Wednesday, August 6, 2025
By Caroline Woodward
Bubble Planet is an immersive art and sensory experience centered around the concept of, you guessed it, bubbles. The highly Instagrammable spot opened on June 26th at Rhode Island Center and features such attractions as an LED light room, a selfie room with colorful and creative backgrounds, a giant bubble pit, and a VR experience.
There are several positives to Bubble Planet. The exhibit is extensive, with more rooms than one may anticipate, each offering varied and unique activities in each. A visitor is allowed a lot of choice and freedom within each room, being able to spend as much time as they wish in each. Some of these rooms are incredibly aesthetic and, as I mentioned earlier, the perfect place to take a photo. So, if you are looking for a creative backdrop to an Instagram post, Bubble Planet may be the perfect place to visit.
However, I couldn’t help but be underwhelmed by the end of my visit due to the lackluster quality of the exhibits, most of which seemed to be thrown together at the last minute. Beyond the lack of substance within the exhibits, Bubble Planet is poorly marketed and not entirely transparent about certain associated costs. Much of the information about this exhibit online seems to focus its aims at teens or young adults, showing visitors within that age range running around the exhibit, taking pictures, and generally having fun. However, in reality, Bubble Planet is much more suited for young children and families with kids due to the previously mentioned slightly underdeveloped attractions.
As for transparency, the Bubble Planet website markets the virtual reality aspect alongside its other attractions, indicating that this experience is included with the baseline ticket. However, there is an extra charge to participate that can either be added to the already $23 to $32 tickets (price ranges depending on the day) or that a visitor can pay directly at the VR room. This is not made clear except in the FAQ section of their website.
Overall, much like the bubbles that this exhibit is themed around, Bubble Planet as an experience centers around aesthetics but lacks substance. I can only truly recommend a family with young children. For this demographic, Bubble Planet offers a fairly exciting time, one that is sure to keep kids occupied and interested for at least an hour. For anyone else, Bubble Planet should be kept off your DC bucket list.
Bubble Planet D.C. will be running until January 4, 2026. You can find tickets here.