I really learned a lot about history of the area and Mel Fisher's quest to find this treasure. I didn't know about all of the hardships and tragedy it took to recover the treasures. Fantastic artifacts. I loved learning about the pirates and the Spanish explores. A wonderful history lesson plus seeing all of the artifacts made everything real. The emeralds and gold jewelry were beautiful. We got the headphones with the recorded tour which explained things even further than just reading the placards. Not necessary, but nice.

We learned a lot about Mel Fisher and his hunt for the Atocha. A number of the audio-visual features in the museum were not running. I was inspired to come home and watch the Nat Geo special on the hunt for the Atocha and learned some additional info.

Fantastic place for even the history challenged. More than a treasure hunter gallery, the museum wraps history and science around Mr. Fisher's and team's decades of underwater archeology. Highly recommend the Behind the Scenes Conservation Laboratory tour, before visiting the exhibits. Not only does one better understand the purpose of the museum, you will get more out of the museum exhibits afterwards. Virginia was an amazing tour guide for the lab, and was both very patient with my (too) many questions and an enthusiastic champion of the museum and its critical work in archeology. Children and adults alike will both enjoy and learn. A must see.

An interesting glimpse of history of the new world. One wonders at how all that treasure was accumulated. The story behind his years long search for the treasure and the US govt's attempt to steal it from him offer real insites into both Mr Fisher and govt bureacrats

I had been to this museum 20 years ago and had enjoyed it. The exhibits were good but were focused on telling the story of the Spanish life of the artifacts and on wrecking finding techniques. There was not as much awe inspiring gold as I remembered.

Unique museum. Great history surrounding Caribbean treasure hunting and Mell Fisher. Also has a well done section centering around a wrecked slave trading ship and the impact it had on The Key West community.

While the history of the Atocha may be lost on a fair number of Key West visitors I am a shipwreck geek and dragged my wife along to visit Mel’s place. The artifacts on display are tremendous and there is so much history to read. The facade of the building was under construction when we visited and the sounds of jackhammers was a bit distracting but the museum is absolutely worth some time (and the construction should be finished shortly). Today’s the day!

An interesting stop - it only takes a couple of hours to get through the exhibits. Don't bother with the audio - you don't need it the information is duplicated within written the exhibits. Cute little gift shop - we picked up an interesting map of Florida ship wrecks.