After nearly six months of closure, a sense of normalcy flooded MOXI, The Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation as little kids zoomed around from exhibit to exhibit, eager to get their hands on one of the many interactive displays the Santa Barbara museum offers.
“We just see so many happy, smiling faces,” Robin Gose, president and CEO of MOXI, told Noozhawk. “Coming back to a comfortable space again has been very healing for the kids, since many have spent so long learning on Zoom classes and here we get to offer them hands-on exploration and interaction.”
MOXI, located at 125 State St. in the Funk Zone, reopened its doors on April 29, just a week after Santa Barbara County advanced to the orange level of California’s tiered COVID-19 reopening framework. In the first four days of opening, the museum welcomed around 800 guests, Gose said.
“People were ready to come,” she said. “We’ve had so many parents and grandparents tell us that kids have been asking about when they would be able to come back, and now we get to give them that opportunity.”
Despite the 50% capacity limit for museums that the tiered framework mandates, MOXI first reopened at 25% capacity and will be slowly increasing the capacity limits as time moves forward, Gose said.
Like many of the other museums and industries that have reopened since the county’s advance to the less-restrictive orange tier, MOXI implemented a series of new guidelines and protocols to accommodate public health and safety guidelines.
All guests over the age of 2 must wear a face covering at all times, guests must be in groups of no more than nine people from the same household, and one-way pathways are sectioned out in select areas to help maintain social distancing.
Instead of operating seven days a week like it did in pre-coronavirus times, MOXI is open only from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays.
As the rate of COVID-19 transmission slows across Santa Barbara County, many museums and entertainment centers have reopened to the public.
The State Street Visitor Center, operated by the Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce at 120 State St., is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. With both locals and visitors from abroad, the visitor center has never been dead at any time, manager Ruairi Bateson said.
“The last 20 weeks here have been off-the-wall crazy every weekend,” he said. “The weeks before spring break, you wouldn’t even think a pandemic was going on.”
The Santa Barbara Zoo, at 500 Niños Dr., reopened Jan. 30 and has seen strong attendance since, said Rich Block, the zoo’s CEO.
The 500-plus-animal zoo has been managing admissions through an advance online ticket system so it is able to spread out attendance through the day, he said.
“As challenging as responding to the guideline requirements for the pandemic was, there were a lot of bright spots in that and one of those was this timed ticketing system,” Block said.
“The benefit of that is that the overall number of people visiting has been strong, but the experience is much better for zoo guests because it’s not as crowded. There are no long lines and parking is much easier.”
Another great example of programming that was developed as the result of the pandemic is the After Hours at the Zoo program, said Jennifer Zacharias, spokeswoman for the zoo.
After Hours at the Zoo, which runs from 4 to 7 p.m. Fridays through Sundays, allows guests to experience the 30-acre campus during Santa Barbara’s golden hours of the evening.
“If people spend the day working and want to end their day on something lighter, it gives them the opportunity to come and relax and enjoy the animals after work,” Block said.
The program also gives the zoo a way to accommodate guests during a typically less busy time of day, Zacharias added.
While some indoor and high-touch areas of the zoo are still closed, attendance at the facility has still been incredibly successful, Block said.
The Santa Barbara Historical Museum reopened April 21, and is open from noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and noon to 7 p.m. Thursday, museum deputy director Dacia Harwood said.
“We opened up a couple of weeks ago, and really the primary changes are just super predictable things like watching capacity and reminding visitors to wear masks and use the additional hand sanitizing stations that we have installed,” she said.
The museum, located at 136 E. De la Guerra St., caps capacity at 50% and monitors it through in-person and video footage, she added. Since reopening, the museum has been pretty busy with both locals and tourists coming to enjoy the galleries and outdoor spaces, Harwood said.
“We’re also seeing a big uptick in people looking for a venue to rent or schedule private events, which opened back up on April 15,” she added.
The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, at 2559 Puesta Del Sol, is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays, and indoor and outdoor exhibits are open to a limited number of guests who reserve online in advance.
The Sea Center at Stearns Wharf is also open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays, with tickets available at the door.
The main galleries at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, located at 653 Paseo Nuevo, are open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays.
The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, at 113 Harbor Way in the marina, is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays, but will return to its regular six-day schedule with Wednesdays closed beginning June 7, said Rita Serotkin, the museum’s marketing and social media coordinator.
Indoor exhibit space is open with capacity carefully monitored and restricted to 50% by ticket sales and museum entry, she said. The high-touch children’s exhibits have been roped off but have been replaced with take-home materials and kits that include coloring books and crayons, she added.
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, located at 1130 State St., will reopen May 11, and advance ticketing reservations are highly recommended. The museum will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays, with longer hours — to 8 p.m. — on Thursdays. The suggested visit time is one hour, and guests should arrive no later than 10 minutes before their scheduled time to avoid crowding, according to museum organizers.
The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, at 1212 Mission Canyon Road, is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.
Self-guided tours resumed Feb. 13 at Ganna Walska Lotusland Botanic Garden, which is open from 9:15 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays on Cold Spring Road in Montecito. Reservations are required and available two weeks prior to the visit, according to Lotusland organizers.
While the interior of the Santa Barbara County Courthouse, located at 1100 Anacapa St., is closed to the public, self-guided tours are available for the courthouse’s exterior. Visitors can also digitally visit the Mural Room through a virtual tour that the courthouse offers.
Self-guided tours are also available at the Santa Barbara Mission, at 2201 Laguna St., from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays.
Docent-guided tours are not available at this time, but the mission gift shop, parking lot and restrooms are open from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.
The Elverhoj Museum of History and Art, located at 1624 Elverhoy Way in Solvang, reopened April 9 and is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays through Mondays. There are early hour appointments for museum members and those who are immunocompromised or have special needs from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Fridays through Sundays, said Linda Palmer, head of visitor services.
“Attendance has been amazing,” she said. “We think to ourselves over and over about how kind people are, people have been very COVID-conscientious without us even having to ask.”
The museum monitors capacity with a clicker as people walk in, and capacity is maxed at 50%, Palmer said.
The Wildling Museum, at 1511-B Mission Drive in Solvang, is open to the public from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
Face masks are required for all visitors over the age of 2 at all times, and attendance is limited to 25% capacity, according to museum organizers. Visitors have self-directed access to the galleries and follow a one-way flow of floor decals in specified areas.
Residents can also experience the museum at home through the museum’s virtual visit website.
The Santa Maria Museum of Flight, located at 3015 Airpark Drive, reopened March 26 and is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and noon to 3 p.m. Sundays.
The museum took advantage of the COVID-19 shutdown by making improvements while it was closed, said Richard Persons, a board member. Among the improvements was the refurbishment of the Santa Maria Valley Ninety-Nines Runway of Roses garden and educational display and maintenance to the hangar building, he said.
Zodo’s Bowling & Beyond, at 5925 Calle Real in Goleta, reopened its bowling alley and arcade and is also open for indoor and outdoor dining. Beginning May 10, Zodo’s hours of operation will change to 4 to 10 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and noon to 10 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
Zodo’s is not currently taking reservations, but guests can call the front desk prior to arriving to see if there is a waitlist.
— Noozhawk staff writer Jade Martinez-Pogue can be reached at jmartinez-pogue@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
