Museum of Illusions

Considering the price, I expected more. Though far from a bad museum, necessarily, it is a rather lackluster one, especially considering the relatively steep entrance fee. I struggle to think of why someone in New York City, the city with some of the best and most illuminating museums in the world, should choose a relatively stock museum like this. If you have kids, and they love illusions, tricks of the eye, MC Escher paintings, and the like, by all means take them here. They will enjoy it. When I went, the museum was already quite crowded, and families were flocking and racing throughout the relatively cramped confines, a lot of kids and teenagers genuinely excited by the mind warping illusions they saw. Even though the museum's presentation is a little disappointing, to the point that I think a skilled amateur could have done a better job assembling the museum layout, I don't want to fully discount and experience that clearly meant a lot to the kids enjoying it. Then again, I do have a few caveats. The biggest one is, again, the price. If you have kids, they will need tickets, and so the museum can become rather expensive. For larger families, the family ticket is probably the best option, but that costs a grand total of $75, quite a lot for a tiny museum contained in a rather stately old building that used to be a bank. The small size of the museum is the other major caveat, especially considering that many of the illusions require that one move around, which is not always possible in a relatively claustrophobic space. There are 40 different illusions present, which sounds like a lot at first, but it really isn't, and I doubt even the most enthusiastic children would want to spend more than an hour or so in here.

This museum is so cool! Everyone was so incredibly nice and helpful from buying the tickets online to letting us in the door. Malachi is an awesome tour guide! He walked us through a lot of the illusions without being overbearing at all. We also met Ashley who created the infinity room which is absolutely stunning. Would definitely come back; we loved it here!

We had such a fun time at this interactive optical illusions museum!! We love they offer a family package special for admission and the staff is super friendly in answering questions and assisting in getting the best photos. It’s well kept inside and they even give you a free pin on your way out. If you’re visiting NYC this exhibit is one now to be missed.

Went here for the first time last week with my godson and his mother! It was such a cool museum. It's on the smaller side but packed with a variety of cool illusions all of which are interactive to varying degrees. The staff was so nice and kind. We had such a blast playing around with the different exhibits and checking out the cool stuff in the gift shop. The best was the room where u lose your sense of equilibrium! So much fun!

It was a fun experience! I loved the interactive optical illusions and all the staff was so nice and friendly. The whole experience takes about 45 min to an hour. I would recommend going in the morning on a weekday so it’s not too many people and you can take pictures. The only thing I would suggest is more interactive illusions! I also am very pleased with their customer service, their tickets are nonrefundable but we were able to reschedule our tickets with no issue.

This was a quirky, interesting, fun place to go on a rainy morning. The different interactive displays are numbered so you don't miss any, but you can view them in any order you like. There was just two of us stuck behind a large group of Whoo Girls so we simply jumped ahead and circled back after they had moved on. We spent at least an hour going through here and taking it all in!

We had fun here. Super friendly / helpful staff greeted us at the door and gave us tips throughout the museum. So many places say they have staff doing additional cleaning right now, and this is the first place where I actually saw cleaning happening. As a portion of the exhibits are hands-on, I really appreciate it!Visited onWeekdayWait timeNo waitReservation recommendedYes

Everyone talks about true photo ops, which to be fair there are a couple as I posted. However, for the price of entry you’re paying for 20 minutes worth of illusions. Most of them are small and very simple mirror tricks that don’t shock anyone. It was extremely promising and I finished wishing I had saved my nearly 30 bucks as this experience wasn’t worth even 5 dollars to me.

This was a fun side trip. It is not a big museum but it is still fun and a good way to spend a few hours if you have some down time or want to get out of the cold. The exhibits are very interesting.Visited onWeekdayWait timeNo waitReservation recommendedYes

The Museum of Illusions is an illusion in itself. The entrance is tall and looks very grand. However, all of the exhibits and activities are too cramped together into two levels - with the secondary level not handicap accessible/no elevator. Only access is a short level of stairs but the second floor space is not the same size as the first so there's even less stuff to see. Overall the intention is there and it could be much more fun. The exhibits needs more space for itself as some activities seem to flow on top of one another. That makes it feel crowded and with so much to see/read/process, it would be more comfortable spacing things out. A fun place to spend an hour but pricey at best for that.