Puget Sound Navy Museum 251 1st Street, Bremerton, WA 98337

"The kids loved the museum (ages 4 and 7). We spent about two hours exploring and learning. The kid’s especially loved playing in the science room with the machines and robots! They had fun playing dress up in the galley as well! Great museum!"

"I'm a navy veteran and learned about the museum while planning my trip to Bremerton. The ferry ride was amazing and the scenery from Seattle to the islands was breathtaking."

"This is an official US Navy Museum, free admission, located just outside the main gate to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on the Bremerton waterfront. There is not parking nearby - you'll have to find a street spot up the road and walk down. Be conscious of the time limits for your parking, this museum can take a couple hours to work through and most of the parking is 2 hours max. Beware also that trying to drive down to the museum directly can easily result in ending up at the guard shack for the ferry - if that happens, just tell the guard you're there for the museum and they'll let you turn around. But you'll have to wait in line until you reach the shack... so just avoid it in the first place and do NOT continue on the road that passes the museum. Now, as far as the museum, it's ok. I have been three times and it's more interesting each time, but it still feels underwhelming compared to other navy museums like the undersea one in Keyport and the national one in DC, or the submarine force museum in Groton. There's plenty here to teach you about the shipyard itself, but not really that much on the navy... it's heavily local focused. There's also WAY too much reliance on text and photos, instead of primary artifacts. Some exhibits are literally just walls with works painted on them. That, to me, is unacceptable. The artifacts the museum has on display are, frankly, pretty boring too. Wooden patterns for chains and nuts and other assorted ship fittings, some helmets, some obscure and mundane snips, wedges, and other tools, a time clock, some signs, etc. The most interesting items are the bell from the Navy's first ammunition ship, USS Pyro, and the skylight from the old gunboat Nipsic that survived the Apra Harbor disaster and went on to be PSNY's original headquarters during construction of buildings ashore. I was EXTREMELY disappointed that there was nothing - not a single piece - of the famous battleship USS Washington on display anymore. The museum tells me the wheel and bell from that ship are in storage to go back to DC, which is stupid, since the namesake is the state of Washington. The only USS Seattle they have anything from is the Cold War-era replenishment ship, so nothing from the famous armored cruiser that served as the US fleet flagship in the 1920s and survived longer than any other ship of her type. Hugely missed opportunity. I understand the museum is going for interactivity, but the result of such a lack of artifacts is that many of the rooms feel empty other than the paint on the walls, and some of the exhibits just don't flow because they're all vertical-space. I continue to be disappointed in this place for this exact reason. The best exhibit overall is the Nimitz-class carrier exhibit upstairs, which definitely represents the features of that kind of ship well, and is informative and full of items from the John C. Stennis (CVN-74). The patrol boats exhibit, while interesting to read, is another huge miss when it comes to artifacts. A couple models, a boxed game, a couple badges, and a builder's plaque is all they could really muster here... meanwhile two of the ships shown in pictures on the wall were laying around like so much junk just three hours southwest in Astoria, Oregon. Sad they couldn't get some actual artifacts to support the exhibit. Overall, it's still an informative museum and is well maintained, so I can't consciously give it less than three stars. But I was definitely disappointed at the lack of actual navy items on display for being a navy museum. It just feels incoherent and empty unless you're either a/ totally unaware of anything navy and this is your first exposure to the topic or b/ really, really interested in the shipyard."

"This place was really well done. Lots of interactive displays and scale models. Lots of great and detailed information. I really liked all of the pieces that were on display that people actually owned and wore. Kid friendly too!"

"Updated 05/20/23: I had a great chance to visit the museum again. The senior citizens up front are super helpful and amazing. They have locker rooms for your bags, and backpacks in front. I love coming back and back to this historical museum to re-learn about our awesome memorial history. This museum is above what I expected as a historical location. I had a lot of fun and an exciting journey to learn and discover sailors’ life and the establishment of the shipyard in the 1890s and contemporary world. There is no admission fee to enter, and its location is close to the ferry terminal. Everyone can check it out quickly when waiting for the ferry. I have been here two times and still feel great not only the museum’s contents but also the staff’s hospitality and friendliness."