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| - Having a friend in town was a great opportunity to finally check out the ROM in all of its glory. And while overall I found it to be a little too heavy on the taxidermy, it was still a pretty fun trip.
A great tip is that on fridays you can get in for half price in the evenings, something that puts a big dent in the admission fee. Also keep eyes open to see if there are any special exhibits you want to see, the one they had when I went was diamonds which I felt wasn't more than self-aggrandizement from the diamond and jewelry industries. For our luck the exhibit did not have a separate entrance fee so we had fun roaming, gawking at all the jewels and of course, mocking the gift shop's propensity to "bling out" everything they could think of, including, I kid you not, a computer mouse.
The key part to going to the ROM is to plan. We were there for several hours and we still didn't see everything, maybe not even half? We didn't plan in advance or even look at a map, which while a pleasant, unstructured way to go about things, really does leave you wanting around a cavernous museum semi-lost. Good thing about those docents, always there to point you in the right direction! But be warned - if anyone asks you a leading or rhetorical question about something, say you need to go...museum educators haunt these halls and will give you a 20 minute lecture on their item of expertise with little way out.
Highlights were the Bat Cave and the dinosaurs (who doesn't love dinos?). Lowlights, education and creepy taxidermy, and overall sense of being overwhelmed. Oh yes, and the Crystal is cool, although it leads to odd corners where a window looks out on the exterior of the older building, which in turn has a window facing out.
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