A whirlwind visit with a 6 & 4 year-old.Café & Shop closed, presumably due to Covid.

Very popular but times slots during Covid makes for long que and limited number of people allowed. Cannot give complete as I never made it inside.

My son absolutely loves coming here. So much to learn and explore.

Spectacular. I have to go and finish. There is no way you can throughly go through this museum in 3 hours. The front office staff was very welcoming upon my first two visits. The power of the rock exhibt sets the pace to an exciting journey Im looking forward to complete this week!

The entire family enjoyed the outing. So much to see and learn. Stunning exhibits. We had to wait about 30 minutes for the place to be sanitized. Well worth the wait.

Brilliant museum and wonderful planetarium. Ive spent a day there and learned so much. Im in love with the exhibition. Especially animals

Great place for an outing with the kids!. It is quite affordable, a family of 5 can access museum with just R100. We went during Level 1 and they were still using sessions for entrance purposes. Call ahead to get sessions time.

Great educational place. The museum is very well kept and kids loved to roam around asking questions. Planetarium is awesome as well, a very small exhibition (dont forget to drop the coin to see the black hole) interesting experience to watch documentaries on the ceiling. Must visit.

Blown away by this museum, so many things to see and read, such a wide variety of exhibitions. Requires a few hours to see everything. Great alternative/ substitution to a zoo or aquarium.

Enough exhibitions to view during operating hours, lovely family showcat planetarium, fee is within budget, entertaining and educational for all ages, keeps you focussed on variety, open to learn, kids ask questions and find answers on information on display, open space, easy access and toilets clean

Cannot complain, they have their register in place, adequate sanitizing stations, wasnt full at all, pricing was not bad at all. downside is because of covid there wasnt any interaction sessions or live animals like they had in the past but a nice outing for the kids and a walk in the park outside to see some squirrels and birds etc.

What a great experience. Lovely exhibitions. Worth while to go.

Well kept museum with many intresting things to see. You will not be disappointed.

Great way to spend some time in Cape Town! Fun for the kids! Good place to cool off on a hot day. Free entry with Cape Town Pass and one of the HoHo lines goes right by.There were fun displays and a lot of information to peruse. I would recommend it to anyone with kids in Cape Town and/or anyone who has an hour or two with nothing to do.

Very interesting if you are interested in history. I unfortunately did not have enoigh time to go through the whole museum

Lovely for family outings & make sure you experience a planetarium show!

Worth the day, friendly staff, well maintained.

Kids enjoyed it

Would be nice if there was more to keep the little ones entertained 😉

Fabulous museum! 30ZAR entry. The last planetarium show is at 3pm I think. Closes at 5pm. Lots of levels with the rock paintings, skulls, dinosaur bones, birds and animals of South Africa, honey bee information and lots of different minerals. Very educational. Choose this over the national art gallery or do both.i

Such an adventure! 4 levels of fun, not forgetting the many shows at the Planetarium. Check on the website for show times. This museum is maintained well & is a definite stop either before or after Companys Garden.

Such an amazing place to visit. My husband and I loved it almost as much as our 4-year old! And so affordable!

If your in Cape Town for a few days the museum is worth a visit. A highlight is the floating full whale. Re-constructed of its real bones. The dinosaur displays are slighty underwhelming as most of them are just moulds. The section on Nelson Mandela is really informative and the video is a great watch. The museum itself is quite dated. Definitely needs a renovation. The display of minerals is just fantastic and the planetarium is a must. Book one of the shows!

We as a family really enjoyed our visit so much to see.

Great place and show. Kids loved the planetarium but had a great time learning from the program as well. Stay afterwards as they have a little chat about the stars in our local area as well.

First visit to this museum. It needs some refurbishment in my opinion. Lots of empty spaces and unfinished exhibits. My boy enjoyed the dinosaur exhibition the most. Good family afternoon out!

The planetarium was really great to see. Interactive and you could take photos during the show. Guide was infomative and made it fun with his way of presenting it. 4****. General museum not as good as i remember it as a kid😞

One of the best planetarium I have ever seen. Very friendly staff and wonderful shows. They even allow people to take pictures and videos during show.Variety of shows throughout the day.

