The Museum called

I just got a call to follow up on my letter. She explained to me how they deliberately took out the family membership, after feedback of their members, to offer more flexibility. I agreed that I liked the new flexibility, but I also would appreciate the family option.

She offered our family an 8 person option at $120, which might be ok for us. But I still feel that the family option should be added to their offerings. Not to mention that this lives out dh when we visit. Granted, most of the time it is me and the kids, but still...

She said it was very uncomfortable for the front desk to have to decide who is a family, and that's one of the reasons they got rid of it. What if they were just neighbors coming in together on a family pass? They do not want people to have to describe their family situation... A friend said that it sounded like someone had been juggling numbers, and they weren't looking at people. So many other places offer family memberships, and they don't seem to have issues like this.

I countered with the Boston aquarium where we got in as a family with two extra kids just fine without anyone batting an eye, they have a great membership structure there. (We got something flexible, where we either can bring 6 unrelated people, or one family and two guests)

I asked why our family with seven kids would cost THAT much more money than my friend with two kids. She said it's a lot more costs the the museum when 600 people visit than when 300 visit in a day, which seemed to evade the issue.

Is the occasional large family going to double their visitors for the day??? Is adding back a family option going to hurt their bottom line? I doubt it.

Pondering on next steps. I told her that I still wasn't satisfied with the lack of a family option. She told me it was not going to be brought back.

It is hard to come up with immediate counter arguments on the phone, I prefer writing.

Pondering on next step, I welcome any suggestions.