Following a Dirham Stretcher member's advice we visited the Sharjah Science Museum yesterday. We preferred the Discovery Center which is more suitable for younger kids but this place is also worth a visit if you stay in the UAE over summer and want to keep your kids busy on a budget.

It focuses on physical science and is best for kids aged 5 years+ and teenagers. We had a lot of fun with the interactive stations where you can measure your strength, your reaction time, your balance etc. - perfect for siblings looking for fun challenges! My kids are way too young to understand anything like this but they both had a blast pushing buttons, peeping through holes, watching colourful shadows, walking/crawling up and down a room with inclined floor, cheering while daddy and mummy pedaled to produce electricity and light up a light bulb/play music (until exhaustion) (ok, mum was exhausted, dad says he was ok 😜), drawing with sand, watching an itsy bitsy spider 🕷 through a glass floor... not to forget the play area with dressing up costumes, play kitchen, reading corner, climbing structure/slide, push cars, play house. I really liked the corner with rope/ring puzzles, too- could have spent more time there if we hadn't had a diaper emergency 😅 Which reminds me I wanted to warn you there's no changing table ☝️ (even though I just saw the website mentions one, maybe I didn't see it?)... All in all we spent a good couple of hours at the museum and it was really fun for everyone. Oh, and I finally know how magicians make peoples' heads float! 👏

The Science Museum is open Saturday to Thursday 8am to 8pm and on Fridays 4 to 8pm. Entree is free below 2 years, kids from 2-12 pay 5 dhs and adults 10 dhs each, seniors 60+ enter for free (bring cash!!!). A small section is under renovation. The souvenir shop and cafe are operating. The cafe didn't look spectacular but had mini pizzas and hot dogs (5 dhs), fruit salads (10 dhs), coffee (13 dhs) and co. There's lots of space to sit down with your own food, too. I wish we had fed the kids there before leaving 🙈 It takes about 20 minutes to drive to the city center. There are other museums in the same area worth a visit if you have time, for example the archaeology museum.

Find the google map location here.

Remember to bring cash as they don't accept cards.