Museum of Natural Sciences
Museum of Natural Sciences
4.5
Natural History MuseumsHistory Museums
10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Tuesday
9:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Wednesday
9:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Thursday
9:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Friday
9:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Saturday
10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Sunday
10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
About
Meet the famous Bernissart Iguanodons in the largest Dinosaur Gallery in Europe, learn about the human body and how we evolved in the Gallery of Humankind and go back in time in the Gallery of Evolution. You can also find out about urban species in BiodiverCITY, discover specimens which illustrate the Museum’s history in the 250 years of Natural Sciences hall, admire the magnificent crystals in the Mineral Hall, and experience something new every year by visiting our temporary exhibitions or by taking part in one of our Education Service’s interactive activities. During Belgian School Holidays: Tuesday > Sunday: 10.00 > 18.00 During the Belgian school year: Tuesday > Friday: 9.30 > 17.00 | Week-end : 10.00 > 18.00
Suggested duration
2-3 hours
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  • Lawrence K
    Norway5 contributions
    Wonderful exhibitions of dinosaurs and humans
    We spent all of our time in two exhibitions, the dinosaur hall and the rooms for human evolution and human biology, though we did spend a few minutes in the crystals exhibit as well. The former two are very modern, very well thought out exhibitions, and I highly recommend devoting significant time to each! I doubt you have seen better exhibits anywhere on these topics. 4/5 stars because it asks "Rate your experience" which I interpret broadly: there were swarms of children (class excursions) everywhere, resulting in quite a lot of noise and difficulties in viewing some exhibits (couldn't get near them). But on balance a positive and memorable experience.
    Visited November 2022
    Written December 5, 2022
  • Florian
    12 contributions
    Mixed, positives and some definite negatives (outdated displays)
    Bad experience at the cashier, couldn't pay with physical cash and had to ask someone else to pay for me. The order of displays/themes is nice, i enjoyed the section about human evolution and the on display hominids. As a fanatic of dinosaurs , I was of course delighted to see iguanodons and others, but felt let down by the outdated reconstructions given in the information plates. Skin-wrapped, wrists broken, skinny kind of images, completely off from all modern reconstructions, conservative or not. Some drawings resemble early 1900s concepts of the creatures. The iguanodon skeletal displays were also updated (as their stance was mostly quad from recent studies) but that can be forgiven since it would be quite a bit of work to update, though would be preferable within the century for accuracy's sake. The taxidermy section was impressive though, and realistic. Looked well after from what I could see. Unfortunately I visited on a sunday, so the museum visit only lasted about 2 hours before we had to leave. Most interactive items were either not working (the wooden skeleton puzzle in the human section) or were a bit confusing. The aquatic display/stone impression section was enjoyable, and the sitting areas were much appreciated as walking got a bit tiring. The gift shop is alright, while some things were still outdated its not as bad as the official display since its mostly directed at the eyes of children. I liked the coin machine outside it, that was a great memorial touch. Overall would give 3.5/5. It was my first experience in a while being in a museum, and while my review may be mixed, i still enjoyed the experience. I recommend if you enjoy science, but mayhaps not focusing much on modernity. Cheers, Florian.
    Visited December 2022
    Traveled with friends
    Written February 9, 2023
  • Ramon
    412 contributions
    Great museum, very interactive, definitely recommended!
    If you like museums of natural history, then this one is definitely worth the visit. Entry price is definitely okay, but it's hard to properly do everything within 1 visit without rushing through certain parts. The dinosaur hall is a standout in my opinion and a highlight of the museum. Surprisingly awesome was 'Luminopolis', an interactive hall where you have to solve little puzzles; had a bit of an escape room touch to it. Otherwise there are free lockers, plenty of toilets and a cafe with basic meal options for a little bite. Would gladly come here again, had a great time.
    Visited March 2023
    Traveled as a couple
    Written March 24, 2023
  • Jbinnacle
    77 contributions
    Home to the Bernissart Iguanodons
    I was drawn to "the largest dinosaur gallery in Europe", and I found it worthwhile. The highlight was the display of the Bernissart Iguanodons, and the explanation of how they were discovered, preserved, and why they remain inthe wrong position (don't forget to go to the basement to see the skeletons that have not been mounted yet and lie how they did in the mine). The dinosaur hall is a beautiful building in itself. Interesting to see a piece of the K-Pg boundary, too. The mosasaur room was also good, but the Allosaurus "Arkhane" is for some reason hidden away in a completely different part of the museum. Other areas include a display of preserved animals, one of them with representation of their habitats. a ward on evolution and a study on humans. All exhibits had English explanations. I found the museum a bit difficult to navigate, and it was full of schoolchildren running around and being loud - this made me skip the temporary exhibition as I did not want to get run over again. Very good for a rainy day. If you're into dinosaurs, I think the iguanodons make it worth the visit. I paid 13€ for the ticket. The café was a bit on the expensive side, but nothing outrageous all things considered.
    Visited March 2023
    Traveled solo
    Written March 29, 2023
  • Joel C
    United Kingdom41 contributions
    Iguanodon!
    The dinosaur exhibition is a Mecca for palaeontology fans. The gallery is open and spacious, very informative and the Iguanodons take up a significant chunk of it, which is nice given that they are Belgium's great contribution to the science. The human evolution section was also excellent, informative and interactive. We only got there at about 2.30, so didn't have time to explore the rest of the museum.
    Visited August 2023
    Traveled with friends
    Written August 20, 2023
  • NicoleM
    16 contributions
    Most impressive natural museum we've seen!
    This is a spectacular museum! The interior architecture and layout is stunning. The dinosaur exhibit is even MORE stunning! It was quiet when we visited and we couldn't believe the quality and quantity of large dinosaur exhibits. It's totally worth it to bring the whole family and spend a couple of hours discovering each room. Recommend!
    Visited September 2023
    Traveled with family
    Written September 8, 2023
These reviews are the subjective opinion of Tripadvisor members and not of TripAdvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
Detailed Reviews: Reviews order informed by descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as cleanliness, atmosphere, general tips and location information.
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4.5
1,662 reviews
Excellent
896
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155
Poor
34
Terrible
18

