USA -> California -> San Francisco

Walt Disney Family Museum


Good for: Families, anybody interested in the history of Disney, anybody interested in business history, Disney fans

Not great for: Infants and toddlers (they will probably be bored and no strollers are allowed)

We wanted to do something different while we were in San Francisco so we decided to go visit the Walt Disney Family Museum. First of all, this is not downtown so you will need to either take a taxi or drive if you have a car available. It is located in the Presidio which was a pretty cool place itself (apparently it was a military base at one point in time).

The Disney Family Museum shows the history of the Disney company. I thought the most interesting part was seeing the humble financial beginnings of Disney and how a man with a vision (and a lot of good help) was able to build an international brand.

The museum also had original cels on display, which I assume are extremely valuable. You see cartoons from the very early years of Disney through the present day. There is also a model of Disneyland that seemed very popular (though our 18-month old had lost it by then so we went through the last few galleries really quickly).

Plan on spending at least two hours in the museum. The tour is self-guided which is nice because you can go as quickly as you want. You have to buy tickets for certain times, but this is just to ensure that there are no bottlenecks in the museum. We went on one of the busiest days of the year (the day after Christmas) and had no problem getting a timed ticket for 15 minutes after we arrived.

Adults are $20 and children 6-17 are $12. Children under 6 are free.

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