Autonation IMAX 3D Theater & Museum of Discovery & Science

I can’t believe I am giving such a negative review on a place that I have come to love. It’s a Monday night and it cost $ 12 to park a car. So to see its approaching $ 30. To me that is just ripping people off.

I have a 5 year old and a 7 year old. They absolutely loved this museum! I enjoyed it as well. The only thing I didn’t enjoy was the Lunar/​Mars Rover ride. It was enclosed, with no ac and the screen was not focused. Skip it! Definitely worth the trip. Will not go again just because it just seems like a one time museum trip. We were able to see everything during the visit and my it feels like a museum for small kids. As they grow they may lose interest. Definitely would recommend for 5 – 7 year olds.

The customer service for the I-​Max is horrible. Our cat was just diagnosed with a terminal disease with only a few days left to live. We want to be with him in the evenings when he is awake so we called to ask if we could exchange our tickets to an earlier movie time or another date. The manager was unwavering to our situation and would not exchange or refund our tickets.
We went to this theater all the time. We drove an hour each way every time we went to see a film here and even bought VIP tickets for this show. A member of our family is dying and they chose not to make an exception because of policy.
$ 50.00 for the un-​refundable, non-​transferable tickets is a small price to pay to know what kind of people run this place. We’ll be going to see our movies on a smaller screen at a theater with customer service that has humanity.

I have been coming to this museum since I was a teenager. I haven’t been here in a few years but we went over Thanksgiving weekend. I was a little worried it would be crowded being a holiday but it really wasn’t that bad. The museum itself is located in downtown Ft Lauderdale right next to the Broward Center for Performing Arts. They both share a parking garage which is ridiculously over priced. It was annoying as well that as a museum member, you do not get free parking.
I am not sure what the admission cost is since my parents are members, we got in for free. However, membership does not include IMAX movies they have going on, so that would be an additional charge.
Like most museums, the exhibits can change. At the time we went they had a large aviation exhibit, which also included being able to sit in an actual cockpit. It was really cool. There are a number of other exhibits, on the two floors. Some of the exhibits are permanent including the fish and reptiles they have and the two sea otter pen they have. Something that was new for me, was the Florida exhibit, which included a virtual air boat ride that seemed pretty realistic, but was really rougher than I would have thought. The employees didn’t tell us anything about it, in fact they didn’t even speak so we were totally surprised.
There is also a small area to get some food, Subway and Auntie Anne’s. All in all I really enjoy this museum. It is something really fun to take the family on the weekends. I’m very glad that my parents got memberships again so we can go back again.

This is the most wretched, ill-​conceived museum I have ever brought my children to. It has carnival quality exhibits and a rude, ignorant staff.
This place is a must miss !!!

Visited again today and stayed even longer than our first visit. My 2 year old wants to marry this museum and so do I! We will be buying family passes for sure. So worth the drive from South Beach!

Great place for the kids to learn and play all under one roof. Unfortunately, that’s the only real down side. It’s not a very large place. You can see everything they have in about an hour maybe hour and a half. With that’s said, my kids did enjoy themselves and there are a bunch of other things to do around the museum.

This place apparently was just recently re-​done and the seats are fairly comfortable, however the arm rests do not go up! This is a huge downfall for me, and makes it very uncomfortable and you feel trapped in your seat without the ability for the arms to go up. Also, they still do not let you pick your seats online in advance, which makes you have to go and wait in line for an hour before the show since they only have 1 screen and 1 showing at a time. The screen is awesome, sound is great, the glasses are just ok and hurt your head.

Just spent 5 ½ hours here, and that was without seeing an imax movie! Around ¹⁄₈ of the exhibits have issues but that still leaves plenty to play with.
‘The six year old daughter loved the discovery zone and could have spent the whole day just attaching Velcro squares to the house and picking oranges in the grove. When finally left that area she had fun playing in the weather center and playing the recycling game. Loved the simulated air boat ride (no extra cost!) but be warned it is BUMPY.
Upstairs she enjoyed the planes but many of them did not seem to be working properly. Also sad that the refracted light exhibit wasn’t working.
Currently Sesame Street my body is the short term display. The daughter had fun there, especially in the diner/​grocery store area. I would have been happy to not have seen the poo display.
Can’t bring food or drinks in, but there is a subway on premise that was reasonable. And if you park in their recommended lot (see their website) you can park for day for $ 5.
Overall, great way to spend a day

