Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

This place is a 5 Star experience.It's a museum, a zoo, a walk through all the Sonoran Desert ecosystems. I had some sticker shock with a $30 entry fee but that was short lived as I explored all the exhibits, walked the well Mau trained trails and paths, viewed wildlife, learned facts I would only hear from the volunteers who are subject matter experts. A highlight was the cave they've recreated. I've been spelunking and this short trip through a man made cave was all the fun of exploring a cave without the eternal mud and guanoEven the drive from Tucson is beautiful. I visited in February so the temps were great but from what I saw, even in August there's shade and two wonderful options for dining cooking off and enjoying a cool beverage. The Cafe is delicious, check my review! Lots of bathrooms that are clean.The trails and side walks are handicap / wheelchair accessible. The only reason not to visit this place is if you hate fun.

This museum is wonderful. The exhibits, grounds, and vistas are unparalleled and the staff friendly. My group and I spent several hours here, exploring and taking in the sights. We loved the animals and the docents were quite knowledgeable. Plus the cafe was cute and it was nice to sit outside. A must see for anyone visiting Tucson. I *almost* took off one star, as the tranquility of the natural beauty was disrupted by the constant moaning of animatronic dinosaurs. This is a temporary exhibit, thankfully. The dinosaurs themselves would be fine, but the sound effects truly did the museum a disservice.

So I struggle a bit with zoos but the fact they take in animals that would not be able to survive on their own, help educate, and the larger ones help fund so many smaller shelter rescues and save lives always seem to win out in the end. This place does it right and is one of the good ones. ASDM is a combination type of place to include a botanical gardens, a museum, and a zoo open area for gorgeous animals that are unique, live, and flourish in our desert environments. There is probably not too much more I can add than the other reviews have not stated and noted already. The animals have open areas to roam, are well cared for, and the grounds are lovely. The museum area is great. ASDM has a lot of preservation and science invested and established within their gates and walls. It is beautifully done and the animals are so gorgeous. I still remember the Ocelot. What a stunning creature. They have lots of events at the museum and classes so definitely an important and crucial learning partner of community.

Great indoor outdoor museum and garden. Small area of sea creatures. Lots of animated dinosaurs. Some live animals too including a puma. Wear a hat and make sure it's not to warm of a day

Big changes and expansions to AZSDM since I last visited 30 years ago. I thought $30 per adult was steep, but there was a lot to see and weather was perfect (February). Snakes, spiders, big horn sheep, wolves, a lazy mountain lion, an ocelot and frogs, two gift shops, an interactive trek through a stalagmite cave, and an -excellent- meal at Ocotillo Cafe (see my review on that). Unexpectedly way more fun than I was imagining.

We came for a visit in the winter - mid-February and lucked out that the day we were planning to go was one of the days they do a raptor demonstration. This happens at 10AM on certain days; I'd recommend checking the website for current information. We arrived around 9AM and were planning to walk around a bit before heading over there, but fortunately a nice volunteer asked us if we were planning to watch the demonstration and advised us to be in line no later than 9:30. She was not kidding. People come specifically for this experience. Handlers bring the birds very close to the crowd and they literally fly inches from spectators heads. They really emphasize the importance of not putting your hands up to take a picture over your head, etc. A volunteer provides an informative narrative about the birds. The rest of the park is set up in a very natural way which means many animals are hibernating in the winter so do don't expect to see too much in terms of animals if you do visit in winter, but we did see some! There is an aquarium which is active year round of course. The indoor bird exhibit was almost entirely populated with mourning doves; I'm not sure if this is a seasonal situation as well. The hummingbird area also had very few birds; I think we saw more outside on the flowers. The grounds are lovely and the volunteers are friendly and knowledgeable. There are lots of water bottle fillers with cold water and sunscreen in all bathrooms. Definitely wear good walking shoes as the surfaces are largely natural/sandy particularly on the desert walk.

I drove by here a couple of years ago while visiting Saguaro National Park in Tucson. Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is more than a museum. It is a botanical garden, zoo, aquarium, education center and an art gallery. There is so much to see and do at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. I really enjoyed my first visit here. The museum is mostly outdoors and has close to 2 miles of walking paths. So wear good walking shoes if you want to see as much as possible.Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is 21 acres and home to more than 230 animal species and 1,200 varieties of plants. They are located near the Saguaro National Park West Visitor Center. It was a little warm when I visited here because it was summer. But thankfully many of the exhibits are indoors or have shade. Some of the highlights for me were the Reptile Hall, the Mountain Woodland, the Aquarium, the Bird Exhibit and Hummingbird Aviary. A couple of my favorite stops while walking on the Desert Loop Trial was the Labyrinth and Agave Garden. I have a deep appreciation for agave plants and enjoyed seeing all of the different types that they have here. There is also an art gallery with some beautiful paintings and sculptures. For food and snacks, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum has a coffee bar called Phoebe's and the Ironwood Terraces food court. The gift shop also has a few snacks. There is a touch and feed stingray exhibit and they have live animal presentations in their theater. Overall, I had a nice time here. I highly recommend stopping by here if you are passing though Tucson. Great place for kids and adults. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum opens later hours in the summer so people can enjoy the cooler weather after dark.

This is the best of the best. It easily exceeded my expectations. It's like a zoo meets museum. If you are interested in learning more about the flora and fauna of this region, I 100% recommend visiting Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.There is so much to see and experience. In addition to carefully curated animal exhibits, there are different themed gardens including my favorite which was the cactus garden.There's also a couple of aviaries including one specifically dedicated to hummingbirds.Definitely check this place out if you are in Tucson.My only complaint was that the woman at the gift shop gave us a sassy attitude when we asked her a question (to which her answer turned out to be wrong). It's ok if you don't know the answer to a question but to insist you are right and then give us attitude if we question you is not cool. It left a bad taste in our mouth as we were leaving this otherwise incredible place!

Such a cool place for a field trip! The grounds are well kept, workers were very knowledgeable albeit some easily annoyed with children asking multiple questions. Perfect time to go is when it's cooler otherwise wear plenty of sunblock and bring water. They do have many water filling stations. The maps can be much better but otherwise navigable, will just take you a little longer to navigate when new to this place.

The place was OK, walk around zoo and good for kids. Shows were low level and more in tune for East Coast or ? people that know nothing about the desert.The cafe food was terrible and high priced.