15 Hilariously Terrible Reviews of Wonderful Museums

It’s impossible to please everyone. Even the finest institutions struggle to make every guest happy—just look at the reviews complaining of long lines, large crowds, and curt security guards on sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor. But the toughest customers to leave reviews seem to have missed the point of the places they’ve visited entirely.

“i hate art, i hate tour guides, and i hate them for takin down the rocky statue.”

Dalí. Degas. Manet. Monet. All of these artists are present at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. But the best piece of art at the museum, according to this Yelp reviewer, was the Rocky statue, which was moved from the top of the museum steps to the bottom in 2006. (Sic from here on out.) “i hate them for takin down the rocky statue,” she wrote. “I would reccommend the place if u like sober tour guides and borin naked art sculptures... trust me that all there is…”

“I expected sights from Night at the Museum.”

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City isn’t just an attraction—it’s also a scientific institution doing important research. Though the vast majority of its 33 million specimens aren't on display, visitors can still see dinosaur bones, rare gems, large meteors, and animals (that are indeed very real!) preserved just as they were in life, in dioramas that mimic the habitats where they lived.

But despite all that excellent and awe-inspiring stuff, this Yelp reviewer still came away disappointed. “I expected sights from Night at the Museum, but realized only the outside is the same,” she wrote in her one-star review, concluding that the museum was “not worth the money or time,” a statement many visitors to AMNH probably disagree with.

“It’s 2015 GET SPLASH GUARDS!!!!!”

People go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City to see works by the likes of Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Mary Cassatt, view actual ancient Egyptian temples, and check out medieval armor—not to hang out in the bathroom. Still, the terrible men’s room experience was what one Yelp reviewer took away from his time at the Met:

“First of all most people don’t even know that you can get in paying a penny and second off all.. No splash guards in the bathroom?? I rather pay full 25 dollars and get splash guards..Like really in a museum so big and so fancy you couldn’t opt out for splash guards??”

If the rest of his review is any indication, he wasn’t a fan of any exhibits at the museum, either. “Get the splash guards maybe go up to a 2 star review,” he wrote.

“The stuff here can probably be seen anywhere. Like any Ripley’s Believe It Or Not worth its salt.”

The original collection that makes up the Mütter Museum of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia was donated by Thomas Dent Mütter, a surgeon who pioneered plastic surgery for burn survivors, in 1858. In addition to a number of wax figures (many collected by Mütter himself), the museum includes the conjoined livers of Chang and Eng Bunker, pieces of Einstein’s brain, and the tallest skeleton on exhibit in North America. It was all very dull to this “super, super easy to please” Yelp reviewer, who wrote that “The stuff here can probably be seen anywhere. Like any Ripley's Believe It Or Not worth its salt.”

A reviewer on TripAdvisor was similarly underwhelmed, complaining that “This museum is basically two floors of skulls, more skulls, and fetuses in jars ... To appreciate the things this place offers, you need to have an interest in the medical field … I thought I was going to see cool things—like a fork stuck in an esophagus and things like that.” Yes, a woman whose body became encased in soap in her grave totally pales in comparison to a fork stuck in an esophagus.

“There is nothing particularly unique or fascinating and the rooms ... are largely unimpressive.”

There’s a lot you could say about Chateau de Versailles, the palace away from palace of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. That its many opulent rooms are unimpressive probably isn’t one of them, but this TripAdvisor reviewer would beg to differ: “The building is impressive but inside less so,” the hall of mirrors being the one exception. “Would I recommend this attraction. If you have never visited a royal residence with extensive grounds or are particularly interested in French royal history then yes. But if you have been to other sites such as those in Bavaria or Britain, then Versailles has nothing to add.”

“I feel like if I’m gonna pay $6 to subject myself to an extended Dr Pepper commercial, I should at least get a free Dr Pepper.”

It might be a bit of a stretch to call the Waco, Texas-based museum devoted to the history of Dr Pepper “an extended Dr Pepper commercial,” but this Yelp reviewer has a point about the free soda:

“Just one can, that’s all I’m asking.  Hell, when you get a free tour of the big breweries (Miller, Budweiser, etc.) you get several free beers (not to mention that those tours are also really interesting, which the Dr Pepper Museum is NOT).  I realize the Dr Pepper Museum isn’t the same as a factory tour, and I wasn’t really expecting it to be, but for $6 I expect more than a couple rooms full of old ads and bottles, you know?  To be precise, I expect a couple rooms full of old ads and bottles AND a free Dr Pepper.”

“Would be great for a travelling roadshow exhibit.”

