Explorium Of Lexington

My sister and nieces cam to town so we visited looking to keep the kids entertained… sadly the place rather run down and lacking in material condition. In my opinion it’s not worth the adminience fee.

We received a family membership here as a gift from a family member, so I’ve brought our 2 ½ year-​old about six times. It’s never been particularly good, but has gotten progressively worse over the past couple of months. This morning we arrived about 15 minutes after they’d opened and several areas were really dirty/​messy and unable to be used. Every time I’ve come, there are multiple employees hanging out at the front desk, but NOBODY cleaning, interacting with customers, etc. Their art room is only open 1 – 5 which is really strange to me since they don’t staff it anyway, so I don’t know why it wouldn’t be open during all of their business hours. It also seems as though anything that needs any kind of maintenance to work, never does. Today, for example, we went to the veterinarian area where there’s a cabinet marked as supplies for kids to use on the stuffed animals… but every single container was empty. Next to that is equipment with a bright light to check the eyes, ears, and nose of the animals… but it didn’t work. A few feet away is a device with a sign instructing kids to use it to find the microchip on each animal… also broken. Upstairs is the training airplane, but the screen was broken and the controls had several loose wires hanging out as well as the seat itself being badly torn. ALL of the the bubble solution in the bubble room was dirty, murky, and had separated (they obviously hadn’t done anything with it today) so much that it was impossible to make a bubble at any of the stations. Finally, a group of older kids (about 10 – 12 years old) came in and were literally crashing into walls, knocking into small children, throwing things across rooms, and basically making it impossible for anybody else to enjoy their time. They did have an adult with them, but she didn’t even attempt to reign in their behavior, and not a single staff member addressed the situation. We left after only being there for 45 minutes. If I didn’t have the membership, it would have cost my son and me $ 16 to spend 45 minutes trying to find something to play with that wasn’t dirty or broken. One more thing about the cost: they charge full price for everybody 1 year old or older, but there is VERY little for a child that young to do. Kids up to 2 years old should absolutely be free. As soon as our membership expires, we’ll never be back. Speaking of the membership, after a family member had purchased it over the phone, it took them THREE MONTHS and multiple phone calls and e-​mails to actually send the card to us. When they did, they had it expiring one year from when it was purchased (despite the fact that we didn’t have it for 3 months).

This place was pretty disappointing. We recently relocated to Lex for work and have 2 small children so I was excited to bring them here and see what this new city has to offer. This place looks worn out, run down, and honestly not clean. I hate to say that but it was such a let down. Love the area and building it is in but they need to do some serious updating. We were out of there in less than an hour.

On a family vacation we were looking for an activity that my 2 year old would enjoy. It was raining outside or we would have gone to a park or done something outside. There were four adults and my 2 year old. It took us about and hour, hour and a half to play with everything. The museum was a bit outdated and some of the exhibits were just ok. My son’s favorite was the water area in the under three section and the bubble room. We are from Indianapolis, where we have a membership to our children’s museum. It isn’t what I expected, but was nice for a rainy day.

Meh. I may be spoiled because we live in Indianapolis and have THE BEST Children’s Museum, so nothing can compare. That being said– the Explorium feels as though it is stuck in the 80s. The exhibits look tired and worn and may have been exciting long ago. I took my 3 and 5 year old daughters and we were done in about 45 minutes.
Good if you’ve got money and a rainy day to burn. Otherwise, save the cash and head to Jacobson Park for kid-​friendly fun.

We love this place! Always a place we go when Kami in town! She owns it!