Wonderful and interesting museum. It was worth a visit.

Very nice

An underrated experience. The work here is certainly more tasteful and of a wide variety and backgrounds. I loved how quiet it was, gave us the opportunity to really absorb the experience.

Wow what a great Museum. It was totaly great value for money with entrance only 60 rand per person this has been the best museum I have been to. Altough some parts were under construction the artifacts were a great lesson for the entire family. My two year old enjoyed the dinos and mammals tremendously. Take a day and enjoy the entire museum in and out.

This is arguably one of the best natural history museums in the country. Definitely worth a visit for kids who are in school and love nature. Call ahead to confirm times if still during the pandemic.

The museum was interesting but it seemed to be a bit run down. I was happy to have seen it all the same but i wouldnt recommend it if you were short of time in Cape Town

Lots of things to see and its very educational. Unfortunately, they are renovating so some areas might be closed off. The planetarium is a must visit. You pay R30 for the museum but it doesnt include the planetarium. $

What a fun outing for a weekend! Treat yourself to both the museum and planetarium for an amazing experience of the world around us. Everything nature that you can think of is on display, from giant whales to ancient Dino bones and galaxies galore!

This museum is FANTASTIC, I real must if you in or visiting Cape Town, the kids really loved it*sagirlovestotravel

Great place to introduce young minds to the natural world and history.

I love it, Planetarium show was amazing 10/10 would recommend and definitely will be returning.. :)

What a great experience!This natural history museum was packed with exhibits of zoology, oceanography, archeology, paleontology, anthropology, and african history.This is definitely a MUST SEE for any person that loves to learn.PLEASE NOTE THAT THE MUSEUM IS CLOSED BETWEEN 11 AM AND 12:30 PM.And it completely boggels my mind that it has NOT been updated on the website.

This is a must go for the whole family. This is at least a 2hour visit. Really enjoyed it.

Warning: You will experience strange feelings of detachment from the reality of the world as you know it. Soon as you step through the turnstiles you will be overtaken by a powerful aura of calmness and peacefulness. The world out there might as well keep on bungling it self up, right here at this place and at this time, you will not care about any of that at all. You will slow your step, and you will take interest in something, actually many somethings. Most definitely a place worthy of a stop. And as for the charge at the door. Sjjjjjt.... Dont tell them, but man, its cheap for what they got to show, and for helping you to escape from the World.

The close very early on a saturday, the outside looks very rundown, Inside its pretty nice, they should get a booking system for the Planetarium as getting to see a show is a frustration.

Visited the museum & planetarium.museum: great exhibits, just expected to see a bit more. the hanging exhibits were covered in dust, and found it hard to navigate. toilets locks didnt work properly. the cafe was closed, so you could not get anything to eat or drink at all, which was dissapointing. it is really cheap though - R30 pp and R30 pp for a show in the dome.planetarium: it was a total new experience for me! amazing, they have three shows, we saw to the moon and back. the screen is amazing... all tvs should be like this! only downfall is that it was a bit too short. going back to see another. also very kid friendly!

An awesome place for kids. The exhibits are great but the museum could be made more interactive for kids/students.

Great informative museum, worth while the visit.

Unfortunately just some old dusty stuffed animals which are mostly made from plastic.Maybe interesting for kids. Only thing which exited us where the two real iron meteoroids and to learn about the size of some animals.The planetarium was occupied by school classes so we couldn’t see it.The museum is apparently mostly uses by school classes. The staff was kind of surprised when we as tourists asked for tickets and we were the only tourists there.

Recently revamped Planetarium and Digital Dome is a highlight for families with young kids. A fantastic museum to whizz around and learn A LOT about South Africa.

Probably one of the best day out for families, the museum is informative, interactive and huge! The planetarium is a star studded affair that you cannot miss! Very good bang for your buck!

So much to learn and experience here! Well worth paying a visit. Do make sure to stop by and visit the planetarium on your visit also. Hopefully the museum and all its exhibits and the planetarium has managed to remain open to the public now in a post covid 19 world.I was here in 2011 hopefully the visitor experience remains as truly great as it was back then.

