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The Never Ending Day of Lines
Monday, Sep 29, 2008 1:44PM / Standard Entry / Members only
5 commentsYesterday was the grand opening on the newly renovated California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. I had gone to the original one countless times in elementary school, but my mom had never been there, so we thought we'd check it out, as admission was free. The opening ceremony was still going on when we arrived around 9 AM, but we were more concerned about getting in line. It took us 20 minutes just to find the end of it, which had looped all the way around to the back of the building. Luckily, there were a lot of trees and shade to shelter us from the sun for most of our day.
Boy, was all that standing around brutal. I almost wanted to give up and just visit it on another free admission day. We didn't even snake our way back to the entrance until about 1:45 PM. The waiting didn't stop there, though. Once we got to the front of the line, we were then given a timed entry ticket, just like getting fast passes in Disneyland. Even though ours said 2:30 PM, they had to wait for people to come out before they could let people go in, so people in the 1:30 PM group still hadn't gone in yet. As we were hungry, we decided to grab some hot dogs at one of the vendors outside and just sat until our group was called. Didn't get in until about 3:30 PM.
Then after getting inside, we headed to the African Hall first, which was basically dioramas depicting landscapes in Africa. Seeing them sorta jogged my memory of the old Academy, but for the most part, I can't remember how the place used to look. They had a new exhibit of South African penguins at the end of it, though. It was hard to see them, of course, with the mob of people around. We then caught a glimpse of the Albino alligator before making our way to the 4-story Rainforest. No surprise that we had to get a timed entry ticket for the exhibit, but the person handing them out said we could just go ahead and wait in line even though ours said 7:30 PM.We then made our way to the Planetarium, where we had to get, yet another timed entry ticket to see the show. As ours was for 6:30 PM, we decided to grab a snack and rest for a bit before getting in line. The rows of seats in the theater were so close together that I barely had any leg room. It was worse than flying coach on an airplane. Definitely made for kids. The show was pretty neat, even though I found myself almost falling asleep at times from being so tired. It was like watching IMAX, but the screen was projected from the front all the way to the back of the room in like a dome-shaped. Almost like those 3D rides, where it seems like if you're flying through space.
That ended around 7:30 PM and on our way out, we noticed there was no line for the Living Roof, so we headed up there. Didn't stay too long, as it was quite chilly. We finally left around 8:00 PM. Can't believe we spent an entire day there. Was it worth it? Well, I wouldn't pay $25 to get in, but I would have preferred being there on some other free day when it'd probably be less crowded. My mom seemed to enjoy it, but it's not a place she said she'd be interested in going back to. All that exercise helped me work up an appetite for our early birthday dim sum feast for Sifu today, though.
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