What’s the first thing that you think about when you think of Hollywood? Celebrities, right? Well, believe it or not, celebrities don’t take to kindly to tourists groping them and sticking a camera in their face wherever they go. Fortunately for them, the Hollywood Wax Museum exists! Earlier this month, Terrence, Ayva and I traveled to Hollywood for a mini family vacation. In addition to Los Angeles must visits like The Grove and Rodeo Drive, we also visited the Hollywood Wax Museum to get close to some of our favorite stars.
The Hollywood Wax Museum opened in 1965, and is the longest running wax museum in the United States. On our visit, we had no problem locating the museum because of the iconic neon sign on Hollywood Boulevard. I’ve seen the sign in tons of movies and television shows, but never realized that each of the 17 stars on the sign represent the founder’s children and grandchildren! In fact, the museum still has three generations of the founder’s family operating it, and working to expand the brand.
Since Ayva was with us, I asked the rep at the front desk how we could avoid really scary wax figures. He let us know how we could miss anything that might frighten her. With the exception of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ayva enjoyed seeing the celebrity wax figures, even if she didn’t want to get too close! The museum encourages picture taking and was really designed for guests to engage and interact with the wax figures. I loved hamming it up with some of my favorite Hollywood icons. Terrence had fun, too, posing and acting silly. We really had a fun time, and Ayva thought it was hilarious that her parents were acting so crazy!
The Hollywood Wax Museum works with a bunch of different artists, mold makers, sculptors, and finishers to create wax figures. Each figure is really a work of art. When we got close to the figures and inspected, we could see that the artists spared no detail. Everything from the inner ear to the nostrils were perfectly sculpted. It was really interesting to see how there was so much attention to detail on each of the wax figures.
This was a fun stop on our mini-vacation, and I’d recommend it for families with children over 4 years old. Do like I did and ask the folks at the front desk the “non-scary” route to tour the museum. Don’t force your little one to take photos with the figures if they don’t seem interested. I think we only were able to get Ayva to pose for one or two photos, but when we left, she said that she still had a lot of fun, even if she didn’t want to get close to the figures!
If you’re interested in visiting the Hollywood Wax Museum, check out their website, like them on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.