The Wizard of Oz Museum
While traveling with kids, you might search for an art or children’s museum around Cocoa Beach that adults can enjoy. A visit to the museum is one of the best things to do on a rainy day to experience an Immersive Van Gogh and the Wizard of Oz Experience.
The museum aims to inspire creativity, passion, and intellectual curiosity by connecting people with art and literature. The museum is instantly recognizable from the outside due to its distinctive appearance with 5K indoor space.
Dolls, comics, toys, maps, original The Wizard of Oz cast signed memorabilia and costumes, collectible figurines, posters, and fine first editions– with plenty of surprises (and photo ops with life-size characters) along the way. The museum exhibits over 2000 artifacts, original movie props like Dorothy’s dress, a townsman jacket, and Winkie’s spear. On display are original first editions of 40 Oz titles and the first known pre-publication copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in May 1900.
The Immersive Experience 2100 square feet theater room utilizes state-of-the-art technologies with over 30 laser projectors displaying content to all four walls and the floor.
Instead of showing visitors scenes from the movie, custom-designed content from the original books is produced for the visitors.
Visitors will be part of the Tornado scene, Munchkin Land, and witness the Tin Man proposing to the munching girl (based on the book), see mice pulling a lion out of the poppy field (based on the book), be inside the Witches’ Castle, see the dark forest scene and skip on the yellow brick road surrounded by poppies going to ward Emerald City and have a party inside the Emerald City with all the characters from Oz.
The museum also implemented a scene flying through the Universe utilizing the latest high-resolution images from the James Webb telescope.
The Immersive Van Gogh exhibit is an addition to the Immersive Wizard of Oz. Although it has no connection to the Wizard of Oz, many visitors enjoy this experience, and it is a great way to introduce kids to the world of art.
For kids, there is an opportunity to do an animal scavenger hunt and the ability to interact with old Wizard of Oz toys, and illustrations and even watch the movie in the munchkin room. The experience usually takes one to two hours to explore and is considered a great attraction.
Since the museum covers many subjects such as literature, art, science, space, movies, and more, the museum has been ranked nationally in various categories. With over 20000 Google reviews at 4.9 stars, the museum also received the 2023 Travelers Choice award from TripAdvisor. On TripAdvisor, it ranks #3 out of 616 Children’s museums in the USA, #6 out of 140 Art museums in Florida, #8 out of 299 Specialty museums in Florida, and #22 out of 32,964 Things to Do in Florida with a 5-star rating from almost 900 reviews.