Earlier this year I purchased a combined Zoo & Science Museum family membership through CuriOdyssey formerly called Coyote Point out in California. Mind you, we live in Ohio and have no plans (to my knowledge) of ever going to California. My sister (Jess) and her family here in Ohio received this as a gift from one of her in-laws and it was the best deal I had ever heard of so I bought one for our family.
CuriOdyssey is part of the AZA and ASTC reciprocal Zoo & Science Museum program. By purchasing a membership through them ($65 when I bought it earlier this year) we automatically got the reciprocal membership as well which includes 400 other zoos/science museums.
Before I made the $65 purchase I called some of our Ohio zoo/science museums that were on the reciprocal list and made sure they were still part of the program and found out whether we were free (such as the Akron Zoo) or just discounted.
All you have to do is figure up the cost of just one of the places your family enjoys visiting (on the AZA or ASTC list) and see how cost effective having a membership like this is. This is a great gift for a family, especially a homeschooling family (free field trips!).
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Hi Natalia,it’s been years since we had this membership so I’d recommend checking with the museums in Ohio that are in question. In fact, I personally called one or more back then to be sure I knew if they were free or half off. Right now we don’t have a membership to any museums.
The CuriOdyssey membership sounds very attractive to me as mother of 2 children and Ohio resident with boring winters 🙂
I have a question, it looks like we can use benefits if we live 90 miles away or museum is 90 miles away. Cleveland Natural History Museum and Great Lakes Science centers require photo IDs in order to get admission and I was wondered if they will let us in if we are locals? Please share your experience of how you got there as a local resident. Thank you in advance.
We bought the Cleveland Zoo membership in the spring and just got an e-mail that the Akron and Toledo Zoos will be only 50% off rather than completely free (other than parking) beginning January 1, 2011. Just a heads up for others!
Overall though, it is still a good deal. We got our membership for $59 and we’ve gotten into four zoos and have only had to pay about $10 in parking fees. It’s especially nice if you know you are going to be traveling or visiting family and there is a reciprocal zoo nearby.