Glazer Children's Museum Guide - Suncoast Family Fun

Your guide to Tampa’s Glazer’s Children’s Museum

Ready to go explore the Glazer’s Children’s Museum in Tampa, Florida? Check out our guide to this awesome museum for kids in our area.

We are two local moms who bring you the best family-fun in our area. We love the Glazer Children’s Museum as a great interactive and indoor activity for kids (key in that Florida heat!).

There is so much for kids to explore that you could easily play for hours. We’ve personally visited the museum with kids ranging from toddler to upper elementary school so it’s great for a wide range of ages.

Plus, the Glazer Children’s Museum is part of the Pinellas County Libraries free museum pass program. Local families can check out this awesome children’s museum for free is they are able to snag a pass (more on that below).

Let’s explore the Glazer Museum!

General Information

Outside of the glazer children's museum in Tampa with the sidewalk leading up to it.

LOCATION: 110 W Gasparilla Plaza, Tampa, FL 33602
HOURS: Tues-Sun 9:30am-5pm, also opened Mondays during the summer
COST: $18, babies under 1 free
Website

Disclaimer: opening hours and costs can change at any time, always check before going.

Play Areas

Below is an overview of the play areas at the museum

First Floor

On the first floor of the museum you’ll find:

Huge water table play area
Weather exhibits
Tot play area for the youngest guests

The water play area is really the highlight of the first floor. The water table is huge and there are many interesting ways to play at different points around the table.

Big room-sized water table with toy boats in the distance at a children's museum

In one section you can send balls down a bridge, one part has random rain storms, one part has a water pump, there’s an end where you can navigate a ship and there are floating toys all throughout it.

Water proof blue vests for kids hanging against an orange wall — Waterproof vests kids can wear to keep clothes dry

TIP: There are vests kids can put on to keep their clothes from getting all wet but they are a little tucked away. They’re having on the backside of a wall at the beginning of the water table.

Second Floor

Engineering area with gear pieces on the floor at the Glazer's Children Museum — Engineering area

The second floor is really the heart of the museum with soooo much to explore. On the second floor, you’ll find:

Climbing structures
Fort building area
Art area
Theater area
Building block area
Gears and building area
Sand play
Farm-themed play
City imaginative play area with a grocery store, food places, fire station, vet clinic and more
Interactive tactical art area, like scarves in a wind tunnel

Climbing structures with netting all around them over the second floor for kids to climb at the Glazer Children's Museum — Climbing structures

Farm play area at the Glazer Children's museum that looks like a barn — Farm area

It’s impossible to list out all there is to do on the second floor. You could probably spend all day there.

Some highlights for my kids included racing tractors down different terrains to see how it changed speed, an ice cream shop where you can serve ice cream, a brick building area and the farm animals that you can climb on.

A fort building area at a children's museum with sheets and chairs and doors around to build forts with — Fort building area

this is a photo looking down at the head of two toddlers as they look through lego bins and a lego wall next to them — My toddlers at the building area with legos

Our two year old was also obsessed with the Art Smart area where she’d probably still be putting scarves in a wind tunnel if we had left her there.

toddler playing with an orange scarf in a wind tunnel at a children's musem — Our toddler & her beloved scarves

Third Floor

The third floor is a smaller area but still has some fun stuff. It is all dinosaur themed with the main attraction being the skeleton of Big John, a triceratops.

Triceratops skeleton named Big John at the Glazer's Children Museum

There was also play features like big dinosaur eggs you can climb in, dinosaur toys, and a dinosaur skeleton puzzle where all the pieces fall off (this one had a big crowd of kids around it all counting down to when the bones would fall off again).

This floor was quieter than the second floor and would be a good spot if you get overwhelmed by chaos on the other levels.

Tips for visiting the Glazer’s Children Museum

Parking

Parking isn’t free at the museum. The William F. Poe parking garage is located right next door is it is convenient.

