MAV - Virtual Archaeological Museum

Interesting place and worked well to do before visiting Herculaneum. We got the train in and it was a straight walk down between the station and Herculaneum. The staff were friendly and helpful. The 3d film was good and a bit different, narrated from the perspective of Vesuvius. Some of the exhibits weren't working, but without a sign you had to guess by waving in front of them to see if anything happened! Well worth a visit.

An easy to miss highlight of any visit to Herculaneum. The museum is virtual so an up to date smart phone is needed. You will need to download their app and log into the wi-fi. Once that is done, you are underway. The tour starts with a 3-D film about the volcano and how the eruption covered the two towns. After that you go downstairs and each section you can interact with using your phone. There is a nice drone sequence of the Roman town using a games controller. There is another area where they have linked up different names to the images found in the ruins, and you can find out about the people on a personal level. It is well worth a visit when you come to see Herculaneum. In fact you have to pass it from the train station. The gift shop is aimed at children more than Herculaneum with rubbers, pens, pencils and imitation coins. The cafe is great and it is very cheap. Don't miss it.

Mediocre at best.. the first few sections were fine but the phone scanner rarely worked. They said to download an app in case of any problems but the audio sections were out of sequence to the actual museum so made it hard to follow, especially as not everything was signposted. The 3D experience at the end was great, though but when we went to use the toilets before leaving, they had no running water so you could not flush or wash your hands. Went and spoke the the lady on the desk and apparently she already knew but failed to tell us beforehand! Luckily I had hand sanitizer. I would not recommend visiting here as it appears outdated and run down. 👎🏼

Not worth the €11 entry. It wasn't what I consider to be interactive and the phone scanner didn't work for most of the exhibition. The order of narration on the app wasn't sequential so it all became rather pointless and confusing. The 3D experience at the end was good, narrated from the point of view of Vesuvius. All-in-all, not recommended which is a shame as it has the potential to be excellent.

Interesting museum to visit in combination with Herculaneum itself. Sadly, I cannot justify the €11 entry cost. It may have been worth it when the museum was in its prime, but somehow this "virtual" museum feels dated and the app you have to download to experience the museum feels like a step back compared to having plaques or buttons to press to play audio logs...

Interesting, especially appealing to kids (possibly except the lupanar :) Tip: getting the MAV tickets at the real archaeological site close-by (Ercolano Scavi, info desk at the entrance) gets you a small discount (8€ instead of 10€ at the MAV ticket office directly).

Too many times the audio is out of sync with the video. Very disappointed. It could have been a nice idea but it was boring and disappointing.

The place is worth visiting. Before we visted we red few reviews some unfairly critical. Of course the is room to improve as everywhere in Italy but place is worth visting.