Disney 100 at Franklin Institute , Philadelphia PA

[tetera]

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[NY Pirate Princess]

Wouldn't you just take the train and walk to the museum from 30th St. station? Why bother driving?

Which train are you imagining I would take from Upstate New York?

 

[MillauFr]

Which train are you imagining I would take from Upstate New York?

There are several different trains you can take. Much safer than driving which is way too risky.

 

[bobbiwoz]

I have to say the exhibit was good, but it was too busy for my group’s enjoyment on Good Friday. I think they must have increased the crowd that day.

 

[BaybeeYoda]

Thank you! We are planning to go in April but I am nervous about Philly driving. Will be parking the car at the hotel and using rideshare for sure!

OP, are there unique things in the gift shop? Did you see the soundtrack for the exhibit for sale?

There’s usually parking at Trader Joe’s, walkable distance, for 90min . No one’s checking tho…. I don’t think…. But at your own risk.

The Franklin parking garage often sells out/full by 11am so go early if you decide to go that route.

Thanks for posting this, I wasn't sure if was going to be worth the trip, flying from NC, but we're now thinking we'll go in early June and do the evening exhibit-only tickets on a Saturday.

It's going to Chicago next, and then Kansas City, for anyone interested not able to make it to Philly by late August.

lots of walkable hotels to Franklin… right on the parkway. FYI .

 

[BaybeeYoda]

I live in Philly- near the liberty bell in a residential area. Just a public service announcement: just be careful in the evenings and be alert, especially in center city/market/broad.

Still haven’t gone to the exhibit but I guess it’s a must since it’s only 2 miles away!!

 

[Harmacist]

I just went to this yesterday. It wasn't crowded at all midday. We spent about 1.5-2hours in the exhibit. It was a little disappointing that many of the items were reproductions though, other than that it was enjoyable. I compared it to a souped up One Man's Dream at HS, at least the beginning section.

For souvenirs exclusive to exhibit, there were a few shirt, the posters throughout the exhibit were available, I bought an exhibition book, my girlfriend bought the exclusive Minnie ears, and they had mickey ears as well. Thats about all I remembered being exclusive, but could've been more. They had a bunch of other books, Pop figures etc.

 

[focusondisney]

I live in Philly- near the liberty bell in a residential area. Just a public service announcement: just be careful in the evenings and be alert, especially in center city/market/broad.

Still haven’t gone to the exhibit but I guess it’s a must since it’s only 2 miles away!!

We’re going next weekend, also planning on a baseball game. We’re staying right near Logan Square. Is there a metro close that we can take to the game? Or should we drive there? Thanks!

 

[BaybeeYoda]

We’re going next weekend, also planning on a baseball game. We’re staying right near Logan Square. Is there a metro close that we can take to the game? Or should we drive there? Thanks!

Yes there’s a line on broad street to the game. If you decide to walk to broad/city hall, it should be about a mile away, However, a few weeks ago there was an issue with the broad street line at walnut, just south of city hall. My friends were going to a game and wasn’t able to get on the line due to an incident.

I drive everywhere, so I’m not the best person to ask about public transportation. Just be careful. It’s a cute compact city (I’m an Ex-Manhattan person) but post pandemic, things haven’t been as pleasant….

If you have kids, I can give you some tips on where to go . Just PM me! I live in an area called headhouse square scrunched btwn society hill/spruce street harbor/south street.

 

[focusondisney]

Thanks @BaybeeYoda. No kids, just my DH, DS, DIL & me. We won’t get there til late afternoon & have to leave Sunday morning, so not time to do much else. Guess we’ll decide on metro, ride share or drive to ballpark once we get there & check things out. At home, we drive everywhere too but like using the metro when we go to Washington so thought it might be an option his time. Maybe not tho, we’ll have on Red Sox gear.

 

[Princess Michele]

We are thinking of going to the exhibit its last week. Trying to decide if we would rather take the train up from D.C. for a day trip or drive up and spend a night. For those of you who are locals, @JJB123 @BaybeeYoda and any others, would walking back to the 30th Street Station on a Thursday or Friday night around 8:00pm be a problem? Would it be easy to get a taxi from the Franklin Institute to the train station at that time instead? We don't have experience with ride shares so I am not sure if we want to try that then for the first time. Thanks.

