The Jarvii It was another scorcher of a day in Baltimore, but we were up and running to get in as much as we could. Thankfully our hotel included breakfast with a waffle bar. After breakfast we packed our things, were out the door a little after 9am to put our bags in the car (we parked a few blocks away to pay half the price of what our hotel was charging for parking; thanks Parking Panda!), and made it to Port Discovery Children’s Museum 10 minutes before it opened at 10am.
This is why Baltimore is more kid friendly than DC–there’s a huge children’s museum! DC doesn’t even have a children’s museum (yet)!!! Not only that, Port Discovery is continually ranked as one of the best children’s museums in the country by several parenting sources, Forbes, etc. Aside from the National Aquarium, Port Discovery was also on our must do list that weekend just because it is famous.
As you walk in the first thing the kids see is KidWorks, a 3 story tall climbing structure. It’s recommended for kids 5+, but my 2.5 year old easily made it to the second floor with no problems. Your kids climb up various ways and can exit on the second floor or third floor. I made them get off at the second floor just cause I wanted them to enjoy the various exhibits; they could have easily spent their entire day climbing this thing.
Like most children’s museums, there’s a water table room, a soft play area for babies and younger toddlers, a pretend grocery store, and a pretend restaurant. But there’s so much more in here, like a soccer area and art room. We’ve been to a handful of children’s museums throughout the country, and this is the first one we’ve been to that I feel like skews older. There were several activities that were targeted towards young elementary age kids, which I actually didn’t mind. There’s still a lot of things to do for younger kids, but if you have a children who span a large age gap, you’ll be able to fulfill their needs.
My kids loved Wonders of Water; I mean who doesn’t love a water table. But their favorite part was the will it float experiment. I had them pick an object, place it on the tray, asked them if they thought their object would sink or float, and then had them pull the lever to submerge their object in water to test their guess. They had loads of fun doing this, like at least 45 minutes of playing at this place alone.
Another hit were the games near The Oasis. There’s a conveyor belt that holds different shape pieces. You have a minute to put in the correct shapes as the belt moves to count how many you have correct. We could have played this game forever if there wasn’t a line of other kids wanting to play. A more complicated game was a ball you had to wiggle down a ramp into a hole. O and S loved it cause you used a car steering wheel to move the ramp.
We also did most of the Klutz activities, which is a temporary exhibit. It wasn’t a good one for S since she didn’t have the fine motor skills to cut just yet. But it was a good one for O to try. We made paper airplanes, did tricks, and even made a paper football.
We spent the entire morning here and left at lunch time. We didn’t even get to do all the exhibits at the museums, and S had a HUGE tantrum because she did not want to leave. We will return because there’s a lot of things we still want to see inside.
It cost $15.95 per person that’s 2+, but if you have an Ikea Family Card you can get one admission for half off. If you’re at Ikea ever, it’s probably safe just to sign up for one since it is free anyways. Thankfully I decided to keep it in my wallet (I did a wallet purge a week ago).
After lunch we made our way to Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine. It’s not walkable from the Inner Harbor (it’s about 3 miles away), but you can take the Water Taxi from the Inner Harbor. If you have a car, there’s free parking at the site. It cost $10 per adult, but my mom is a senior and has the life time pass. If a grandparent is 65+, have them pick up the life time pass for $10. It allows up to 3 additional adults to enter any National Park. Kids are always free.
When we gott there we made it just in time to attend a ranger talk. We all funneled into a room where they played a quick video regarding that famous day during the war of 1812. At the end of the video they played the Star Spangled Banner, the screen went up after a few bars, and there was a huge picture window of the flag waving over Ft. McHenry. It was pretty moving.
After the movie we went outside where the ranger continued her talk. She had everyone help pull out and unravel a replica of the original flag. O and S enjoyed this part, mostly because I think they thought it was a parachute. The ranger then taught us more history and some good trivia about the flag (I love these parts about ranger talks).
After the talk, we made our way over to Ft. McHenry to see the flag up close. We also caught a glimpse of the Pride of Baltimore, which is a replica of the boats that the Americans used during the War of 1812. This place is fantastic to have a picnic and just boat watch with your kids. We saw sail boats and shipping containers, which amazed them.
Overall it was a great second day in Baltimore. We clearly didn’t get in as much as I liked, but that’s how it goes when you travel with small kids. We’ll definitely be back because we still need to see the science center and the kids want to go back to the children’s museum.
