Fredericksburg Battlefield and Visitor Center, Fredericksburg

Visited on a Tuesday in late December after Christmas holiday around noonish. They visitor wasn't too crowded. Just the right amount of people to feel comfortable. It also comes in waves with showing of the movie and when the video ends. Every hour and half hour there is a 22 min video that plays in the auditorium in basement. Highly recommend. It was created within the last decade and very informative. Its narrated by James Earl Jones. It may be a little graphic for younger or sensitive children. The rangers and volunteers at the front desk were super friendly ans knowledgeable. The exhibits look very nice and updated. Its broken into multiple rooms throughout the buildings on multiple floors. There are a couple interactive ones as well with lots of items and not just text on walls. The bathrooms were very nice and clean and located downstairs. There are also some located outside the park store which is a different building adjacent to the parking lot. The park store is well equipted and very nice. We had a fun conversation with the employee behind the counter. She was very helpful and friendly. The national park stamps are provides here. Make sure to ask for the extra special stamps and they arent always put out on the table since there isn't much space for the stamping. There are national park tokens here as well but not at the chancellorsville store. There are specific pins and merchandise here that can't be purchased at the chancellorsville store either and vice versa. So if you plan to visit both don't assume everything is avilable at both locations. Junior ranger program here is very cool. They dont have the badges but have a center patch with 4 rockers. One for each of the sites. Fredericksburg, chancellorsville, wilderness and spotsylvania. Only Fredericksburg and chancellorsville have vistor centers. The Fredericksburg location has the junior ranger book for spotsylvania as well. The Chancellorsville visitor center has books for the wilderness. The 0.5 trail outside was very nice and mostly paved. This needs to be done to answer some of the questions in the junior ranger book. It took us about 2 hrs to watch the video and walk through exhibits (without reading everything) and complete the outdoor trail for the junior ranger program. You could probably do it in 90 mins if you had a determined group of older kids. Add another 30 mins for the store. We could've spent more time here but everyone was getting hungry and we wanted to visit Chancellorsville as well. Probably wouldn't visit again after the first time. We saw about 90% of everything we wanted to but it was worth the one visit.

It was a beautiful experience filled with historical information. Staff at the center are always helpful and informative .