Ready for Part Two of our Chicago adventure?
In part one I shared about our stay at the Kimpton Hotel Palomar, our visit to SkyDeck Chicago at the Willis Tower, and our favorite restaurant stops during our stay. Click here to check it out.
In part two I’ll share about our visit to the Shedd Aquarium, Museum of Science and Industry, and Millennium Park.
🦈🐠🦐 Shedd Aquarium
The Shedd is one of the most iconic buildings in Chicago, built right on the lakeshore. I have been wanting to bring my kids here for a very long time!
We visited in the afternoon and had about a two hour visit (but decided to skip the dolphin show, that would add a little more time into the visit).
We started our visit on the Main Level and visited the Amazon Rising, Oceans, Great Lakes, Islands and Lakes, and the Rivers exhibits. The highlights for the kids were a hands on exhibit in the Oceans area, and seeing an enormous boa constrictor in the Amazon Rising exhibit. The Caribbean Reef exhibit is right in the middle of the main level, and is an explosion of color. The kids loved watching the different fish and creatures as they walked around what seems like a carousel of Caribbean sea life!
We then headed to the Lower Level where we watched the otters play. We also got glimpses of the dolphins and beluga whales. This is the area where the dolphin shows happen, and I can imagine they are really cool!
We went down to Lower Level 2 and enjoyed the underwater viewing of all the animals we saw above – otters, dolphins, and beluga whales. I think this was the highlight of our visit! The beluga whales were so playful and swimming right along the glass, so the kids were practically touching them, it was a pretty cool experience! This area also has another touching exhibit, which the kids were thrilled about.
Our final stop was the Wild Reef, where the sharks live! This was a neat experience to explore, and even the elevator ride down is an experience!
https://www.sheddaquarium.org/
Museum of Science and Industry
This is one of my favorite museums, and I had been waiting for the day I could bring my kids, I was so excited! This building is HUGE, it would be impossible to visit it ALL in one day. They constantly have rotating exhibits, but the permanent exhibits are fun too.
We were able to get in free with our Denver Museum of Science and Industry membership, but unfortunately it only included General Admission. Many of the coolest exhibits were an extra cost, and it was pretty pricey.
We were a little exhausted the day we visited, so we made a short visit.
Here are the exhibits we visited:
Farm Tech – The kids enjoyed climbing up in big tractors and combines to pretend they were farmers. Lots of great activities that teach how farming contributes to our lives.
Apollo 11: First Steps – This exhibit is full of information about our first, and subsequent, visits to the moon. They have real equipment used by NASA (either in training or on missions), and the kids were excited to see that. I was intrigued by the video of the control room of the first space landing, I don’t think I had seen that before! The kids played with some hands-on exhibits while I enjoyed that.
U-505 – The story of the U-505 submarine is a pretty incredible one, and when you come around the corner and see it, it’s impressive. Sadly you can’t go inside unless you’re on a guided tour, which is an additional fee. However, I don’t know if the kids would have stayed interested the entire 30 minutes. (I remember doing the tour many years ago though and it’s fascinating!)
Pioneer Zephyr – You don’t even need to pay admission to see this one, it’s in the lobby of the museum! The Zephyr is one of the first diesel-electric streamlined passenger trains, and the kids loved seeing everything about it.
Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle – I don’t remember seeing this exhibit before, it’s tucked away behind the farm equipment. But it is really cool! It’s a huge castle filled with fairy tale memorabilia. A recorded description guides you through as you go from room to room. My daughter loved it, she event wanted to go around a second time!
The Idea Factory – This was a hands on exhibit that the kids loved!
There are so many other cool exhibits that we didn’t even get close to seeing during our visit. Here are some of my favorites that we used to love visiting:
- Genetics and the Baby Chick Hatchery
- Numbers in Nature
- Science Storms
- Coal Mine (Unfortunately they’ve added this to the extra fees exhibits, and it would have been close to $100 for us to go, which just wasn’t worth it to me. But it is a VERY cool exhibit!)
- The Great Train Story (a HUGE model train exhibit)
- Transportation Gallery
If you’re going to visit, I would plan on spending all day here. Either bring a lunch or grab lunch onsite. You’ll get free admission with your DMNS membership, but be prepared to pay a hefty upgrade to experience some of the cooler exhibits.
This museum is on the south shore, so it’s a bit of a haul to get to. Taking public transportation to this location is a little dicey, I’d recommend a ride share or taxi if you don’t have a rental car with you.
Millennium Park
Millennium Park was built while we lived in Chicago 20 years ago. It sits along Michigan Avenue near the lakefront, and is a great place to relax after a long day of sight seeing. In the wintertime it includes an ice skating rink.
You have to see the Cloud Gate (lovingly known as the Bean). Get up close and see your reflection, but then make sure you go underneath to see a different view too.
I never visited the fountains when I was a young adult, but with kids it was so fun! Warning: They WILL get wet! Even if you tell them not to get too wet, they will be SOAKED! These two tower fountains show reflections of people and encourage diversity and inclusivity. Occasionally one of them will pucker up and water will come shooting out of their mouths, and inevitably your child will be in the direct spot where the water lands. But they’ll have a blast splashing and running around, especially on a nice hot Chicago day!
Family Travel Transportation
I wanted to take the train in the city with the kids, and we did do that from O’Hare into the city. But I realized it was going to be cheaper to take ride shares for our other transportation, and would be about equal to getting a rental car (but with way less hassle).
The question was how do I safely transport my kids? I didn’t want to lug around car seats all day, so I found these incredible travel boosters call MiFold. They work for kids as young as three, and instead of boosting the kids up to the seat belt for proper fitting, it brings the seat belt down to the kids. They’re totally safe and fold into a really small size, we carried them in backpacks for our whole trip, and they’re easy to install and uninstall quickly for short rides.
I reviewed their website to write this review and it looks like they make a couple different models -including a high back booster model, which is pretty cool.
We use them now whenever we travel, and they live in my husband’s car, so he doesn’t need to have bulky car seats installed.
Want more family travel fun? Take a look at our Family Travel Guide!
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