Mia B
Oxford, UK16 contributions
Feb 2020 • Couples
The museum itself is nice, and the exhibits are good and well explained.
The exhibition wasnt worth paying for - if you can read French or Dutch you are fine, if you can only read English then there is no point, as this was not an option. We just looked at pictures and videos of penguins.
Our experience was ruined due to thousands of school groups/trips all over the museum. So many screaming and shouting children/teenagers made it hard to concentrate on reading the information.
(We went on a Tuesday morning as soon as it opened).
Written February 18, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Lawrence K
Norway5 contributions
Nov 2022
We spent all of our time in two exhibitions, the dinosaur hall and the rooms for human evolution and human biology, though we did spend a few minutes in the crystals exhibit as well. The former two are very modern, very well thought out exhibitions, and I highly recommend devoting significant time to each! I doubt you have seen better exhibits anywhere on these topics. 4/5 stars because it asks "Rate your experience" which I interpret broadly: there were swarms of children (class excursions) everywhere, resulting in quite a lot of noise and difficulties in viewing some exhibits (couldn't get near them). But on balance a positive and memorable experience.
Written December 5, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Corinne W
Amsterdam, The Netherlands123 contributions
Feb 2022 • Family
My 9 and 12 yr old had fun doing the sauria tour...download the app on your phone and grab a map at the entrance. We'll do e except it can be hard to find what exhibits they are talking about (use the paper map for this). Took us a good 1-1.5 hours so kids werenot very interested in seeing the rest of the museum. We did walk through the body and evolution part and wish we would have spent longer. Great visit.
Written February 28, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Bubbles73uk
Weedon Bec, UK835 contributions
Jan 2020
Even those that don't usually like museums won't get bored here! The Museum of Natural Sciences features the largest dinosaur collection in Europe. Lots to see and do throughout, especially for kids. It's about 15 mins on the bus from the centre of Brussels.
Written January 5, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Florian
12 contributions
Dec 2022 • Friends
Bad experience at the cashier, couldn't pay with physical cash and had to ask someone else to pay for me.
The order of displays/themes is nice, i enjoyed the section about human evolution and the on display hominids. As a fanatic of dinosaurs , I was of course delighted to see iguanodons and others, but felt let down by the outdated reconstructions given in the information plates. Skin-wrapped, wrists broken, skinny kind of images, completely off from all modern reconstructions, conservative or not. Some drawings resemble early 1900s concepts of the creatures.

The iguanodon skeletal displays were also updated (as their stance was mostly quad from recent studies) but that can be forgiven since it would be quite a bit of work to update, though would be preferable within the century for accuracy's sake.

The taxidermy section was impressive though, and realistic. Looked well after from what I could see. Unfortunately I visited on a sunday, so the museum visit only lasted about 2 hours before we had to leave. Most interactive items were either not working (the wooden skeleton puzzle in the human section) or were a bit confusing.

The aquatic display/stone impression section was enjoyable, and the sitting areas were much appreciated as walking got a bit tiring.

The gift shop is alright, while some things were still outdated its not as bad as the official display since its mostly directed at the eyes of children.
I liked the coin machine outside it, that was a great memorial touch.

Overall would give 3.5/5. It was my first experience in a while being in a museum, and while my review may be mixed, i still enjoyed the experience. I recommend if you enjoy science, but mayhaps not focusing much on modernity.

Cheers, Florian.
Written February 9, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Jbinnacle
77 contributions
Mar 2023 • Solo
I was drawn to "the largest dinosaur gallery in Europe", and I found it worthwhile. The highlight was the display of the Bernissart Iguanodons, and the explanation of how they were discovered, preserved, and why they remain inthe wrong position (don't forget to go to the basement to see the skeletons that have not been mounted yet and lie how they did in the mine). The dinosaur hall is a beautiful building in itself. Interesting to see a piece of the K-Pg boundary, too. The mosasaur room was also good, but the Allosaurus "Arkhane" is for some reason hidden away in a completely different part of the museum.