Reading just a few Yelp and TripAdvisor reviews about museums will yield plenty of “it’s no Smithsonian” comments—but not even the Smithsonian is immune to lackluster reviews. Take, for example, this two-star review of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. “Not much going on here,” the author wrote. “Could be much better utilized. It’s cool inside, though! It would be great for a travelling roadshow exhibit.”

“FREE but not all that.”

Meanwhile, this Yelp reviewer gave the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History three stars, writing it “was just ok. FREE but not all that,” before commenting on specific exhibits:

“O. Orkin Insect Zoo - Not open, said a friend that works there. Bogus.
African Elephant - huge and just a big photo thing.
Dinosaur Hall - just ok
Hope Diamond - just ok.”

OK!

“Barely an equine portrait in sight.”

Visitors to London’s National Gallery can check out paintings from all the greats, including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Vermeer, and Cezanne, among many others. But this TripAdvisor reviewer and horse enthusiast still wasn’t satisfied. “Piff ! (Full of pictures of dead people),” the author wrote. “Oh how my heart sank upon entry, barely an equine portrait in sight, not even red rum and aldaniti escaped me completely.”

“needs real monkeys and less airplanes.”

Animals went to the final frontier long before people did, which might be why this TripAdvisor reviewer thought he’d see monkeys at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., and went there instead of visiting a zoo. “I went to this expecting monkeys and I came short-handed,” he wrote. “There were only like one fake monkey. Unbelievable.”

“Unless you are a fan of Van Gogh give this a miss.”

Visitors to Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum—which houses the largest collection of the painter’s works—can see classics like Sunflowers and The Bedroom and explore exhibits where modern artists respond to the painter. But after waiting in line for half an hour to get into the museum, this TripAdvisor reviewer was unimpressed. “Unless you are a fan of Van Gogh give this a miss,” the author wrote. “Van Gogh is ok if you like art that could have been done by a child.” It’s not entirely clear why someone who isn’t a Van Gogh fan would go to a Van Gogh museum, and it’s pretty hard to imagine a kid painting The Potato Eaters, but hey, you can’t win ’em all.

“If you don’t have kids, and don’t particularly enjoy being jostled by hundreds of babies, toddlers, and kindergartners ... stay far away!”

Certainly, an overabundance of children has featured in many a Yelp or TripAdvisor complaint. But it’s a little odd to complain when the place being overrun with kids is … the Boston Children’s Museum. That didn’t stop this Yelp reviewer from bringing it up, though. “The place is teeming with cranky parents and whiny children and there seems to be no limit to the amount of people the museum will admit,” the author wrote. “Okay, I guess the exhibits are good, but I could not wait to get the hell out of that nightmare! Never again.”

“One of the worst collections of ‘art’ I have ever seen—could have done better myself.”

Paris’s Musée de l’Orangerie is home to some of Monet’s water lilies paintings (he painted as many as 250 canvases), which are beloved by most—but not this TripAdvisor reviewer, who found the paintings at l’Orangerie so unimpressive that she figured she could do a better job. “Not sure why the French rave about Monet’s lilies (or most of the other paintings) and really didn’t get why people were queueing to get in,” she wrote. “Would rather stick pins in my eyes than visit again.”

“A collection of crap ripped off by this rich woman as she scoured the world.”

According to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum website, its namesake patron—who established the museum with a $1 million endowment upon her death in 1924—was a friend and supporter of artists, a fan of sports, and “the visionary creator of what remains one of the most remarkable and intimate collections of art in the world today.” But this Yelp reviewer doesn’t think so highly of Gardner’s collection or the Boston-based museum named for her (which was also the site of one of the greatest unsolved art heists of all time). “OMG. What is everyone so excited about?” he wrote, continuing,

“I found the museum to be dark, hot, congested, oppressive, more like the inside of a tacky second hand store than a serious museum. Particularly on the first floor every available slice of wall space was covered, in no understandable order, with a collection of crap ripped off by this rich woman as she scoured the world.”

“A very sad little place.”

The California Academy of Sciences, located in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, has a four-story rainforest, an aquarium and planetarium, a gorgeous green roof, and an albino alligator named Claude—something to delight and amaze nearly everyone. Unless you’re this TripAdvisor reviewer, who called the museum (sic throughout) “a trap for tourists visiting to san francisco. The planitorium was just ok. The rainforstwas a joke. And the earthquake simulation was not good enough.” Only the aquarium satisfied this reviewer, who noted that paying $35 just for that was a waste of money. And it wasn’t even that cool anyway! “Montrey has a much much better acquirium,” the author wrote. “San francisco has so much to offer, i would easliy skip this place and the rest of SF.”

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A version of this story ran in 2015; it has been updated for 2024.