Skip-the-Line General Admission Ticket??

So ... I paid for 4 pieces of "Skip-the-Line General Admission" tickets to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. I looked forward to thumbing my nose at others while we saunter in through the main entrance with our online ticket ... but was stopped at the entrance after waiting for our turn. "Please go to the service desk to get the actual tickets." What the ... ???

I felt so cheated. What "Skip the Line"??? It should be "Go-to-the-Other-Line General Admission" ticket! That's so, so, so lame. And, why weren't there any signs to point to newcomers like me where the line for e-tickets is at? Why did we have to queue up THREE times??? The first time to get pointed out where to get the ticket. The second time to get the actual darn tickets. And then get back into the original line to get in. They had another door behind their service desk - why couldn't they create a special entrance for e-ticket holders? *sigh*

Anyway, we had fun today. Didn't get to read anything about the exhibits because the boys were too impatient to stay in one place long enough for us to read anything. I was paranoid about losing them so I kept an eagle eye on them throughout the whole trip. I wished I had more time to look at the natural history museum - those Safari animal displays looked really cool and real. I almost expected them to come alive like the movie "Night at the Museum". That would be really cool!

We visited a real planetarium for the first time. It was cool. It tricked my mind into the sensation of flying up, diving down, and jetting through objects, or in this case, cells and stars. J was a pain though. He made so much ruckus that even V had to give him a verbal warning, which J listened. All my "quiet" admonishes didn't do a whit. At least he had fun.

J got to see his butterflies and L got to see his fishes. Me? I got to see the cool dinosaur bones.

One word to sum up my thoughts on the exhibits: cool.