 

[focusondisney]

We are thinking of going to the exhibit its last week. Trying to decide if we would rather take the train up from D.C. for a day trip or drive up and spend a night. For those of you who are locals, @JJB123 @BaybeeYoda and any others, would walking back to the 30th Street Station on a Thursday or Friday night around 8:00pm be a problem? Would it be easy to get a taxi from the Franklin Institute to the train station at that time instead? We don't have experience with ride shares so I am not sure if we want to try that then for the first time. Thanks.

Not a local, but we stayed at The Logan hotel when we went to the exhibit. It’s less than a block from the Franklin Institute. We didn’t see any taxis at the Institute, but I think you could walk to The Logan & get one from there if you need to.

 

[tetera]

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[Princess Michele]

Not a local, but we stayed at The Logan hotel when we went to the exhibit. It’s less than a block from the Franklin Institute. We didn’t see any taxis at the Institute, but I think you could walk to The Logan & get one from there if you need to.

Thanks for that idea. The Logan is where we are thinking of staying. We probably could get a taxi from The Logan if we decide to just take the train. Do you have any recommendations for lunch or dinner in the area? Thanks.

Also not a local but had the exact same dilemma; we ultimately ended up just driving up for a day trip and it was actually pretty easy- FI has their own parking garage so we could pull right in and take the elevator right into the museum. There was hardly any city-driving involved.

(But FWIW we were also going to stay at the Logan if we had ended up going with a hotel instead.)

I don't mind driving in Philly but I was concerned that the parking garage at FI might be full. We went there about 6-7 years ago and parked in a surface lot and walked to the FI. It seemed to be a long walk but it was also a cold day. Do you remember about what time you arrived?

 

[tetera]

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[focusondisney]

Thanks for that idea. The Logan is where we are thinking of staying. We probably could get a taxi from The Logan if we decide to just take the train. Do you have any recommendations for lunch or dinner in the area? Thanks.

We had lunch at Victory Brewing Company. My husband had a burger, I had a large salad, both very good. Dinner was at City Tap House. Truthfully I don’t remember what we ate, . sorry. We were with our son & DIL & they picked them & made the reservations. I checked the online menus & it didn’t look familiar. So it might not be right or might have changed. But again, I do know we thought it was good. Victory Brewing is in the block across from the Logan, City Tap is in the block behind The Logan. Both are brew pub places, not quiet low key restaurants. They’re both just steps away from the hotel.

 

[Princess Michele]

I can tell you exactly what time we arrived because I took a picture of the area where we were parked so we could find our car (and for some reason still have that on my phone!)
We arrived at 11:54AM and there was plenty of parking available at the FI garage (this was on a weekday in March).

Thanks for the information.

We had lunch at Victory Brewing Company. My husband had a burger, I had a large salad, both very good. Dinner was at City Tap House. Truthfully I don’t remember what we ate, . sorry. We were with our son & DIL & they picked them & made the reservations. I checked the online menus & it didn’t look familiar. So it might not be right or might have changed. But again, I do know we thought it was good. Victory Brewing is in the block across from the Logan, City Tap is in the block behind The Logan. Both are brew pub places, not quiet low key restaurants. They’re both just steps away from the hotel.

Thank you for the information. I will look them up.

 

[BaybeeYoda]

We are thinking of going to the exhibit its last week. Trying to decide if we would rather take the train up from D.C. for a day trip or drive up and spend a night. For those of you who are locals, @JJB123 @BaybeeYoda and any others, would walking back to the 30th Street Station on a Thursday or Friday night around 8:00pm be a problem? Would it be easy to get a taxi from the Franklin Institute to the train station at that time instead? We don't have experience with ride shares so I am not sure if we want to try that then for the first time. Thanks.

