Visiting Kennedy Space Center with Kids

Cost: I was initially fairly hesitant about spending this much to take 4 adults and 2 kids to the Kennedy Space Center.  Particularly since we often visit Wallops when we’re in Chincoteague, which is quite small and free.  Other than the fact both are NASA sites, there’s really no comparison between them.  We spent several hours (~6) at the Kennedy Space center- I wanted to stay longer yet thought we had gotten our moneys worth.  Note: you can buy tickets at Kiosks onsite.  This was quick and easy, take this approach. 

Photo props: As you get your tickets there are a couple of places to get some cute photo shots of the kids/ family.  There’s typically a line so you may want to wait until after your visit to do these.  As soon as you go through the gates, there’s a ‘garden’ (https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/things- to-do/ rocket-garden.aspx) full of rockets.
This was fun to explore and again, a great spot for photos.  There was a docent giving a tour but the kids had too many wiggles to release for us to listen in.

The advice of the help center was to go straight to the bus tour.  Now I loved the bus tour but we waited in line for more than an hour.  If you’ve just spent a couple of hours in the car and are about to sit again on a bus tour, you may want to delay the bus tour and go directly to the orange Atlantis shuttle building.

 

We did this last and by that time, the kids were too tired to listen and act responsibly.  Thus, we didn’t get to enjoy this building.

From what we did see:

The bus tour was a lot of fun but is variable based on your driver.  We had a couple of very good drivers who made puns and other jokes as well as pointed out nature stories as we went.  We saw eagles nests, a number of different birds, some alligators, etc.  We were told stories about pairs of eagles that have returned year after year.  In addition to the sites outside of the bus, there are short video clips to watch inside the bus.  The sheer scale of the work necessary to get rockets and people into space is apparent on this trip.  I wanted to scribble down the statistics furiously.

The bus tour drops you off at the Apollo center.  There’s a simulation and narrative as soon as you enter the building.  The whole family enjoyed this tremendously. Then you’re in a big exhibit hall with so much space to run!  Which of course made it difficult for the younger child to stay with us and not annoy other visitors.  At this point we left the younger son with the grandparents, and enjoyed a “4-d” movie telling the story of the moon landing.  There were details in this that were new to me.  The older son was really struck by this story and has continued to mention details from it months later.

Lunch wasn’t that good but you could pack in your own meal.  They had a good variety of options from burgers to salads to snack options.

Do it again?  Yes, I’d take the whole family again in a heartbeat.  But I would probably do it this order:

Other things I’d do differently: pack more snacks.  You could eat/ drink on the bus.  Smaller kids do better with small snacks/ drinks multiple times a day.  Pack a small set of markers/crayons & coloring book for some of the lines, waiting for lunch, etc.