RMSC (Rochester Museum & Science Center)

This review is for the Planetarium! I went to the Black Hole experience which was around $12 and lasted around 45 minutes. The seating was very comfortable and allowed you to lay back and view the experience properly. The information, presenter and effects were fantastic. The Planatarium shows are brilliant for all ages from young to old with something for everyone! If you have an interest in space, I promise you, you're going to love this place and for the price? It's a no brainer! 😁

RMSC has so many cool and interesting exhibits and play structures for 2-99 yrs old. First ample free parking is always appreciated. By the entrance there is a tennis ball cannon exhibit that you can pull a rope to have air pressure launch the tennis ball skyward. The wonders of water section has this glowy jellyfish like structures you can climb onto. There is a paid tornado machine to experience category one hurricane. An interactive display of lift lock with trains showing the mechanism of the system. Electricity Theatre on the top floor was something amazing. Using lightning to zap into music and audience were invited to participate on stage as well. There's hover ball challenge, dinosaur bone digging, glacier exhibit, volcanoes and earthquake formation section. There are so many individual experiment and exhibits demonstrating the mechanism of a lock, car brake, gears, blinkers...etc. Best of all, if you have a membership to one of the ASTC participants, you get in for free which I did with my Ontario Science Centre membership. There are restrooms everywhere and there's a cafe in the basement serving pizza slices, turkey sub (yummy) and chef salad and ice creams. You can eat indoor or outdoor. Overall a great place to visit.

This is a great place for children. They have 3 floors and a basement that has a cafeteria. The activities are very interactive. On the third floor was a music and light exhibition and activities, we really enjoyed this one. Every so often in a day they have a scientist lead an experiment that children can either watch or participate. I spent a good 4 hours here. You can surely spend longer. Very educational and challenging.

A very good Museum and Science Center for a city the size of Rochester. It has a mixture of exhibits and interactive plays for young children. The exhibits that concentrated on the area is decent, showing the geographical transformation of the area over many different periods. The lives of the natives were illustrated with great details and the struggle of gaining acceptance and being integrated in the society by local black people was shown throughout. In some senses, this is more of a historical museum. A lot of things for a family to do. Adults can spend more time exploring history of the area, while younger children spend more time in the interactive exhibits. We did not visit the planetarium, in a separate building, but will do soon in the future.

Great place to spend the day with kids of all ages! We were gifted a membership and I wasn’t sure how much my 3 year old would like it. We spent 4 hours there easily and had a blast. My only complaint is the food. They only offer very limited pre packaged items from marks and you can tell everything had been sitting a while. More options would be great.