Local here (live near spruce street harbor by the liberty bell/independence hall…)

You’re fine at 8pm on a Friday or Saturday night. It’s a little empty around 30th street station. Not dangerous, but there isn’t a lot of activity there bc it’s not residential. That being said, you are fine at 8pm. If it were 11pm-4am, I might say that bc of how few ppl are in that area, I would think a ride shares a better bet in the wee hours of the night.

Oh, lots of lyft/Ubers here. Super easy to lyft/Uber. My 13yr old son goes to school about 10 miles away, and we are considering Ubers for emergency rides if I’m unable to pick him up. Ppl Uber to the burbs. It’s ubiquitous here!

We haven’t been to the exhibit yet, believe it or not. Thanks for incentivizing me!!

 

[BaybeeYoda]

Thanks for that idea. The Logan is where we are thinking of staying. We probably could get a taxi from The Logan if we decide to just take the train. Do you have any recommendations for lunch or dinner in the area? Thanks.

I don't mind driving in Philly but I was concerned that the parking garage at FI might be full. We went there about 6-7 years ago and parked in a surface lot and walked to the FI. It seemed to be a long walk but it was also a cold day. Do you remember about what time you arrived?

I don’t know the other side of the city very well but I know there’s tons of decent eats out here. There’s a Michelin star Thai (Kalaya) in fish town, on the north east part of center city. There’s the little French cafe called Parc that everyone seems to love in rittenhouse square. There’s a Michelin recognized place Jiangnan in Chinatown (with locations in Manhattan, NJ, etc).

In my area (headhouse square), we have cute little bistros everywhere.

Fork (new American- the restaurant group, high street, was recognized by James beard this past year m), and the usual star restaurant group (Morimoto is solid but $$ Japanese, buddhakan is a little pricey but very good Peking duck, then Stella’s for pizza).

Personally, my fave cheap eats is in Chinatown and a happy hour in headhouse square called twisted tail. Sorry. So. Many. Places. To. Eat.

Parking stinks over by the Franklin. I would rather Uber there tbh. It’s a very walkable city but everyone Ubers/Lyfts everywhere bc we are lazy!

 

[Princess Michele]

Local here (live near spruce street harbor by the liberty bell/independence hall…)

You’re fine at 8pm on a Friday or Saturday night. It’s a little empty around 30th street station. Not dangerous, but there isn’t a lot of activity there bc it’s not residential. That being said, you are fine at 8pm. If it were 11pm-4am, I might say that bc of how few ppl are in that area, I would think a ride shares a better bet in the wee hours of the night.

Oh, lots of lyft/Ubers here. Super easy to lyft/Uber. My 13yr old son goes to school about 10 miles away, and we are considering Ubers for emergency rides if I’m unable to pick him up. Ppl Uber to the burbs. It’s ubiquitous here!

We haven’t been to the exhibit yet, believe it or not. Thanks for incentivizing me!!

I don’t know the other side of the city very well but I know there’s tons of decent eats out here. There’s a Michelin star Thai (Kalaya) in fish town, on the north east part of center city. There’s the little French cafe called Parc that everyone seems to love in rittenhouse square. There’s a Michelin recognized place Jiangnan in Chinatown (with locations in Manhattan, NJ, etc).

In my area (headhouse square), we have cute little bistros everywhere.

Fork (new American- the restaurant group, high street, was recognized by James beard this past year m), and the usual star restaurant group (Morimoto is solid but $$ Japanese, buddhakan is a little pricey but very good Peking duck, then Stella’s for pizza).

Personally, my fave cheap eats is in Chinatown and a happy hour in headhouse square called twisted tail. Sorry. So. Many. Places. To. Eat.

Parking stinks over by the Franklin. I would rather Uber there tbh. It’s a very walkable city but everyone Ubers/Lyfts everywhere bc we are lazy!

Thank you so much for all of the information. I think we have decided that we will take the train up for a day trip. Glad to hear that walking to the train station should not be a problem. I guess if we change our minds we can always try using Uber/Lyft. Now to pick the day and make a plan. I am sure there are plenty of great places to eat. The hardest part will be getting everyone to agree on the same place.

I hope you get to see the exhibit before it closes. I thought we had a little more time before it closes. I don't know where the summer has gone.