I took my children to the museum and they only likes 2.5 aspects of it, the Manatee's, the Planetarium Space Show and the Lego exhibit. We spent much of our time at the Legos and manatee's. It was fun to build Legos with the kids and look at the towers on display. The planetarium show was nice for my older kid, but boring for my younger (her words, not mine). I thought the local history and the early human artifacts were neat, but with the kids, it was hard to dive in and explore the areas. With the price of admission, you get to come and go as you please for the day, but with the kids we didn't go back after we left. All in all, I don't think I would pay the cost for an adult admission to go through the museum again.

Second visit in 3 years. Nice, clean, well lit museum that can take two or three hours to walk through. Heavy on Florida history and origins. Manatee rescue is part of their mission. While there, no manatees were in residence as they just released three back into the wild. They assume they'll be more manatees in a month or two. Very polite and knowledgeable staff. They were running three different films at different times at their planetarium, well done and informative. Nice place for people of all ages including families and groups.

A very nice museum, and well worth the visit. The only problem we had was finding parking. But after going around and around several times, we eventually located a free parking garage three blocks away. We found the many exhibits interesting and compelling. These included details about Archaic peoples of Florida, a gallery of Indian pottery, jewelry, and shell tools, displays of Pine Uplands and Riverine Ecosystems, and artifacts from early settlers of the area. But, the highlight was the two manatees (Ripkin, & Toby) in the rehabilitation habitat. This was a very enjoyable, educational and enlightening experience. We enjoyed meeting these two guys the most!

The Bishop Museum of Science and Nature in Bradenton, Florida, which was founded in 1946, is the largest museum of natural history on Florida's Gulf Coast. Located at 201 10th Street West, near the Manatee River, it specializes in the history of Florida's Gulf Coast and houses exhibits highlighting Florida history from the prehistoric to the present. Open from 10 to 5 Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 5 on Sunday, it includes The Parker Manatee Aquarium, The Planetarium and the Parker Manatee Rehabilitation Habitat, which was the home of Snooty the manatee (1948-2017), the oldest known manatee in the world at the time of his death. The archaeological artifacts collected throughout Florida by Montague Tallant, a Bradenton furniture store owner, established the foundation for the museum. The Spanish Plaza, opened in 1980, emphasizes the area's Spanish heritage with a full-scale replica of Hernando De Soto's home in Barcarrota, Spain, a 16th century chapel and a fountain with a bronze sculpture of De Soto on horseback. Since its completion in 1993, the Parker Manatee Rehabilitation Habitat has been the most popular feature of the museum, having rehabilitated more than 40 manatees. The 60,000-gallon tank was designed to house up to three adult manatees. Like seals, manatees are a popular attraction and no manatee was more popular than Snooty, who died as a result of drowning on July 23, 2017, two days after his 69th birthday. The oldest manatee in captivity, Snooty was one of a select few captive manatees in the United States that was allowed to interact with human handlers, which made him uniquely valuable to manatee research and education.