Spend a day at Rochester’s the Strong Museum of Play
On our recent road trip from Toronto to New York City, we stayed the night in Rochester and spent a day at the Strong National Museum of Play. We had heard so many great things from friends who rave about this place, it was the first thing we added to our NYC road trip itinerary!
The Strong Museum of Play is one of the most unique museums we’ve seen. Part museum, part playground, part arcade, part library, part science-centre, it really has a little bit of everything. It’s an entire experience dedicated to the history of toys and everything about play. Founded in the late 1960s by Margaret Strong as a way to showcase her collection of toys, dolls, and other collectibles, it slowly morphed into an interactive and educational experience for kids and families.
The museum makes a great day trip for families with kids in upstate New York and Southwestern Ontario. But it’s also a neat place for “date night” or for friends to hang out (you’ll never experience another games night like this one!) Of course, because there are exhibits for every age and interest group, some may not be up your alley. Read on for our tips on how to make the most of your day, and our favourite areas for both adults and kids.
The Strong Museum of Play fast facts
Location: Rochester, New York. This is about 1.5 hours from Buffalo/Niagara Falls, and 2.5 hours from Toronto. From the US side, you’re looking at 5.5 hours from major cities like New York City and Philadelphia. It’s definitely worth spending a day here if you’re road-tripping through upstate New York, or visiting the Finger Lakes area (especially on a rainy day).
Opening hours: 10am – 5am Sun to Thurs, and 10am – 8pm Fri and Sat. You are allowed to enter and exit multiple times a day. (They will stamp the back of your hand.)
Cost of admission: 25 USD (save $2 if booking online). Add on costs for the Butterfly Garden ($6), and the Skyline climb ($8). There is a slight discount of you bundle your admission. There are no discounts for children (2-15) and seniors.
The Strong also has options for 2 day tickets that start from 35 USD.
Annual membership to the museum costs 199 USD for 2 adults and up to 4 children. If you are planning to visit more than once a year, it is worth it to get a membership.
You also need to buy tokens at the on-site kiosks to play many of the arcade games. Tokens are $1 for 4 (discount available if you buy more).
Parking: on-site parking garage. Cost: $5.
Lockers: $4 – $5 depending on size.
Food options: The Strong has a main cafeteria, as well as Bill Gray’s (diner), and Puppy’s Game Cafe. You are allowed to *bring your own food*!
Nearby amenities
Dinosaur Bar-B-Que restaurant: so many of our friends who have visited the Strong have eaten here and rave about this restaurant! Great ambience, great food, and the prices are reasonable. It would be a great way to end your trip to the museum. This place is busy, so try to reserve ahead of time.
Hampton Inn and Suites: if you are staying overnight after visiting the museum, this hotel is literally right across the street.
Other hotel near the Strong Museum of play include the Strathallan, Courtyard by Marriott Rochester Downtown, and the Hilton Garden Inn Rochester Downtown. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Rochester Downtown right across the river.
How to plan your day at the Strong Museum of Play
The Strong museum is fairly small, for a museum. There are only 2 floors, but boy, is there a lot going on. The museum is in a U shaped layout, so it’s very easy to navigate. The most straightforward way is to follow the U along the first floor from the entrance to the far side (which will take you to the outdoor Hasbro Game Park), and then take the second floor U back to the entrance.
We spent about 5 hours at the museum, and found this was the maximum time our kids could tolerate. There was quite a bit of walking, and the kids were pretty overstimulated by the end. We had passes for the kids to do the Skyline Climb (the indoor high ropes course) – they enjoyed it, but were both tired by the time we circled back to it toward the end of the day.
We have had some friends stay 2 days, and go back twice. This would be a good option if you have the time, especially if you have younger kids. This would give you more time to explore the different exhibits, whereas we found we were sort of flitting from one thing to the next. We liked that even though we visited on the weekend, the museum did not feel crowded or overrun.
If you are visiting in 1 day, we recommend getting there in the morning, and bringing your own lunch and snacks.
