Two great museums in New York City for both kids and adults that won’t blow your budget

We took a weekend trip to New York City with my mom and our children over the holidays to experience Christmas in NYC. While there, we made sure to fit in some culture, education, and history. Bertaut suggested the Metropolitan Museum of Art, aka The Met, since it’s one of NYC’s best museums, if not one of the best in the country. At first, I thought he was crazy. I imagined a quiet art gallery with people staring at paintings in absolute silence, while my rambunctious toddler zoomed down the hall screaming at the top of his lungs. This was not my idea of fun. However, I heard him out and learned that The Met offers much more, and is actually a great museum for kids, even wild ones like ours. So we gave it a shot, and I’m so glad we did, because we all ended up loving it.
Before we even entered the museum, the kids had a blast throwing coins into the fountain until they ran us dry and we had to pick them up kicking and screaming to go inside. I remember those days, the simple joys of childhood, when something as simple as tossing a penny into some water could elicit such excitement. My fearless son also tried jumping into the fountain for a quick swim, which would have been interesting in late December, but luckily I grabbed him before he could make a splash.

Once inside, the excitement continued. While Bertaut was paying the admission fee, and let me get back to that in a minute, I sat with Christophe for some early art appreciation in the entryway. He was truly mesmerized and stared at that Egyptian statue so long that I was wondering what he was thinking inside that cute little head.

Meanwhile, Bertaut was at the ticket desk to buy tickets for the 5 of us, well 3 actually since kids under 12 years old are free with a paid adult admission. True to his travel MO, he had done some research and learned that the admission price of $25 per adult is actually a suggested donation, but you can pay whatever you would like. So instead of handing over $75 for a visit that we suspected could be cut short due to a terrible 2 meltdown, as often happens with our stubborn-like-bull son, we decided to pay $25. It seemed like a fair price for us, not being aficionados of art, and knowing that we may only be there for an hour or less. What you pay is entirely up to you, so if you can only afford $1, then don’t let that stop you from visiting this incredible museum.

We scoped out the map and decided to make the armory our first visit, given that our son loves to sword fight with anything remotely resembling a sword, such as a piece of uncooked spaghetti. No, I’m not exaggerating. Our kids had also just watched a Spongebob episode in which Mr. SquarePants dressed up as a knight, so I knew our daughter, who is Spongebob’s #1 fan, would be excited too.

This section was a big hit for the kids, and the big kid loved it too, ahem Mr. T I’m referring to you. The photo below of my son just cracks me up. Hmm, let me bend over for a closer look. Baby got back, that’s for sure.

Even my mom had fun looking at the armor. Her mind is frequently in the gutter, and anything remotely phalic is sure to be one of her favorite pieces of art. So look what she found. It may be hard to see from the angle of the photo, but this armor has a special section for a knight who may have taken too much Viagra.

After exhausting our laughs with the armor, we headed over to the Egyptian area. This is one area that you should not miss when you visit the Met. Who doesn’t love Egyptian art?

Our kids loved this crocodile and weren’t quite sure whether it was safe to approach. Then they saw that it was surrounded by pennies in a well of water and we were dragging them kicking and screaming away again because we had no more change to toss in the water. Luckily they were soon distracted by this statue below with feet at their eye level, and started ticking the toes. It was my favorite moment at the museum, seeing them trying to make these ancient Egyptian artifacts giggle. I still smile just thinking about it.

Our little ones were starting to get tired and hungry by this point so we decided to call it quits to our night at the museum. But first we had some fun with the sculpture garden before we made it out. Beware, bring snacks if you are traveling with children because the cafe at the museum is ridiculously overpriced.

The following day we went to the American Museum of Natural History because we all love dinosaurs and knew that would captivate the kids. The admission price is $22 for adults and $12.50 for children ages 2-12, but once again this is a suggested donation and you may pay less if you wish. So instead of handing over nearly $80, we decided to pay $30 and saved another $50. That’s $100 saved in just 24 hours. Most people do not even realize that they don’t have to pay the full suggested admission price, which may stop some families or individuals from attending if those prices are out of their budget. So please don’t make that mistake and pay what you believe is a reasonable donation.

This museum is also very large but we knew that the dinosaurs were our first priority, so we headed there right away. They have interactive educational computer screens all over the museum, and our kids loved playing with those. We learned about all the different kinds of dinosaurs, and the kids loved the cause and effect discovery of seeing what would happen when they touched the screen.

They have some pretty impressive dinosaur fossils in the museum, which entertained us all, especially Bertaut who is a big kid at heart and dare I say a bit of a geek (in a good way). One of my favorites was the Triceratops because it looks so ferocious with its horns. It was also very cool to see a fossil of a wooly mammoth since I’ve never seen one of those before.

The giant sloth was fascinating too, but Christophe was not having it. I had seen one before at the Natural History Museum of Utah, but the sloth fossils here were much bigger. The picture doesn’t do justice to how enormous these things were; definitely not something I would have ever wanted to meet. Another prehistoric creature not quite as scary was this giant tortoise which the kids really enjoyed.

We spent a few hours checking out the dinosaur fossils before the kids had enough and were ready for naps and food. We could have spent all day there, as we barely scratched the surface. We didn’t even make it to the Discovery Room, which is an interactive area for families with a “hands-on behind-the-scenes look at science”. Hopefully we get the chance to return once the kids are older so we can see more. There’s a butterfly conservatory with up to 500 live, free-flying tropical butterflies which would be a huge hit with the kids.  However, that is not included with the general admission, so you must pay $27 per adult and $16 per child if you want to see that (there’s no suggested admission price since it’s a special exhibition).

All said and done, I think we did pretty well with a 1 year old and 3 year old for their first visit to New York City. We were able to visit an art museum and a history museum that both kids and adults can enjoy. Children’s museums are a lot of fun for kids, but we wanted to see things that would interest us too. These museums definitely hit the spot without breaking the bank. There are so many more exciting things to do in NYC that we can’t wait to discover when we take our next trip to the Big Apple. We may opt for the New York Pass to see as many attractions as possible for one price.  Have you visited either museum, and if so, what was your favorite exhibit? What museums in New York City do you recommend for our next visit? If you want to learn how we stayed in a $4000 luxury suite for only $300 in NYC, check out our review of Park Hyatt New York. If you liked this post, please sign up for our RSS feed for updates on new blog posts and our email newsletter for more travel tips.