Having never been to the Peabody Essex Museum before, I don't have the previous reviewers' perspectives on the museum's offerings pre and post renovations. My husband, 7 yr old daughter and I went for the first time on a Sunday afternoon about a week ago. I can say that the atrium is beautiful, a wonderful greeting and meeting place. There are a number of small tables and a self-serve cafe on the atrium's periphery which offered sandwiches, salads, cookies, bottle water and the like for the hungry or thirsty patron.

Handheld audio tours were free, and we availed ourselves of them only to discover they added little or nothing to the written information that was already displayed in the exhibits, with the exception of within the Yin Yu Tang house, where the audio tours were the only way to get any information. The Yin Yu Tang house was fascinating and quite educational and it's worth a visit just for that, but we enjoyed many of the museum's other exhibits as well. The Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Native American Art Collections were quite interesting. We also liked the Carved by Nature special exhibit. Because of time constraints we did not get to see either of the Indian art exhibits so I can't comment on them.

The East India Marine Hall was impressive architecturally and the large pieces of maritime are on display were cool but as a venue for the display of smaller artifacts I think it was lacking. There were four interactive computer touch screens which allowed you to get more information on the displays in that hall. Personally, I found working through the menus a cumbersome process and would have preferred traditional written plaques. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that several of the computers were not working (due to the heat, one tourguide suggested). The other thing I found odd in this room is that many of the artifacts were on high shelves in the cabinets, so you really couldn't see them well (except by using the non-functioning computers, I guess).

All-in-all, we passed a couple of pleasant hours here, and would recommend it to anyone in the area. No, it's not the MFA, but then I didn't expect it to be.