The New Children's Museum San Diego

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The New Children's Museum San Diego. Visiting San Diego with Kids. Children's Museum Downtown San Diego. San Diego Kids Museum

During our adventures of "Discover San Diego", we were able to take a trip down to The New Children's Museum San Diego in downtown San Diego.

San Diego Museums

There aren't a ton of museums throughout San Diego that are strictly for San Diego. When a new museum opens, it makes for an exciting adventure to check it out.

I was very excited to check this museum out. I liked that it was new, modern and we were eager to see how well the kids like it.

The parking for this museum is very limited with it being downtown, so be prepared.

The New Children's Museum of San Diego

The museum itself is beautiful. Very open and spacious, but a little cold and not as inviting as other museums we have seen. We found that many of the activities are focused around the environment which is great, but are not as kid-friendly as I think they were intended.

There is a rain-house with a foamy-like floor that was fun for kids to run around on. They did however require each child to take their shoes off. (kind of a bummer). There is a slide with tires leading up to the top. Unfortunately, the tires are almost straight up making it impossible for little people to climb by themselves. (Again a bummer because I had the baby with me which meant I couldn't help Sydney up and so we weren't able to play in that section.)

Other areas in the museum were cool for me from a design perspective but lacked actual "things to do" for the kids. Like this area of the museum. Super cool to see and have the kids run around, but there isn't actual climbing happening, so we didn't stay too long.

There were other areas in the museum that the kids had fun running around in, but all in all, I wouldn't recommend this museum for the younger kids. There is a lot of museum staff watching over each of the areas which gave the whole thing a restrictive feel. Not letting kids be kids and explore.

It is as though, each area was made with children in mind, but was not tested by children. Unfortunately, I am just not sure they had kids test them out to make sure it worked the way they intended. In my opinion, many fell short.

The facility is beautiful and clean and spread out over three floors. I think that if you had the chance to go on a discount, then definitely check it out, but for $10 each including parents, it's not a place I would frequent, especially with the younger kids.