What do YOU think is the most overrated/disappointing museum?

Although I have a dear friend that would cringe if I say this, I have to say that the International Underwater Archeological Museum in Bodrum, Turkey was not worth a visit. Some exhibits were closed but even if they had been open, I still would have wished that I had bypassed the museum entirely.

I also have to say that the Naples Archeological Museum was a huge disappointment but that was because so much of it was closed at the time (August + renovations = need return visit).

Unless you have an unquenchable desire to be totally ripped off and an insatiable obsession with buying cheap tacky trash please avoid 'The Tales of Robin Hood' in Nottingham.

Apsley House (Wellington Museum) in London, located at the south east corner of Hyde Park. I went to it, in the year 2003, because Rick Steves said, in his book "Rick Steves' Great Britain" : "...Apsley House is the best mansion experience in London". It was the home of the Duke of Wellington who was the commander of the British Army that defeated Napolean's army of France, and he was a Prime Minister of Great Britain. The house does not have any furniture. Very many big paintings are on the walls in most of the rooms. I guess other art galleries did not want those paintings. The porcelain dishes, in one room on the main floor, are pleasant, but London has better museums than that !

We should have known better but the Museo de la Toutura (torture museum) in Santillana del Mar, Spain was creepy. Santillana is a tiny town and we were there off-season. It was something to do on a cold, foggy afternoon but we didn't sleep well that night after seeing some of the graphic exhibits!

Usually with the small museums you know what to expect(wax, torture, puppet, etc.), so it's hard to be disappointed .

My biggest disappointment was the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. As essentially the major museum in a country that competed at one time for world dominance, I read and expected it was one of the world's great museums. It wasn't horrible but it wasn't nearly the museum I expected.

The museum has only one wing open and the display is called the Masterworks. I found myself thinking, "If this is the best of their collection, I'm glad I didn't have to wade through the whole museum."

In Salzburg in Austria : the excavation site under the Salzburg cathedral in old town. I am not aware that this place was highly rated by anyone, but I think that tourists having a small amount of time for sightseing in Salzburg need to know that visiting that place would not be a good use of their time in Salzburg. The site has foundation stones of the previous Romanesque and Gothic churches, and a few small second-century Christian Roman mosaics.

I second the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I was on a RS tour & we spent HOURS in that place! I was bored to tears!! We were thinking, "Is THIS how the rest of the 21 days is going to go?!". We were scared to death that we had totally wasted our $$$!

So if you're ever on a RS tour or just in Amsterdam, my suggestion is to skip it altogether & spend your time in the van Gogh museum just across the park! It is so much better. The park, incidentally, is very nice too...You can check out some of the locals & the food vendors have places you can sit & people watch!

I think the Checkpoint Charlie Museum is overrated. The building which houses the museum is small and tight and there is no logical flow which really frustrated me. I appreciated seeing the few rooms which showcased the ingenuity of those who escaped, however, there was too much text and too many panels and odd artifacts (confused as to their purpose) that only succeeding in overwhelming me and angering me in the process. There really was too much in a limited amount of space. RS is very high on this museum and the ticket is included if you go on his Berlin, Prague, Vienna tour. It really should be an optional thing, though, in my opinion.

Call me a Philistine, but I really did not enjoy the Pompidou Center. The building itself was interesting, and I usually enjoy most art, including modern. But I found many of the works here too angry and disturbed for my liking. I'm not saying that this museum is not worth visiting (each to his own tastes), but I personally would not return.

Before I suffer the slings and arrows of fellow board members by saying the Vatican Museum, hear me out, it was the company not the content. Unfortunately, the crowds can really overwhelm the place and it is easy to fall into a single file line shuffling past exhibits without really appreciating them, winding up in the Sistine Chapel packed in a crowd with a monitor bellowing every thirty seconds to be quiet/no pictures. There are many grand artifacts, but too many crowds. It is understandable why the Uffizi, the Borghese, and other have gone to limiting entrance.

