Royal Ontario Museum

ROM was great mainly for the free tours that left pretty much every hour from the lobby. Our tour guide - Lorraine - is a rockstar. She had amazing stories and changed how I saw museums. Her breakdown of the Chinese religion and funeral rituals was fascinating.

I'm glad they had chairs and couches throughout the museum.

I wish I could've like this museum more but the exhibitions seemed a bit disjointed to me. It is an immense space covering 3+ floors and well worth the price, especially if you get one of many discounts offered through various means (e.g., CityPass, mass transit use discount, Yelp check-in, etc.). Devote a minimum of 3 hours to peruse everything.

Depending on one's interest, there's something for everyone. I found the Dawn of Life gallery very well done with plenty of exposition. On the other hand some of the ancient European culture exhibits were a bit dry, simply displaying old pottery and relics. The layout of the museum was also confusing. Understandable since later I found out that ROM was cobbled together from several separate museums.

It is a premiere Toronto & Canadian attraction so it's almost a must-see. Still there's room for improvement. Final note: if at all possible, take the subway to get to ROM. The fare is affordable, you get a discount to museum admission fee by showing your ticket. But most importantly, you avoid the monstrous hassles of bottleneck traffic jams and limited overpriced parking.

Overall good museum. If you have been to other museums in Europe and America, maybe bored. The Europe section is like any other. The First Nations section is a must see. The ancient world section is similar to other museums. The African, Pacific, and Americans is very interesting and you can see the uniqueness as well as the similar craftsmanship with Ontario's first nations. The crystal/gem stone collection is cool and so is the wildlife section.

My only issue and its with many museums, is making sure they are paying for artifacts. Seeing the ancient culture exhabits, just remindeds me that so many things were taken. All cultures should be valued and museums worldwide need to improve their stance on how they acquire things.

Went on our CityPass. It was a great day to spend inside and there was plenty to look at. As adults we even had a great time in the children's section. Great exhibits in the entire museum. Very close to public transportation which we liked. There were elevators to every floor and lots of space between exhibits and aisles.

These are the type museums I like to go to with tons of fossils or old artifacts from all over the world. The only thing is it was hot as heck in there. Not sure if this is a Canadian thing or not, but I don't think they like air conditioners there. Every Uber driver, the tour we took to Niagra Falls never turned on their A/C, even our hotel was hot.

But anyways, this was a nice museum.

You can't really compare anything to the Met. But if you could, I would describe this museum as the Met of Canada. It is the largest museum in Canada and you could spend hours here and still not see everything.

The feast for the eyes begins outside with the architecture. The original building front is traditional, but the west wing atrium entrance is modern and resembles large glass crystals. We were greeted by the sounds of live music from a local orchestra performing in the lobby.

There are over 40 gallery and exhibit spaces, but we made sure to see the dinosaurs exhibit, the gems and crystals area, and the two current rotating exhibitions. The interior of the building is gorgeous with mosaic tile designs in the walls and ceilings.

On a weekend, we did experience long lines for the restrooms and the coffee bar.

Visiting this museum was very enjoyable and highly recommended.

I went here on a Monday around 11:32am during my recent Canada trip and there was a short wait. There were A LOT of people inside the actual museum areas because there were multiple groups of kids on a field trip. I was surprised by how crowded it got, but I was still ok with that.

I noticed this museum has multiple floors here (I think it was 5 floors). The museum felt huge inside because of all the floors and some floors were more empty than others. My favorite floors was the one with the Dawn of Life gallery and also the one with the T-Rex Exhibition.

At the Dawn of Life gallery, I liked how it felt a little interactive and more up close. At the T-Rex Exhibition, I liked how big the sculptures are, so that was cool to look at and stand next to.

I'd recommend this place if you're traveling! At some parts, it did feel like this museum is more for kids, but that's probably because of the amount of field trips that happened while I was there. They also sometimes have live music performances at this museum, which usually brings a crowd of people and that was fun to watch. I only spent 2 hours at this museum, but it was a fun 2 hours.

Gayle and I recently visited the Royal Ontario Museum during our too-short stay in Toronto. As we both have about a 2-hour max tolerance for any museum, we sold the ROM a little short during our visit. However, there were a few notable highlights:

- The TRex (separate admission) Exhibit was fabulous and well worth the extra price.

- The expansive interior courtyard never ceased to amaze. there's also a nice coffee shop in one "corner" that we both enjoyed (with really nice pastry).

- The "Rocks and Minerals" Room was really cool with all sorts of variety to ooh an ahh over.

- I was particularly fascinated by the "Lifers" exhibit of repurposed life jackets that messaged the damaging global effects of garment overconsumption.

- The ROM gift shop was impressive, as were the professional staff we encountered here and throughout our visit.

Nice museum but don't go on a Tuesday. Apparently it's school field trip day in Toronto. A lot of nice exhibits and some are interactive. They have fossils, statues, and artifacts from different countries. My only issue was some exhibits weren't labeled. Purchase the tickets on line to avoid the crowds.

Been to ROM After Dark a couple of times now and it's fun. Sure, it's a bit pricey (as of May 2023, $40 entrance plus $10 per food/drink ticket stub). But overall, you get treated to a party amidst prehistoric productions.

I'm not a big partier, so my favourite part of RAD (aside from the food vendors - shoutout to Kanto that always has the tastiest and best value offerings) is getting access to the new exhibits. Was there recently and saw the T-Rex and Tusarnitut ones. Sure, dinosaurs are always a crowd pleaser, but the T-Rex one nicely mixed interactive games with the scale and scope of the tyrannosaurus family. And the Tusarnitut one was special, giving a glimpse of the importance and integration of music in inuit life.

Overall, an enjoyable night. And I didn't even mention the DJ and performers and meet-ups happening all night long for all you more fun people out there.