Mob Museum, Las Vegas

The Mob Museum, located in Las Vegas, Nevada, is more than just a museum. Offering interactive experiences, such as the Crime Scene Investigator and Firearms Training, as well as having a Distillery and Speakeasy on premises make this a fun adventure for anyone. 

There are three floors of traditional museum with displays, exhibits, and films exploring different pathways of organized crime, the most notorious crime lords, and public portrayal of such events. Drugs, murder, money laundering, animal poaching, human trafficking, and more will keep visitors interested in the educational components. You can do a self-guided tour, audio tour, or group led tour. 

I did the Crime Scene experience and the Firearms Training experience. For the Crime Scene experience, you enter a laboratory through a door with a fingerprint on it. Inside, you complete several stages of forensics with an introduction to each to help you through. My favorite and the one I did the best on was the fingerprint analysis where you scan your own fingerprint and narrow it down by type and subtype until you get a close-ish match to a famous mobster in the system. Other activities completed during this experience included ballistics, where you match a bullet with another bullet fired from the same gun, crime scene mapping, examining DNA on collected evidence, and completing autopsy. 

While the crime scene experience was informative, I found the firearms training experience to be much more fun as I did a lot better with that one. You enter into the "police academy" and put all your belongings in a locker and are given an officer belt. Then they take you into the training room where they give you a laser gun that is the same weight, shape, and feel as a real 9mm but shoots a laser instead of an empty or a bullet. They teach you the proper way to hold, shoot, and holster your gun and you practice shooting at a target before moving to the next room. 3 of my 4 practice shots were perfect and my final 4th shot was slightly lower. In the next room, you do a video game scenario with the same laser gun of a convenience store armed robbery. The guide is there to walk you through every step of the way if needed. Then you move to a similar video game style room of a private residence call. Finally, you move to a room with a live person where you need to deescalate the situation and get her to comply. My shots were spot on and it was nice to have the guide there to help tell me what to do. It was more personal than the CSI experience and I feel I did better at it which made me enjoy it more as well. 

The third experience they offer is a distillery tour. The ticket package I purchased only allowed 2/3 experiences so I didn't do this one and therefore can't comment on it other than it exists, and I think you get some moonshine tasting at the end. 

Once you finish exploring the museum, watching the films, and completing your experiences, head down to the basement where there's a hidden speakeasy to help take you back to prohibition era. If you're only interested in the speakeasy, you can enter through a side door to just come for the food and drink. I was there right around when the speakeasy opened for the day, so it wasn't popping very much. I recommend going later in the evening or at night. While the museum closes at a normal time, the speakeasy stays open into the night as a bar. 

Overall, I had fun! If I had more time, I would've spent more time there, but I had to get to the aquarium for my other bookings. If you're in Las Vegas, definitely check out the Mob Museum and their Speakeasy.