With young kids, we recommend focusing on the first floor, which focuses more on imaginative play. The second floor has more popular games and video games. Older kids and adults may just want to do a quick walk-through of the first floor, and head on up to the second floor. The Butterfly Garden and outdoor Hasbro Game Park is a good break and change of pace for all age groups.
Our overall impression of the Strong Museum of Play
This museum will definitely keep you busy. There is a LOT to do. We found that Big and Lil S (age 6 and 8) were a little too old to truly appreciate some of the exhibits (Sesame Street, Wegman’s grocery shop, Bernstein Bears), and a little too young for some of the others (the video game exhibits). But they still had plenty to see and found lots of interactive displays that excited them.
We loved the “larger than life” areas, including the Reading Adventureland, American Comic Book Heros, and the outdoor Hasbro Game Park.
We enjoyed the “Game Time!” and “eGame Revolution”, where we got to try out tons of popular games.
Museum goers who are a little older – ahem, moms and dads – will find plenty of nostalgia revisiting games from their childhood (but keep in mind that the exhibits and games are US/North American centric, so may not be as relevant to those from abroad).
I don’t think this is a museum we would visit again and again, but we loved the novelty and the “wow factor” of some of these exhibits. The kids are just getting to the age where they enjoy playing games, and they loved seeing some of these games in larger-than-life size.
Our review of the Strong’s main exhibits
After the museum entrance, the first space you encounter is the main cafeteria. This is a giant open atrium which in addition to plenty of tables and seating also houses the Skyline Climb and the Elaine Wilson Carousal.
Carousal
What is more nostalgic than an old-fashioned carousal? This had all the fixings with lights and horses and chariots. There is an extra cost to ride the carousal, but it is a very reasonable $1 per person. Big S and Lil S are a bit past the carousal stage, but it looked like a hit with the younger kids.
Skyline Climb
It’s pretty unique to see a high ropes course *indoors*. The high ropes course is for those 48 inches and over, and there is also a low ropes course for those under 48 inches. Kids doing the high ropes course can go independently, which meant we got to relax while the kids climbed.
The course seemed suitable for all abilities – at no point did our kids feel “stuck” like they have at some harder courses we’ve done in the past. The carabiner system was easy enough the kids could manage on their own. It doesn’t look big, but there are plenty of obstacles and several levels for climbers to explore. The hit was definitely the zip line that took you from one end of the course to the other.
Because Skyline climb is located near the entrance, you will either be doing the course at the beginning or end of your museum experience (unless you want to double back). The kids did it at the end. Although they enjoyed it, they were tired and wouldn’t have felt they were missing out without doing it.
Rainbow Reef
The next exhibit you pass is the Rainbow Reef, where you can admire many times of fish and crustaceans as you pass by the giant aquariums. It was a nice touch, but not particularly memorable.
Field of Play
This was probably the kids’ favourite part of the museum. It sort of feels like part science centre and part most exciting daycare in the world with toys *everywhere*. There were so many interactive and hands-on activities the kids didn’t know where to start and ran around from one thing to the next. You can explore optical illusions (eg. a house that felt like it was tilted sideways), cause-and-effect experiments (eg. blowing air to move things), a rock climbing wall, origami and kinetic sand stations for creative play, and much more. There is also a dedicated play area for toddlers.
Not sure if this in an actual exhibit, but just outside the Field of Play was a station where you could build your own Mr. (or Mrs.) Potato Head. The kids loved this!
Sesame Street
So, our kids never watched Sesame Street. They’ve read some books and know most of the characters, but did not “get” the experience of walking down a very realistic Sesame Street. There were a lot of pretend play elements here, like dressing up in Elmo’s World, helping out at the Cookie Moster’s food truck, and reading in Big Bird’s nook. We parents thought this was very well done.
Dance Lab
At the far corner of Sesame Street is the Dance Lab. This is basically a room with a giant dance floor and disco ball overhead. It plays music (you can choose if you want), and your dancing is projected on the wall with fun special effects. Lil S enjoyed this one a lot!
