Biodome de Montreal, Quebec, Canada

3SMG 5:00 PM Aug 10, 2022

Little bang for the buck
We went to the biodome with our three children, and while we all enjoyed what we saw, we would not go again and wish that we had chosen a different activity for our day trip. The pros are that the ecosystems feel like a tiny snippet of the real thing; we particularly enjoyed the rainforest and the sub polar region with the penguins. There are however, not many animals to look at and as many of them are nocturnal, it can be especially disappointing to not see many at all. In a couple of the 4 regions, we saw only a single animal or two. Additionally it was much too crowded - they use a booking system as we could hardly move around during our allotted time. The various regions are smallish and do not take long to walk through. Our ticket allowed us a 1.5 hour time frame but we were done in less than 45 minutes. One of the workers there said that to get additional benefit, you need to walk through them multiple times but as it was crowded and not overly exciting the first time, we opted not to. The signage is non-existent inside, perhaps to make it feel more like an authentic ecosystem. However, some signs would help to know something about the animals, plants etc in each region - we were left guessing. Our family thoroughly enjoys educational experiences and this sadly missed the mark on being one. Parking is also very costly at 25$, and so overall it made for a very expensive 45 minutes. It is a beautiful concept but needs more to be made worthwhile. If the costs were lowered to include the insectarium and planetarium then it would be a more reasonable outing in terms of time and money. But as it is, purchasing a passport for our whole family would have made this a 300$ ticket price. Not a reasonable thing especially when you factor in parking and food. I am happy that they have done something with the former Olympic Stadium but there definitely need to be some adjustments made to what could be an exciting day trip for a family.

3go4pixie 5:00 PM Jun 26, 2022

Something to do on a foul weather day
It was something to do inside on a very hot day. The whole thing took us about an hour. A lot of the animals seemed to be hiding, but the wall of ice impressed us. It’s an interesting building design, but the areas where you want to stand and look at the animals all seem to be so small and it was very crowded, whereas the hallways and areas between exhibits are massive. Also there are no plaques to tell you what you’re supposed to be looking for. It’s all on an app which is kinda dumb if you have small kids. Who wants to wander around looking at a phone in your hand when you should have your eyes on the animals!? If you’re going to go, consider buying the “Passport” so you can go to all the different science museums for one price. Totally worth it. Since it didn’t take us long to go through, we quickly booked tickets to a planetarium show which is right next door and spent another hour there. There is also a movie theatre right in the same area as well and it’s right on a Metro stop.