Children's Museum in Portland, Maine

The short answer

Address: 250 Thompsons Point Road, Portland, in the Thompson's Point district off Congress Street near the I-295 interchange. Not downtown, and not walkable from the Old Port. It is a short drive or a bus ride west. Information and tickets are at kitetails.org.

Give it two to three hours. It closes one weekday, so check the calendar before a midweek visit, and admission runs on timed entry with a capacity cap. That cap matters: on a rainy July afternoon or during a school vacation week the slots go, and turning up at the door is a gamble. Book ahead when the forecast is bad, which is exactly when everyone else decides to come.

Who it actually suits

The sweet spot is roughly ages one to nine. Toddlers get a dedicated area they cannot escape from; five- to eight-year-olds get the run of the place. Children over about ten will have exhausted it in forty minutes and will tell you so.

The building is arranged over several floors around a central open space, which is good for sightlines and bad for noise, on a full day it is genuinely loud. If you have a child who struggles with that, ask about quieter or sensory-friendly sessions rather than assuming; most children's museums run them and the schedule is published rather than posted at the door.

Ask at the desk about the camera obscura, which has been the museum's signature exhibit for decades: a darkened room where a lens and a mirror throw a live, moving image of the world outside onto a white disc. Adults tend to like it more than the children do.

The theater half is the older half

The name is not decoration, and the museum is one of very few institutions in the country that genuinely runs both halves. The Children's Theatre of Maine dates to 1923, which makes it one of the oldest children's theaters in the United States: older, by a long way, than the museum it eventually merged with. It stages a season of family productions with young performers in the cast, on a stage inside the building.

Two practical consequences. Theatre tickets are sold separately from museum admission, so a show is not included in the price of a visit. And on performance days part of the building is given over to the production, which changes what is open. If a show is the reason you are going, check the performance calendar first and the exhibit floor second.

Why the address changed, and why it matters

For decades the museum sat on Free Street downtown, sharing a wall with the Portland Museum of Art. It was a much-loved building and far too small, a nineteenth-century structure that had been extended and subdivided until the exhibits were fighting each other for space, with no room to grow and difficult parking.

Thompson's Point solved both problems. The point is a spit of land on the Fore River that spent a century as a rail yard and industrial back lot, and was redeveloped in the 2010s into a district of event venues, a brewery, a distillery and a winery tasting room, with a seasonal outdoor concert venue and a winter ice rink. The museum's new building was designed from scratch for what it does, with parking a hundred feet from the door.

The catch is that a good deal of published information still points at Free Street. If you are following an older guidebook, a hotel concierge card or a search result that has not been updated, you will end up outside an art museum wondering where the children went. Use the Thompsons Point Road address.

Parking, and the one day it goes wrong

Parking at Thompson's Point is a large surface lot and is normally the easiest parking in Portland. The exception is event days. When the outdoor venue has a concert, the lots fill with concertgoers and the whole point becomes congested. Check whether anything is on at Thompson's Point that evening before you drive over on a summer afternoon.

The honest drawback

This is a good regional children's museum, not a destination that justifies a detour across the state. It is smaller than the big-city institutions families may be comparing it to, and on a sold-out day the exhibits get worked hard enough that some are out of service. If the weather is fine and your children are over seven, the beaches at Cape Elizabeth or a boat out into Casco Bay will be the better day. If it is pouring and they are four, nothing in Portland comes close.

What is nearby

• Deering Oaks Park: 4.5 from 375 reviews, under two kilometers away, with a pond, a playground and space to let everyone run after two hours indoors.
• Portland Museum of Art: 4.6 from 2,232 reviews, about 2.3 kilometers east in Congress Square, and the natural pairing if the adults want a turn.
• Victoria Mansion: 4.6 from 1,197 reviews on Danforth Street, an ornate pre-Civil War house museum. Better for older children than younger; see our Victoria Mansion guide.
• Hot Suppa: 4.7 from 2,287 reviews on Congress Street, the closest genuinely good lunch to the museum.
• Becky's Diner: 4.6 from 8,062 reviews on Commercial Street, the most-reviewed restaurant in Portland, and about as kid-proof as a restaurant gets.

For everything else, see our Portland guide and the things to do in Portland roundup.

FAQ

Where is the Portland children's museum located?

At 250 Thompsons Point Road in Portland, in the Thompson's Point district on the Fore River. It moved there in 2021 from its longtime Free Street location downtown, so older listings and directions are wrong. Parking is on site and free outside event days.

What age is the Children's Museum & Theatre of Maine best for?

Roughly one to nine, with a separate area for toddlers. Five- to eight-year-olds get the most out of it. Children over about ten generally run out of interest well before the adults are ready to leave, and it is not the right stop for teenagers.

Do you need to buy tickets in advance?

On a rainy day or during a school vacation week, yes. Admission uses timed entry with a capacity limit, and those slots sell out when the weather turns. On a clear weekday out of season you can usually walk up. Book at kitetails.org.

Is the theater included with museum admission?

No. Theatre performances are ticketed separately from the exhibit floor. Check the performance calendar before you go, because on show days part of the building is given over to the production and what is open on the museum side changes.