Mr Al Young Dot Com

On Sunday my family plus my mother in law visited the California Academy of Science in Golden Gate Park.  If you have not visited the Academy of Science yet, it is well worth it for adults and kids alike.  While it is worthwile to visit it is not cheap especially for a family.  However we got to experience the Academy for free.  How?  With mystery shopping.  Mystery shopping involves visiting a business and getting paid to rate their customer services so thye could improve the customer experience.  For example dining at a restaurant and rating the server and food.  Years ago I did a few mystery shopping assignments for a few restauants in which I got a free meal out of it, but this assignment at the academy is much more lucrative.

Our assignment allowed us to get up to 4 adults into the academy(kids under 7 are free), spend $25 in a gift shop and lunch.  Once inside we can visit anything we want, but we are required to visit and rate several exhibits as well as a gift shop and a cafe during our visit.  All the exhibits were great.  I particularly enjoyed the aquarium.  I heard the planetarium was also very impressive, but I fell asleep.  Very comfortable chairs though.  Oh well, it was free.  The cafe was surprisingly very good too.  While the assignment gave us a budget for the gift shop it did not specify an amount we could spend on lunch.  So I ordered everything.  I hope I get reimbursed for lunch.  My rating of lunch may have been biased due to the fact that I was very hungry and it was free(I hope).

Had we had to pay it would have been a very expensive day.  With parking, food, and admission we are looking at close to $200.  Of course I would have probably bought my own food in.  If you get a chance to take a mystery shopping assignment it is certainly worthwhile.