Note that if there are any events going on in the area, the parking rate is a flat $15 in that garage. This happened to us during our visit so it was much more expensive than the standard $2-3/hour rate listed on the parking garage website.

Timing your visit

We visited the Glazer Children’s Museum at possibly the worst time: a weekend afternoon that was cold and a little rainy. The place was a total zoo.

City play area of Glazer children's museum with lots of people (faces blocked out with circles). — I was trying to avoid getting people in shots and there were still lots of people in this picture.

If we were to go again, we’d try to go at less peak times such as during school hours and when the weather outside is really nice.

While it’s always nice to have an indoor option when the weather isn’t great, remember so many other families are going to be thinking the same thing.

Our kids are little and the chaos of the crowd definitely impacted their play and ability to enjoy all the museum had to offer. The bigger kids running around were clearly a little overwhelming to them.

Strollers

This is a museum where we’d recommend skipping bringing a stroller if possible. The museum requests that strollers are kept on the first floor when possible. We did see some strollers upstairs but not many and a lot of them had small newborn babies in them.

There is a stroller parking area but it is right by the door and was basically empty when we were there (surprising given how busy the place was).

Babies

The museum was set up to accommodate families with small babies. There was an infant feeding room located on the second floor.

Sign in purple on a door that says Infant Feeding Room

We were a formula family so I appreciated that the room was labeled “infant feeding” instead of strictly for breastfeeding. The museum may be so chaotic that bottle feeding babies may need a quiet space to focus on eating too.

There is also a vending machine with baby supplies like diapers, wipes, toys and onesies which is a very nice touch.

Food & Drink

One of the biggest questions I have when I go anywhere is about snacks. So, can you bring food into the Glazer Children’s Museum? Generally, yes. There is no stated rules that outside food is not permitted and when we visited there was no checks on bags upon entering.

The museum also has a quick service cafe for purchasing food on site.

Sensory Inclusivity

The Glazer Children’s Museum offers special sensory-inclusive Sunday mornings monthly for children who may need a lower sensory experience. They also have available boxes with sensory items like weighted blankets and fidget toys.

Hand sanitizer

The museum has hand sanitizing stations all over and I really appreciated that during our visit. Since the museum is so high-touch, it was nice to have easy access to hand sanitizer on each floor.

Ways to save money on tickets

Annual Membership

The Glazer Children’s Museum has an annual family membership. The membership also offers reciprocal discounts for other local family-friendly spots, like aquariums and other kid-friendly museums.

The membership reciprocation also includes special deals during certain months where you can visit a specific location for free during that month. This is a great feature of the membership.

That said, I wish the membership included free parking.

Discounts & Museum for All

There are a number of discounts available for visiting the museum. The Glazer Children’s Museum offers a small discount to “community helpers,” which includes seniors, military, first responders and educators.

They also participate in Museums for All, which makes museums affordable to families using food assistance. At Glazer, they offer reduced admission of $3 per person to qualifying families.

Free library museum pass

The Pinellas County, Hillsborough County and Pasco County library systems all offer museum pass programs that include the Glazer’s Children Museum. Families can check out a pass at the library and can visit the museum for free during their check-out period.

We used the Pinellas County to visit the museum and we were able to get our whole family in for free.

My experience with the Pinellas pass is that the Glazer Children’s pass is popular and hard to get because it gets checked out so quickly. There are a handful of passes that are shared with all the Pinellas library branches, and the St. Pete locations have their own passes too.

To have the best chance of getting a library pass, try:

Going to a library branch with the earliest opening time: since passes are checked out on a first come first serve passes, they may be gone before your library even opens. You’ll be more likely to get one at a library that opens at 8am than a library that opens at 9:30am.
Go to a St. Pete branch: St. Pete library branches now their own passes to the Glazer’s Children Museum. These can only be checked out at that specific location giving you more chances to get a pass.

Looking for more children’s museums? Check out our guide to Great Explorations Children’s Museum. It is smaller than Glazer but has a similar city play area set-up.

Glazer Children’s Museum Guide

General Information