I’m quite between on my current thoughts about MODS and my memories of it… Every year not only during summer camp, but my school as well made the trip to the museum. Whenever I went on a field trip, it was a full day affair including lunch and an IMAX movie. Running around with my friends learning about the world through personal discovery and meaningful movies had left wonderfully powerfully fond memories of those visits.
When I was informed by a coworker that teachers can receive a free membership to the museum, I filled out the paperwork straight away. It took a while to receive my membership card, but it came with a nice welcome letter and 2 guest passes. It being over the summer, this was especially great considering summer budgeting for a teacher can get rough, so this gave me a great outing to take my 2 year old on that I could definitely afford!
I will admit that for a 2 year old, only about half of the museum is exciting. Memorable favorites were the otters (who were jolted awake during a power outage) the hurricane wind simulator, (it definitely was an experience feeling 95 mph winds whipping past my face!), the IKEA station, and space ice cream to end the day!
The children’s discovery zone was still a bit too much for a 2 year old. Aside from holding down the siren button in the toy ambulance, everything else was just a bit out of reach. The water table and bubble station a bit too high– though perhaps better than getting drenched? I heard the simulated airboat ride was pretty good, but very turbulent (I was informed by the operator that I am too pregnant to go on the ride)…
The Seasome area looked like a lot of fun, but the amount of kids from field trips made the experience daunting for a 2 year old.
I will definitely be coming back, especially as this little one gets older.

I really enjoyed this museum! But I’ll start off by explaining why I couldn’t give it 5 stars.
1) There should have been more restrooms throughout. I was there for about 5 hours and needed the restroom a few times.
2) With such a hands-​on interactive place, antibacterial stations are a must. They had one outside of the restrooms but thats not enough. Also, one was empty.
3) Some of the buttons on things were broken. Woomp woomp.
4) The food was limited and located only at the entrance. (Subway and Auntie Annies)
Now, here is why I enjoyed the Museum of Discovery and Science!
Parking is convenient. There is a large parking garage just outside the building.
Admission was $ 15 per adult which I think was fair.
The layout keeps things fun here. It definitely makes you feel like ab Explorer! ;) The kids on their school field trip seemed to really be enjoying it too.
They had plenty to learn about including animals (turtles, tortoises, fish, shoe crabs, alligators, geckos, tarantulas, bats, otters, sharks) hurricanes, tornadoes, clouds, a kids area to learn about germs and prscticing proper hygiene (some adults I know could benefit from soebding a little time here!!) The human anatomy, our planetary system, airplanes, and more.
The otters were my absolute favorite! It was nice to have a place to sit and watch them swim around. The way the tank /​glass was set up was perfect! You can easily see them above and below the surface. They were so cute!
I also really enjoyed the puzzles to work with. (ie Fit these pieces into this square, balance all 13 nails on the head of this one nail, turn these two blocks into a perfect pyramid.) Fun! But they can certianly use a little TLC. Especially the blocks on the one where you need to make all the numbers in a row add up to 18.
The human anatomy seems to be the newest «attraction”(?) here. It was great! I spent a considerable amount of time clicking on the touchscreen learning more about the Digestive, Respiratory, Muscular and Skeletal systems in our bodies. The screen on top slides across the body on the bigger screen allowing you to «look inside» the body. Very interactive and fun.
Overall, perfect place for all ages. I love learning! Since I saw and did it all on my first trip I really won’t have a need to come back unless I’m bringing the chillens or if the museum changes it up/​add new things.
Thanks for a fun day!

I haven’t been here since I was a kid so things were definitely different. My boyfriend and I decided to have a date here and catch a movie at the iMax theater afterwards. It didn’t take us as long as we thought to get through the whole museum but since we haven’t been here since we were kids that wasn’t really surprising. It was interesting to see and learn about the animals that they have downstairs, one of the workers was really nice and told us a lot about some of her favorites. The upstairs exhibits were a little run down and could use an upgrade, they’re still informative for kids but when parts are broken it kind of deters you from wanting to learn about it. We saw Tomorrowland in the iMax theater and loved it. The concession stand outside was pretty limited and expensive and the attendant didn’t seem to want to serve us at all but aside from that the experience was fun.

Lots of exhibits, but limited for the under 5 crowd as well as crazy expensive. My son loved what he could get out of it though

Love this museum and how elaborate it is. It’s big, in that it’s divided into 2 floors and is very well organized in sections. It also has many interactive kiosks, which are great for the kids. We, adults, equally enjoyed the simulated rides, as much as the kids. Many things to learn about and very elaborate on explanations of things. I loved that my kids could actually venture into a hurricane and feel the heavy winds. It was exciting for them and I would bring them back whenever they add more exhibits into this museum of science.

Not a bad museum. I went without kids and I still mostly enjoyed myself.
The worst thing I saw was how terribly outdated some of the space travel signs/​exhibits were… I mean these things were put of date a decade ago! (Lose a star)
We were there on a Monday afternoon. Fun, interactive exhibits that made learning amusing. And I always love otters!
It was cool the 4d ride was free… it was more amusing than anticipated. But if I did have to pay for it, I would have been disappointed. I thought it was kind of weak they had «attractions» that cost extra. Your already spending close to $ 15 to get in… more if you want to see an imax.

