If you want to put a fun spin on your family’s next trip to the museum, zoo, or aquarium, take along a pillow and flashlight! An overnighter at these familiar destinations lets you see them in a whole new nocturnal light. 

by Lori Zanteson

If your family loves to have fun together but has pretty much seen and done it all when it comes to local attractions, try those attractions at night. When many museums, zoos, and aquariums close to the public, the gates of adventure open to sleepover guests who get a one-of-a-kind experience unlike anything during daylight hours.

Although most programs have age requirements for children, some allow all ages for family groups. Dinner or a light snack and breakfast the next morning are common, but be sure to look into it and plan accordingly.

Destination sleepovers are hugely popular, so scope out your options and reserve in advance because space fills quickly. Be sure to look for seasonal holiday events such as spooky (and not so spooky) sleepovers in October that will really have the kids scrambling for their sleeping bags.

Nature at night

Wildly famous on the big screen, the actual A Night at the Musuem at the American Museum of Natural History in New York promises an overnight adventure, just not quite as “live”-ly as its movie counterpart. Not unlike in those comic film scenes, however, guests will venture through the museum by flashlight. Imagine staring into the jaws of a 65-million-year-old T. rex dimly lit by your flashlight as you stand so tiny below!

Guests explore the museum’s live-animal exhibits with a museum expert. The adventure also includes interactive educational carts, crafts, snacks, an IMAX film, and a challenging museum quest before lights-out time beneath a 94-foot-long blue whale, next to an Alaskan brown bear, or at the base of a volcano. The experience is open to 7- to 13-year-olds, as well as families, Scouts, and groups.

Dinosaurs, butterflies, and goo

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles offers several themed Overnight Adventures and two family overnight adventures that are offered twice a year.

Camp Dino lets kids be paleontologists for a night. They’ll learn about dinosaurs through prehistoric games, meet live dinosaur relatives, and make casts of fossils of their very own.

Camp Archaeology hosts a mock dig for these nocturnal archaeologists, who will also learn what archaeologists study as they explore the museum’s galleries and make a craft.

Camp Butterfly Dreams lifts kids into the world of live, free-flying butterflies. In this very hands-on event, kids will interact with bugs, make a craft, and learn about this beautiful winged insect.

Camp Goo at the La Brea Tar Pits takes hands-on to the next level. Kids love the gooey activities that put them in touch with our ancient history, the flashlight tour of the Tar Pits, and the scavenger hunt throughout the museum.

The Haunted Museum event is a seasonal favorite. The 2010 family adventure was called Creepy Caves and Eerie Caverns, and let participants choose their own way through haunted mazes, tunnels, and corridors, learning about the diversity of life found inside caves. There were secret clues to unravel and riddles to be solved involving bats, bears, and other famous cave dwellers.

Roars and snores

As we’re cuddling under bed covers, animals at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park are just gearing up for nightly adventure. There is no better place to see them than at the Roar & Snore Sleepover Programs when the gates close to the public. There are two family overnight programs themed toward younger and older children, plus a Halloween pumpkin treat.

The African Safari is for children ages 6 and older and their parents. Family is the theme of the evening, through games, crafts, and activities for little kids as they learn about African animals and go on a safari through the park. A campfire is the highlight of any campout, but the African Safari also adds a drum circle hosted by a professional drummer. Rhythm, stories, and audience participation include the animals who love to join in!

Park After Dark highlights the safari, its animal stars, and their keepers as inspiration for artists and celebrities. Families with children age 10 and older get up-close looks behind the scenes in animal exhibits like elephants, tigers, and condors.

Family Pumpkin Party is a seasonal treat with a couple of tricks in store. The Pumpkin Party and the Junior Pumpkin Party are costumed events tailored to younger and older children. Guests arrive in costume and learn about animal costumes such as camouflage, headgear, or coloring.

Older kids carve pumpkins for the animals and stuff them with appropriate tricks or treats. In the morning, they watch the animals interact with the pumpkins they carved. A meerkat treat might be stuffed with worms, while a bear’s is sprayed with a strong scent. Guests look on as the animals throw, eat, or play with their loot.

Sea dreams

If the world beneath the sea has ever captured your family’s dreams, the Family Fun Sleepovers at Sea World San Diego and Orlando make them come true. These (almost) underwater overnighters let you sleep in the exhibits surrounded by swimming sea creatures. There are also lots of adventures before lights out. Everyone has an animal encounter such as feeding the stingrays, and there are interactive, hands-on educational activities.

The 2010 Halloween Spooktacular Sleepover event was a shark encounter that focused on everything shark, from their teeth, their prey, the way they eat, and a behind-the-scenes look at the shark lab. Sleeping accommodations don’t get any creepier, er, better: guests bunk in the underwater tunnel surrounded by sharks! The next day’s park admission is part of the package, so venture out for more Spooktacular adventure every weekend in October.

Aquarium adventure

Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut, really gets into the swim of Halloween with the ‘sea’sonal  Haunted Family Overnights in October. Disguised in their Halloween best, children age 5 and older and their parents celebrate the occasion alongside aquarium creatures dressed in nature’s sometimes ghostly garb. Children can even try blending in with the sea animals by strutting about in the museum’s special costumes.

Participants enjoy a lot of hands-on games and crafts, even touching a shark and other spooky swimmers. After a lulling snooze among the exhibits, a ghoulish feast of mummy sausages, spooky pancakes, and hash brains awaits the next morning.

Sleeping on ships

Baltimore’s Historic Ships Overnight Programs is looking for recruits in groups of 20 to join the crews of a mid-19th-century Navy warship, a World War II-era Navy Submarine, and a Coast Guard Cutter that witnessed the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Young sailors 6 years and up learn the ropes aboard these vessels in Baltmore, Maryland, just as if they were sailors, learning nautical vocabulary, hauling the lines to manipulate the sails, learning about Civil War dining and eating it themselves, manning a cannon, and sleeping on a berth deck hammock. What a fun way to bring history alive!

Starry nights

The George Observatory, a satellite facility of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, gives overnight guests a glimpse above the clouds through the amazing 36-inch Gueymard Research telescope. Overnights at the George are customized to each group’s interests by bringing in different astronomers who speak about the fields they work in such as asteroid discoveries.

There are hands-on activities for participants as well as a night hike around Creekfield Lake in the surrounding Brazos Bend State Park. Mesmerized and spent by their starry adventure, guests dream amongst the exhibits of meteorites and breathtaking murals of the universe.

Destination sleepovers provide a one-of-a-kind experience packed with learning, fun, and age-appropriate adventure to share with your your child, parenting at its most enjoyable. Though they won’t likely promise your most restful night of slumber, they are sure to bring your dreams alive—literally!

 

Lori Zanteson is a Southern California-based writer and mother of three who specializes in health, food, and fitness for families.

Polar bear and dinosaur photos courtesy of American Museum of Natural History • Roar & Snore photo courtesy of SusanReepPhotoArt | Susanreep.com • S.S. Torsk photo by Stevehdc