Wegman’s Supermarket for kids
This is a really cute activity where kids can pretend-shop at a miniature grocery store. They can load produce, meats, packaged foods into little grocery carts, and scan everything through the checkout line. Our kids have outgrown this stage, but used to love doing this when we’ve encountered similar play-supermarkets in the past.
Imagination Station
Imagination Station is a really active part of the museum. It’s not your average playground! While you’re running up ramps or sliding down slides, you can pretend to be in a rocket ship, down a sewer, or in the cockpit of a rescue plane. You can do some construction, and climb up to the top of the house to shingle the roof. There is a toddler play area as well. Our kids really enjoyed this.
There is also a small train ride (the Strong Express) you can take here.
Right next door is One History Place, where it feels like you’ve stepped into an early Wild West set. There is a schoolhouse, a kitchen (where you can churn butter!) and an attic for dressing up, among other things.
Reading Adventureland
This was my favourite part of the museum. It’s like stepping into a larger than life storybook. There is a giant shipwreck to explore, a castle and fantasy forest playground, and a wizard’s lair. There are also areas dedicated to mystery books, Dr. Seuss-esque rhyming books, and a giant chess set.
Each area has a collection of books, and you can actually borrow these as part of the Rochester Library!
American Comic Book Superheroes
Our kids are just getting into superheroes, so this was really fun. There are larger-than-life statues that include Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Hulk. There are activities where you can test your superhero skills, like memory, and strength, and balance. Older kids and adults who are into comics will also enjoy a trip down the golden years of comic books.
Pinball Playfields
The biggest collection of pinball machines I’ve ever seen. You can play aaaalll the pinball by purchasing tokens (which you can also use at various arcade areas and the game zones on the 2nd floor).
Hasbro Game Park
This is an outdoors exhibit at the far end of the museum. It was nice to get outside for a bit, and a cool exhibit to explore. You can wander into an oversized Monopoly house, balance on Jenga blocks, and spin on a giant Game of Life spinner. We loved playing the life-sized Simon, and there are even enormous Dungeons and Dragon dragons that breathed “fire”. The kids are familiar with most of the games, but even if you are not, it is still a neat play space.
There is a separate entrance here for the Butterfly Exhibit, which you can buy tickets for at the entrance. We did not do this, as we discovered while visiting Xcaret in Mexico, butterflies bore the heck out of Lil S.
Toy Hall of Fame
You can take the stairs up to the 2nd floor right outside the Reading Adventureland to the Toy Hall of Fame.
The displays here honour the most famous and popular toys and games in American throughout the years. Our kids weren’t that familiar with the toys, but there are interactive elements here as well to keep them entertained. There was a giant Perplexus ball puzzle, and a digit Etch-a-Sketch that can actually send your “sketch” to your email!
Game Time! and eGameRevolution
Aaaaall the games. (You will need to buy tokens to play.) There are traditional arcade games and console games, but there are also giant Lite Brite walls and interactive LED floor games, and a giant Tetris! Our kids’ favourite was the Angry Birds slingshot game.
Game Time! has a ton of traditional games like Foosball and Air Hockey, Dominos, Jenna, Connect 4, and all sorts of puzzles.
There are various displays here about the history of the various games, but our kids couldn’t care less about the history, they just wanted to play!
Other Exhibits on the 2nd Floor
We only did a quick walk through of the rest of the exhibits up here, as we were all played out after Game Time! and eGameRevolution. I imagine most other families were similar to us, as the rest of the museum was noticeably quieter!
The main exhibits here geared towards younger kids are Play Pals and Build, Drive, Go. The first is a large playhouse all about dolls and stuffies, while the latter is most about (surprise surprise) things that go.
The other 2 exhibits here are the Video Game Hall of Fame, and ESL Digital World: Level Up. Our kids have just barely gotten into the video game scene, so they were not interested in this. Even Daniel, who did used to play video games, was a little overwhelmed by the gaming trivia.
Planning an outing to the Rochester Strong Museum of Play? Drop us a line with any questions!
