August at Chicago Museums - What's Changing After Labor Day
Tuesday August 12, 2008
As we begin to feel the encroaching Labor Day weekend, you might want to dip (or re-dip) into some of our museums before August ends. Many of them will experience post-Labor Day changes.
- The Shedd Aquarium's Oceanarium will close on September 2 for a massive renovation. It's not expected to re-open until next summer. This affects only the Oceanarium. (The belugas and dolphins will be shipped out for care at other aquariums and zoos.)
- Children under the age of 11 are free with a paying adult at the Museum of Science and Industry through the end of August. Two per adult.
- Free Thursday and Friday evenings at the Art Institute run through Labor Day from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. After that, they return to Thursdays only (and probably until just 8 p.m.)
- Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns, and Mermaids runs at the Field Museum through September 1.
Comments
How does one ship a dolphin and/or beluga whale? UPS?
We were just at the aquarium a couple weeks ago, and my youngest asked a docent how they got the dolphins *in* the Oceanarium and they replied with a shrug.
Oh, that’s rich. We went on a “behind the scenes” tour once at the Aquarium, and they had these giant Tupperware-like shipping containers in the basement that were marked “live specimens” with the names of distant tropical countries as the origin of the shipments. I envision them moving the whales in something like those.