The staff assisted me with posters for my classroom. I am a teacher in a township. Nice to have people still going out of their way for others.

Planetarium is great, museum is worthwhile but needs some tlc

So much to see. Great place for the whole family

Great museum for natural history. Educational exhibitions, good for large groups and kids. Located inside the tranquil Companys Garden. Public bathroom inside.

Really interesting, a wide collection covering many aspects concepts like evolution and global warming

Planetarium had an amazing show that was an experience. One sequence wouldnt play, but they replaced it with another. A few people complained, but staff did the best they couldThe museum itself was a fun adventure and Im so happy we went

The home of South African prehistory.It has the distinction of being the first museum in the country. They highlight his contributions to the knowledge of the natural history of man and of the regional fauna.Its multiple exhibition halls are very educational due to the historical context, the setting and the information sheets. The images and artistic representations are very illustrative. After the tour of the famous building, you can visit the garden to enjoy its fountains, green areas and the animals that roam the place like the restless squirrels and ducks with their litters of young.

Great place to see dinosaurs and replicas of various African animals and sea life. Amazing planetarium when it is operating

Brought back some great childhood memories and it was awesome to have had the privilege to bring my kids to experience history at its best.

Educational and informative, cheap entrance fees.

Was a truly nice experience, my 4 year old son loved every part of the museum. I wish I knew earlier what a wonderful place this is. You should put atleast 2hours aside just to explore the museum. Will definitely be going back to the Planetarium (it was under refurbishment when we were there)

Please stipulate on the website when you will be sanitizing as its a waste of our time to arrive which was round 11h10am, to come only to find out that they sanitizing between 11h30am and 12h30pm. Which was an inconvenience to our schedule.

Took my Son and he loved it especially seeing the dinasaurs

Its an awesome place to come with family,such a learning place where you can learn so much....i feel so much happy.....

A must experience museum to spend almost the whole day just reading and exploring.so much to see

Always been a great place to visit. I remember coming here as a child and now my own children are visiting. The museum and exhibits have indeed changed over the years and it still remains a place of education. Most recently, my family and I visited the Planetarium : a Sunday afternoon at 15h00. Quiet, peaceful and what an experience! Digital viewing at its best. A 360 degree view of the solar system and our quest to find out whether we are alone in this universe or whether there are other beings out there trying to establish the same thing from their side. R60 per adult well spent. Go ahead and exhibit your best behaviour. See what I did there?

A fairly typical mainly natural history museum. Some good cave & rock art, The whale & shark exhibition was extremely good, being able to imagine the size of the creatures from the skeletons, impressive. Many of the SA land animals, dinosaurs, Other creatures. The minerals mined in Africa was nice to see some lovely shapes, textures & colours.

Great place to bring the kids. There are new features to see.

The Dino exhibit is great, a hidden gem worthy of several visits.

I love going here. Its one of my favorite places to unwind as a student. Definitely go on Heritage day because there are so many freebies and lots of entertainment for all ages around the museum.Staff are friendly and the museum is pretty big so youll be walking around for hours. Lots of events to keep kids entertained during the holiday. Its very affordable.

Was very disappointed, we were kicked out after only an hour. The reasoning was fine, they sanitised between groups of people, but it would have been great if someone had bothered to tell us.

One of the greatest museums in Cape Town!

Really great museum for kids. So much to see.

Must go place with your little one in town!

Good parking.The museum under construction.

Great exhibits for all ages. Lovely for children.

Great....

It was awesome!

I really enjoyed myself

During peak holiday season, the planetarium is shut-down because of an air-conditioner problem. For days. During peak tourist season. Well done, guys. Well done.

Big museum with loads of sectionsLoved the mineral section and the dinosaurs section. You need to have much time to spare as there are too many words to read on each

Confused as to why everything is in gallons and miles when most tourists from Europe would use metric, the same as for locals! Metric measurements should be primary with gallons etc in brackets.

