Discovery Children’s Museum to reopen Thursday

For nine-year-old Grant Grover and 11-year-old Emma Grover, Wednesday was their first outing since early March.

The Discovery Children’s Museum in downtown Las Vegas had a soft opening for members ahead of Thursday’s grand opening.

And Diane Grover brought her two youngest children to learn and play at the museum for the first time since it closed more than three months ago due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“This is our first outing outside of grocery store runs,” says the mother of eight. “I got the email that said they were only taking a limited amount of people by appointment only and I knew it would be beneficial to the children.”

Grover says that ahead of the visit, Emma had been feeling anxious and Grant was apprehensive about the safety of the field trip.

Within minutes of arriving, the two were engaged in an exciting game of cannonball warfare aboard the museum’s pirate ship — and followed by two staff members who sanitized every wheel, pirate sword and cannonball as the siblings were through with them.

“There’s a bunch of stuff you can’t do,” says the 11-year-old, regarding some of the closed exhibitions. “But there’s fun other stuff you can do. I’ve been stuck at home just doing school work so this is a nice change.”

The central climbing structure has been closed due to the difficulty of keeping it sanitized and new, easier-to-clean walls and floors have been installed in the Water World play area.

To enter the building, guests older than 2 must wear a facial covering and submit to a temperature scan. And the socially-distanced queue leads to the front desk which has been outfitted with plexiglass shields.

Only 175 guests are allowed in the museum at any time, 10 percent of the museum’s usual capacity.

“We started thinking about reopening since we closed,” says CEO Melissa Kaiser. “When we started our reopen strategy, we looked at what the casinos were putting out for their cleaning protocols.”

Kaiser says that, through the CARES Act, she has been able to keep all of her staff on payroll through the closure.

Staff members started producing videos for families to engage in science at home, such as videos about germs and hand-washing.

“We were not laid off,” says Kaiser. “We were working.”

At the soft opening, staff members wiped down surfaces, answered guest questioned, and encouraged groups to stay six feet apart, even in elevators.

“It’s not so crowded, the appointment system helped,” says Matthew Okada who was at the museum with his 3-year-old daughter, who made a suncatcher using glue and gel colors at a crafting station.

“It feels safe, people are cleaning. It’s good.”

Contact Janna Karel at jkarel@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jannainprogress on Twitter.