The Popular New York City Museum That's Considered One Of The World's Most Crowded And Disappointing

When visiting New York City, the word disappointing doesn't immediately spring to mind, but that's exactly how visitors are describing one of the city's well-known sites. According to data collected by Radical Storage published in an article titled "The World's Most and Least Disappointing Museums," the American Museum of Natural History simply isn't up to par. The museum, which opened in 1869, ranked third on the list, coming in behind the popular and free-to-visit Washington D.C. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and the London Science Museum. The ranking was decided by analyzing both negative and positive keywords from 82,445 visitor reviews of the world's top 100 most-visited museums. 

So, what turned off visitors to this museum, which is known for its extensive collection of dinosaur fossils? The most common criticism is the same thing that led people to grumble that Honolulu was a disappointing vacation spot and that Rome's Trevi Fountain wasn't worth it — the crowds. According to the data, complaints about the American Museum of Natural History related to crowds appeared in 26.2% of all the negative reviews. But that was just one of several issues.

According to Radical Storage, visitors to the American Museum of Natural History weren't only put off by the crowds, but they also found the museum's displays outdated. Keywords related to the museum's stale exhibitions were mentioned in 4.7% of the reviews, which far exceeded the average found in the study. Do a quick search online, and you'll often see this sentiment. 

While the museum may have some incredible specimens, the retro charm of the exhibitions only goes so far. One Redditor on the dinosaurs forum of the website went so far as to warn others not to go to the museum if they wanted to learn something educational about dinosaurs, stating: "It seems that the last time most of the exhibits were updated was the late 70's-80's." And on Tripadvisor, one reviewer was very clear, "I wanted to like this place but it seemed so old and the exhibits reminded me of really bad museums I saw as a child."

Lastly, the museum received quite a few mentions of rudeness (9%), which was twice as many as other museums in the study. The culprits, unfortunately, seem to be the staff, who were cited many times in reviews for their brusque manner in the ticket line. Moral of the story? If you want to visit, make sure to temper your expectations. Buy your tickets online to avoid crowds and forget cutting-edge curation. Instead, embrace displays that, while dated, evoke a sense of nostalgia.