A day at the Adler Planetarium

The Adler Planetarium has a new exhibit! Called "Planet Explorers", it is a fabulous, hands-on experience. Though it is geared towards the 3-8 crowd, all of my kids (ages 4-11) enjoyed the exhibit! It was great to sit down and watch them crawl through the tunnels of Planet X and bounce foam-balls on the Moon*. Corinne's favorite part of the entire MUSEUM was the section of the exhibit which had us walking through a tunnel of darkness and mirrors to simulate walking in space. (4 times, folks. She dragged me through that tunnel FOUR TIMES.) I will have to suggest to Adler that they rethink the digging material in the first section of Planet Explorers, though. That teensy, rubbery stuff stuck to EVERYTHING and I am still picking it out of Corinne's pigtails...

My children are very hands-on when it comes to museums and exhibits. All 3 were interested in the telescopes, infrared, and ancient astronomy pieces. We learned about how astronomy has changed through the ages. And everyone was interested in the interactive exhibits on the Solar System - Especially blasting our own craters and driving on Mars!

I found it unfortunate that our general admission tickets at the planetarium doesn't include at least ONE of the many shows available. As Justin said, "Isn't that what a planetarium is all about?" Though our own tickets were complimentary for this review, had I paid for the entrance fees of simply general admission, it would have cost us $50 for the 5 of us. Had we wanted to upgrade to the Galaxy package which DOES include 1 show and another amenity, it would have doubled. If we wanted unlimited access to all that Adler has available, it becomes $125 for our entire family! That price seems absolutely astronomical** to me. Especially when you include parking of $16! I find it sad that the wonderful museums of Chicago aren't always available to the families of the surrounding areas due to their high prices. If you are able to take advantage of the free days offered by the Chicago museums, I highly recommend checking out this site: ChicagoHotBlog.com

But, all in all, we had a good time and are really grateful that we were able to experience some of what Adler has to offer. I do recommend checking out the new exhibit for the younger siblings!


* Wish that my camera's batteries hadn't gone dead before I could snap any pictures!
** I never tire of puns...