The planetarium is must visit

A remarkable day out and especially enthralling for kids: dinosaur 🦖 🦕 models, skeletons; suspended whale 🐋skeletons; mineral exhibit; avian 🦅arena; ocean 🌊phenomena and the 🌍💫☀️ cosmos to contemplate.... The planetarium is a marvel on its own. The entry-price is right and the exhibits are wonderfully curated. The coffee shop is quaint and well stocked. Winding up the morning in The Company Gardens is a great photo-op and novel place to pause for lunch (keep spare fare for the squirrels, they are tame and expecting a small share of your peanuts 😉).

I enjoyed my last visit there because of the new dinosaur exhibit. My children enjoyed it. I feel like they should do more to attract people though, theres still a lot of old stuffed animals that have been there since I was at school.

I found the rock art very interesting!If you are the type who likes to read everything that goes with the artifacts and exhibits, be sure to give yourself a few hours to go through the entire museum!

The Iziko South African Museum is a South African national museum located in Cape Town. The museum was founded in 1825, the first in the country. It has been on its present site in the Companys Garden since 1897. The museum houses important African zoology, palaeontology and archaeology collections. Iziko is a Xhosa word meaning hearth. The South African Museum was founded by Lord Charles Somerset in 1825 as a general museum comprising natural history and material culture from local and other groups further afield. In time, it developed greater systematic organisation and classification similar to the evolutionary models that were prominent in European and American museums in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The focus on natural history encouraged the notion that very little divided the animal world from the human subjects who were documented. This continued until the 1990s with the reservation of cultural history museums for the display of settler histories and the relegation of material culture from other cultures to natural history and anthropology museums. Bushmen, referring collectively to San and Khoi indigenous groups, were considered lowest on the evolutionary timescale and as living remnants of civilised mans prehistory, akin to the highest form of ape. As such, they became the subject of intensive research, particularly from 1906 onwards under the directorship of Louis Péringuey. Subsequent research on Bushmen was informed by the rise of physical anthropology, a discipline in the European scientific community that drew direct correlation between physical type and evolutionary status and therefore intellectual, cultural and social status, as discussed in a 1988 article by Annie Coombes. Between 1907 and 1924 Péringuey initiated a casting project, carried out by museum modeller James Drury, in which sixty-eight body casts of pure Bushmen specimens were taken in a process that was both humiliating and painful for the participants. The title of Drurys book, Bushman, whale and dinosaur, detailing his 40-year affiliation with the South African Museum, gives some indication of the status these specimens were given.

The last time I was here is 20+ years ago, it is still good and worth a visit, especially if youre interested in the natural world.

Interesting time at museum

Brilliantly curated exhibits and friendly service

Natural history & science museum, founded in 1825, with fossils, animals, human tools & clothing.

First time visiting the museum, was really happy to finally get to see dinosaur bones and really enjoyed the whole dinosaur exhibition. What was disappointing was that there seemed to be so much unused space, the whole reptile section was replaced with a Mandela exhibit. Even though there was a whole empty room right next to it where it could have been put up instead. We had a glance through a window into a room full of stuffed animals that was not on display for some reason. The interactive whale sounds booth was out of order (which im pretty sure its been like that for a while. The computer by the bushman paintings was not working and it seems the whole museum could use a nice dusting. Other than that we had a pretty good time walking around inside the museum, lots of interesting things to see and read.

Visited on Saturday after last visiting nearly 15yrs ago. It was sad to see most of the exhibits covered in so much dust that they all looked grey instead of their normal colours. On a positive note, some of the exhibits looked fairly new and more realistic than the older ones.The planetarium audio-visual theatre was a good improvement. At times the show looked almost 3D and covers the whole dome ceiling. However, the content of the show did not display many real space images, instead opting to display animated reconstructions.

I love it, the historical records it holds is fascinating!!!!

Enjoyed the ethnography exhibit.

Clean safe and awesome art

Great displays. Slightly primitive.

Very interesting and entertaining museum. My son loved this visit snd we really enjoyed the exhibitions. The whale bones and dinosaurs were our favorites.

Very, very enjoyable and educational. Well worth a visit and even a second visit because there is so much to see!

Called to find out if theyre open? They are but They forgot to tell me that only 50 people per day so I was stuck outside!