Milwaukee Public Museum

Where I was a little underwhelmed by the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Milwaukee Public Museum was a wonderfully pleasant surprise! It was the right mix of exhibits for kids and more professional exhibits and information for adults. And it's pretty big! I showed up with 2 hours to go and I just barely, *barely* got through the whole thing. My favorite was the Streets of Milwaukee/European Village. The two exhibits flow right into each other and I almost felt like I really was back in the Milwaukee of the late-19th century, or an old world European village. The little rooms were like dioramas into the life of citizens of a bygone era. I really enjoyed it!

We had a ton of fun at the museum! From the outside it looked small... was I ever surprised when we got inside!!! We wandered exhibit after exhibit for hours! From the prehistoric displays to the American history, each display was full of great info.I will say I was surprised at how many people came just to hit the secret button.... That seemed to be one of the biggest draws. We also had fun in the butterfly room. It was so fun watching them land on everyone in our group. I hope all this fun gets incorporated into the new museum. This one is well worth the visit! Plan on spending a few hours here!

Lots of bones in this museum. There's a massive mammoth as soon as you enter the museum. There's a live tropical butterfly exhibit that you can walk through if you like to be surrounded by butterflies. The lockers on the main level were out of order so I had no choice but to pay for coat check. The guy at the ticket stand was helpful.

I hate to give such a low rating. I heard that the museum is to be moved to a new location and some of the exhibits aren't going to make the move, so I hurried in. After spending an afternoon here, I can sum up the museum as being so dated that it should be preserved in a museum about museums as a relic of its time (it's recursive, I know). The museum was opened to the public in 1884, and it seems like not much has been done to keep it current or modern. Imagine dimly lit hallways with huge dioramas, without much text or explanation about what you're seeing. There's a lot of items in the museum that aren't labeled, so you have no idea what you are looking at. Also, the scant text that is there is quite outdated, potentially having been there since the museum opened. One display said that India has 17 states...well it currently has 11 more since that was written. Some displays are completely empty, with a small placard saying that it's due to the The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA). Do they use that empty space to make it somehow more educational? Nope. It was also awful to see how there was only one worker managing the butterfly wing who controlled the flow of traffic in and out. He went over the ground rules of how to treat the butterflies with respect, but with no one inside to actually make sure the rules were followed, there were plenty of people trying to catch and chase the insects. There were a lot of them dead on the ground. It's also questionable what the educational value there is as there's nothing identifying what species of insects or where they are native.Old Milwaukee was also disappointing since they had storefronts, but it could have been more educational if they researched the people who worked or owned the shops to make it have an even stronger connection to the city, rather than looking old timey for the sake of shallow entertainment. I would not return here again.

Our family loves this museum. There's so much to do and discover. I could be here for hours and get lost in the information and exhibits that are so well put together. We can't wait to return.

I had to be talked into going here by my fiancée. For 2 adults, 2 kids and parking, cost was just shy of $100 and this just seemed like too much. But, it was the day after Thanksgiving and I didn't want to do Black Friday shopping and so we went. She told me she had a lot of fond memories of this place growing up going in school field trips. It sold me. Kids are ages 9 and 12 and it was honestly the perfect activity for them as the place was absolutely geared towards them and they loved everything about it. Probably the favorite of the whole family was the butterfly garden. Pretty great experience. We also loved the planetarium which was included with the day pass price. Show was on eclipses and it was great. All the natural history exhibits in the upper floors were worth the visit as was the Streets of Old Milwaukee which the kiddos loved. Honestly couldn't have been happier with the visit. Only drawback was the popcorn we got for the planetarium movie was burnt. If your family doesn't have the money to shell out for this, I saw a flyer while there that said the first Thursday of the month is free admission. I'll post more information in my pics.

I attended the museum in the middle of the week and it wasn't crowded. It's a nice place to visit and many things to see. Butterfly exhibit was nice but I wish there was someone inside the exhibit talking about the different butterflies and answering questions.The employee at the ticket window was very helpful. I'm in no hurry to go back unless there is a special exhibit or speaker. There was a 'show' about the stars and constellations which was kind of cool. Possibly go on a free day.

Great spot for the kids. It's basically a children's museum. Good variety. Clean. Overall a good place to spend a few hours with the kids.

It's got everything from everywhere and more like butterflies! Kid friendly and easy to navigate

I grew up not far from NYC and got on a school bus once a year to go to the American Museum of Natural History. This one isn't that one, but for a city the size of Milwaukee it's pretty fabulous. As good as the prehistoric stuff is, for me nothing compares to the butterfly room. Magical and truly memorable