Nice two-​level museum in Downtown Fort Lauderdale. Many interactive exhibits available for the entire family. When I went on a Friday, there were at least 500 school kids scheduled to visit that day, so I tried to get through the first level as quickly as possible, but was still able to see everything in just over an hour for $ 14.00.
There are live animals like the otters, young alligators and those in the aquariums, though I’m sure they the staff takes good care of them. Also available is an IMAX theatre, which I wasn’t interested in checking out nor had the time to. Really nice museum overall.

I was a bit underwhelmed by this place. We went to see the Black Hole exhibit, and were somewhat disappointed. Many of the displays were broken, and the ones that seemed functional were all a bit dull.* I’m guessing we (two adults) were not the target age group for this place! Some of the displays of live animals downstairs were cool (fish, reptiles, tortoises, spiders, etc.), but overall I don’t think I’d ever have a reason to go here again.
*Disclaimer: I grew up in Washington DC with access to some of the world’s best museums (e.g., the Smithsonian) and always think that’s what museums should be like… I need to realize that’s not reality.

Very nice place. All exhibits were engaging. The Mars Explorer simulator was a hit. And where else in the world would you find an Everglades hovercraft simulator? Nice to see some live animals, especially the Otters.
My only complaint was that some of the aircraft simulators were not well maintained and had… ahem… crushed… pardon the pun.

I was pleasantly surprised by this science museum during a recent trip to Florida, and although I was traveling with 2 other adults and no kids, we had a lot of fun. There is a nice variety of exhibits and animal collections here, in addition to a rotation of temporary traveling exhibitions as well. On the day of our visit they had the goose bumps exhibit visiting, and it was a nice way to learn about the science behind fear. I had actually seen the same exhibit in a different museum a few years ago, but it was still being well received by the visitors here.
As you first enter the building courtyard, they have a really cool kinetic sculpture outside, which I could sit and watch for hours. They also have a big Imax theater, and if you get hungry, they have a Subway chain for lunch. I really don’t understand why kids are so enamored by their sandwiches!
I really liked the kid’s play area, recycle exhibit, Florida ecosystems, Space exhibit, airplanes, etc. so many things to see and do, but my favorite part of the museum were the otters! They were so freaking cute, had a nice enclosure, and could be seen really up close, which was nice. One thing that was unique to this museum was a cool air boat adventure ride, which created a pretty decent model for what it would be like to rid in the everglades if you haven’t done so before. Overall, I’d be happy to play and learn here again in the future with, or without, kids.

If I had kids… I’d bring them here — A LOT!
Such a cool museum, which seems to be getting bigger soon with an expansion (?) and always has new exhibits.
As soon as you enter, the first floor is dedicated to animals. There’s a couple of fish tanks, horseshoe crabs, someone walking around with a snake, alligators, turtles and other animals found in South Florida. The second floor of animals include bats, scorpions, spiders, etc and there is a section with snakes and a bunny. I think it was someones cruel joke to put these two animals next to each other — I couldn’t help but wonder if the snake ever tries to break the wall down and get to the poor bunny.
In what seems to be a new part of the museum (or maybe I always missed it?) there is a «nature» section where you can feel hurricane force winds (this was awesome), shoot out a smoke ring meant to represent clouds (but reminds me more of those smoker tricks where they blow O’s) and some other interactive exhibits.
Then you take the escalator upstairs to where the real party is. A ton of sweaty, running kids everywhere. Grabbing, touching, squeezing everything. This isn’t for the germaphobes and I admit I washed my hands a FEW times, but man… it’s son nice to see kids having a good time — and learning while doing so. And I don’t even like kids… but it was cool to see them so excited.
First up: A huge tube that arcs from one station to the other. You hold down a button to build up pressure then «fire» the ball to the other station, where they do the same and return the ball. This is pretty cool.
Then there is an aviation area with a real deal cockpit, some simulators, video games where you can launch, fly and land an airplane and more.
Continuing on, there are multiple interactive stations from testing your strength to testing your balance. A crazy spin chair that almost made my friend barf, and some other cool stations.
The last thing is (what I assume) for special exhibits. They currently have dinosaurs — but not the traditional ones made of bones — these are all made out of steel or other metals. Some of them have pullys that you can tug on and make their wings flap, jaws open and hands move. As a kid I would of LOVED this. As an adult it was ehhh.
Overall a great afternoon (or couple of hours at least) can be spent here exploring, learning and tiring out your kids so they crash and go to sleep as soon as they arrive home.