Other areas include a display of preserved animals, one of them with representation of their habitats. a ward on evolution and a study on humans. All exhibits had English explanations.

I found the museum a bit difficult to navigate, and it was full of schoolchildren running around and being loud - this made me skip the temporary exhibition as I did not want to get run over again.

Very good for a rainy day. If you're into dinosaurs, I think the iguanodons make it worth the visit. I paid 13€ for the ticket. The café was a bit on the expensive side, but nothing outrageous all things considered.
Written March 29, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

immorissal
Belgium175 contributions
Jan 2021
A review of the ‘Living Planet‘ hall, at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Brussels, visited in January 2021.

In September 2020, The Museum of Natural Sciences announced a new permanent exhibition called ‘Living Planet’. This addition even made the news. The museum is very proud of it.

Unfortunately, all I saw was a terribly perverted way of presenting ‘nature’ to an already vastly urbanized audience, with an emphasis on children. I found it utterly dystopian.

Taxidermic specimens are exhibited as if they’re part of a contemporary art show: isolated, without context, in a white, unimaginative space. The immense gap between the perception of us, humans, compared to the rest of the animal world is made painfully clear. Touch screens – probably broken within a couple of years – gave minimal information on the individual species or their relation. The installation looked more like a high-end shopping mall.

Compared to this presentation, a zoo seems like a reasonable environment for wild animals. For other parts of the exhibition an array of abstract video projections of water or fire and close ups of plants were used – again as if they were channeling Bill Viola’s work in an attempt to achieve ‘immersion’. Immersion in what? In videographic exhibition design? All this equipment and styling will be outdated within a blink of an eye.

Half baked, stylized references to the traditional natural history dioramas were put in place, without even trying to aim for any form of illusion of a species in their actual habitat. Perhaps the museum thought to emphasize the laboratory part of natural science, but this completely disregards the engagement of natural sciences with actual natural environments.

Animals are being cut loose from their landscapes, all references to endangered ecosystems are gone or at least filtered out by colored led lights, the space for that replaced with white void or exhibition design that looks like it was conceived by tv studio builders. Maybe they simply thought it was ‘edgy’, in which case I wouldn’t even know where to begin to address a shallow mishap like that.

This is not worthy for any museum of natural history or natural sciences of this scale. This is an attempt at turning natural sciences into a multimedia theme park, while increasing the already substantial distance between the audience and its relation to wilderness.

In any case, ‘Living Planet’ is the worst title for a department pretending to represent life in dead, technological spaces.
Written November 2, 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Ramon
412 contributions
Mar 2023 • Couples
If you like museums of natural history, then this one is definitely worth the visit. Entry price is definitely okay, but it's hard to properly do everything within 1 visit without rushing through certain parts.
The dinosaur hall is a standout in my opinion and a highlight of the museum. Surprisingly awesome was 'Luminopolis', an interactive hall where you have to solve little puzzles; had a bit of an escape room touch to it.
Otherwise there are free lockers, plenty of toilets and a cafe with basic meal options for a little bite.
Would gladly come here again, had a great time.
Written March 24, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Melanie T
New York City, NY4,574 contributions
Aug 2023 • Couples
Stopped by on a Saturday at around 2:30 pm. It’s a bit far from the city centre. We walked there because it was a 25 minute walk from where we were but on the way back, we ended up taking an Uber because it would have been a 35 minute walk back to our hotel, and there is no convenient public transportation from there.

The museum is free with the Brussels Card, which is what we used. I would have been disappointed if we had to pay full price. The museum looks old and has a funky BO smell to it. It needs some upgrades. It was also pretty empty for a Saturday, so that’s saying a lot. In the basement is where they house the human lifecycle exhibit and temporary exhibit. The temporary exhibit was actually pretty cool. It was different stations with different puzzles you had to solve. Kind of like a makeshift escape room. A very makeshift because all they did was put up black curtains everywhere.

The rest of the museum upstairs was a lot of fake taxidermy animals that don’t really describe their habits/habitats - just what they are.

We probably spent an about 1.5 hours (the escape room exhibit took us about 1 hour already) before we were over it. Overall, a pretty underwhelming museum for two adults. There are some museums that cater to all ages, but this isn’t one of them and could use a serious revamp.
Written November 29, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Somerset Mills
United Kingdom389 contributions
Jan 2020
Pretty good dinosaur museum with a nice arctic expo - I would say it is definitely worth the entry fee. The only negative is the toilets on the ground floor, they smelt atrocious. I have been in night club toilets that felt more hygienic, dehydrate before going or take a gas mask just in-case you have to use them.
Written February 13, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

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