Mark on the Shore

Mark’s Score   8.7

Ever since I visited the Ghost Museum in 2025, I have been planning to visit the Mermaid Museum. However, the museum was closed for refurbishment, and did not reopen until this spring. I recently had an opportunity to visit the new improved Mermaid Museum and it was worth the wait.

The Mermaid Museum was created by Alyssa Maloof (the owner of the Ghost Museum, see my review) in March 2020. The purpose of the Mermaid Museum is to celebrate the folklore of Mermaids across cultures, inspire imagination and creativity, and provide an interactive family-oriented experience. The museum contains historical depictions of mermaids, mermaid themed toys, books, mermaid costumes, and a variety of whimsical curiosities and illustrations.  

I am not sure if it was Maloof’s intention or not, but my first impression of the Mermaid Museum was exactly the same as the Ghost Museum. You climb a long set of stairs to get to a single large room that reminds me of an old dance studio. When I arrived, I was the only patron. You enter the one room museum through a small foyer. As soon as you enter, there is a large treasure chest full of costumes, the importance of which at first escaped me.

I was curious as to what a “mermaid museum” would contain. How do you make a museum dedicated to a fictional creature of maritime mythology? You do it with light-hearted delightful whimsy and some really excellent curating work. At first blush, the museum looks like just a collection of haphazard bric-a-brac, and if you left the museum with that conclusion, you would have missed the point entirely. 

The museum is meant to be playful. There is an old bathtub with fish fins hanging out of it. There is a giant scallop shell   with “mermaid scales” draped over the bottom. There is a Cheeto in the “shape of a mermaid.” At first blush it seems all a bit silly, until you grasp Maloof’s vision. Like the Ghost Museum, this museum is meant to be playfully educational and interactive. The room contains many items that detail the history of the myth of mermaids from Pliny the Elder to PT Barnum, and Disney’s Muriel. It chronicles the many forms of the mermaid myth across cultures. 

But the real genius is in the interactivity. There is a thoroughly engaging wall where patrons are encouraged to draw depictions of mermaids, and there are hundreds of drawings, which brings me back to the chest at the entrance. A few minutes after I entered, a family with two young girls came entered the museum. They immediately went to the chest and the girls dressed their father, grandfather, and mother in mermaid costumes.  Soon the room was filled with laughter and squeals of mirth. Before I knew it, they had me laughing with them. 

At the end of the day the Mermaid Museum is delightfully whimsical, highly imaginative, well researched, and curated recounting of the myth of mermaids and their place across culture and time. What more do you want out of a museum?  

What else is there to do in Berlin?

Don’t want to miss any of my posts? Follow me on my Facebook Page.