 51 years old and grew up loving all things automotive, from mild to wild. My dad used to take me to car museums whenever we came across one, and he'd tell me stories about all the cool cars he and his friends drove in the 1960s and '70s. I carried that passion into the '80s and '90s, and now I'm doing my best to turn my two toddlers into car nuts as well. We spotted this museum on a recent trip to Phoenix and decided to check it out. What we found was, in my opinion, the greatest car museum I've ever visited. The building is huge, well maintained, and staffed by friendly people. Best of all, you can open the doors and sit in roughly 40% of the cars! That hands-on experience sets this place apart from every other museum I've visited. This may very well be the greatest car museum in America today and should be a mandatory stop for any car enthusiast.