A couple weeks ago I found myself in Atlanta with the kids and 36 hours to kill before our flight. The drive from Athens hadn’t been long, but I was still looking for someplace the kids could burn off some energy before we headed to the hotel. Since it was raining, we chose to check out the Children’s Museum of Atlanta.

Admission was a little outrageous at $15.95 regardless of age but I forked over the cash and we walked inside. We arrived at 1 pm on a Sunday afternoon and almost all of the kids there were with birthday parties. There was no way to tell except that when they would all head to the party room anytime an announcement came over the loudspeaker. When we eventually left around 3:30, everything was much more crowded even though the party crowd has left.

The kids only had a couple minutes to explore the diner before I whisked them off for storytime. Storytime or some other entertainment option was available every hour throughout the afternoon. The first storytime we went to was the only one we attended. I found the choice of storybook to be quite boring and overly educational. It was Sid the Science Kid teaching why you should wash your hands but without any rhymes or funny happenings.

Right next to the storytime stage, HJ was captivated by the pulley system next to the treehouse. She would carefully fill the bucket and raise it to the top, ask me to hold the rope, and then climb up to unload.

While she was pulley-ing to her heart’s content, Killian played on the playground structure and danced along to Sid the Science kid on a giant screen.

The science exhibits in the back were pretty much abandoned, but both my kids loved playing with the toy microscopes, weighing various blocks, and racing blocks down the different friction ramps.

Next, we signed up for an art project. There were time slots available every half hour and you just had to pencil your name in and then show up. The children were tasked with making a simple wind direction craft and the supplies were all laid out when we arrived. The whole project took my kids less than 10 minutes and we were the first to leave.

At this point, I was getting a bit restless but the kids were still having a blast. We went on to cover: sand play, paint, water play, climbing, and the piano stairs.

Although $45 for the 3 of us was really quite steep, the kids could easily have spent all day here. To really maximize your money, I’d recommend going before lunch and then returning later in the day. They provide hand stamps on the way out so you can re-enter for free on the same day. If you would rather pack a lunch, there is a cafeteria area upstairs. There are a couple vending machines but no cafe so it is strictly self-catered.

The place was quite clean and there were bags in each area to put toys that had been sucked on.

Overall, I found this to be a very fun children’s museum but nothing particularly out of the ordinary. Marbles in Raleigh is only $5 per person and has more to offer. But if you’re in the Atlanta area and need a place to entertain the kids, this will definitely do it!