I have to agree on the Vatican Museum. We spent our one day in Rome in the hot, sweaty stampede to the Sistene Chapel. I wish we had taken the metro to the coliseum:)

If the Vatican Museum can be in this category, then the Wasa Museum in Stockholm has to be in it too and should take top prize. It is the only museum that I know of that celebrates a nautical design failure. The Vasa, the ship in question, sank because it was top heavy: too many cannons.

I thought the Vasa Museum in Stockholm was fantastic. It does celebrate what happens when your engineering is off and you don't get around to loading on the ballast BEFORE you cast off. Nowhere else will you get the full impact of the size of a great medival warship. That bad boy is huge.

To add to my post, what was disappointing was that given the high quality of the collection in the Vatican Museum, the crowds and the resulting demeanor sucked nearly every bit of magic out of what should have been a lifetime experience. To be fair, I will be in Rome for work in February and may give it another try. With fewer crowds the experience should be better.

Isn't it interesting that 2 people can have extreme opinions on the same museum! That's what makes traveling so personal: to form your own opinion after visiting.

Thanks for the great replies. It is interesting to see what one person enjoyed and another does not. I do agree that a good museum can be spoiled by outside forces - large crowds or even rude staff. I will be in England this summer and based on the posts there are a few places I will likely skip.

I thought Madame Toussaud's in London was an incredible rip off. I was there 10 years ago and paid around $40. I can't imagine what they would be charging today.

The Rijk's in Amsterdam and a Tussaud anywhere are, IMO, to be avoided. The former has some redeeming qualities, the latter, none. A caveat, if you're an art major, the Rijk's has got to be seen -I guess.

What I am going to say is not going to be popular unless you read all the way through it. So, please, read this entire post before you decide whether you agree with me.

I was very disappointed in the Accademia Gallery in Florence where Michelangelo's David is. The statue of David was NOT disappointing, and I would say that a trip to Florence without seeing it is a HUGE mistake. But the rest of the museum is a hodge-podge collection of Renaissance art that isn't categorized or organized very well. It felt a lot like the Uffizi's leftovers.

The Tate Modern in London. I watched as school kids almost ran through it, finding absolutely nothing to attract their gaze. A couple wandered through and paused at each piece and give them that serious, meaningful look. I about burst out laughing when they did that to a light switch and then realized that it wasn't "art." I noticed an installation work being installed with yellow tape to guide the Great Unwashed around it lest we step on it. Just inside the tape was a pile of debris: pieces of broken gyprock (plasterboard), small pieces of what might have been lath, and dust. A few days later I read on the BBC website that cleaners at the museum were in big trouble because they swept up that bit of rubble and tossed it into the garbage bin. They had destroyed "art." If that and displays of human body parts and vomit on a rug are your cuppa tea, then you'll love TM. For the rest of us, we can find much more interesting and worthwhile things to do with our travel time.

The Dickens House / Museum in London was a big disappointment to me. I love the writings of Dickens, and I was hoping for a more academic view of his development as a writer, and I mostly got a bunch of Dickens kitsch. I was a bit interesting to see where he lived, I guess/

I think Versailles was a waste of time. At the end I said "that's it?" I also didn't enjoy the Vatican at all, but I'm not Catholic. My Mother-in-law is and LOVES the Vatican.

If somebody can not appriciate The Masters in the Rijksmuseum or any other museum. They better not go to europe because it is all about art, masters,and history over there. And complaining about it is like stabbing somebody in the heart. Just now I remember again why some europeans don't like some americans.

Hey Cesar, "lighten up!" The question was soliciting for people's opinions not the "gospel" truth. BTW, Europe is not perfect nor perfectly beautiful. It does have flaws. IMO!

Well I don't think that I said Europe was perfect far from that. But there is more then one way to share your opinion.
The rijksmuseum is in a construction fase and that not the whole collection is displayed. The Rijks museum has more to offer but has to be renovated to show all of us visitors the real very good collection in the future.

Cesar