In September, we were fortunate enough to squeeze in a family vacation, despite the fact that my husband recently started a new job and has very little time available to take off of work. We live about 3 hours from Branson, Missouri, so it’s an easy choice of somewhere family friendly to go, that’s not a long trip for us.
We’ve been going to Branson for years and we always drive past the Titanic Museum, but never took the time to visit it. The kids kept begging though! To be honest, I was worried the younger kids wouldn’t like it and we have a lot of younger kids!
This time, we decided we wanted to give it a try. To our delight, all the kids had a great time! They all came away LOVING it!
I couldn’t take pictures while in the museum, but wow, were we impressed with everything we got to see while we were there.
When we arrived, we were welcomed aboard the ship and given audio devices and a short lesson on how to use them. They had certain devices for kids and ones for older kids & adults where we could take an audio guided tour that explained each main point throughout the museum.
They also gave each of us a card explaining who we were on the boat. The card gave a brief history of who that person was and we were supposed to find out if we lived or died at the end of our voyage. Amazingly, of the 8 cards that we received, most of our lives were spared! What made it even more fun, is that the kids were given cards to represent children that were on the Titanic and adults were given adult cards. We all had different ones, and that made our experience that much more enjoyable!
There were many highlights to the museum. From seeing just how many children were on the boat, to seeing how many and what types of dogs were aboard. The absolute favorite for my kids was seeing how long they could keep their hand in the water that was the same temperature of the water that the ship was sinking into. I had one brave child make it over 3 minutes! Her hand was so completely numb!
Did You Like the Titanic Museum? What Was Your Favorite Part?
Since I have such a wide age range of children, I thought I’d ask them what they thought of our visit and share that with you. They all thought it was a really neat experience!
- Mom: I loved that it made education fun. We could learn about the history of the building of the Titanic boat and enjoy learning. There were many neat artifacts and a fun, hands on way to learn some history and spend time together as a family.
- Son, Age 17: “I liked learning how historically accurate the movie was.”
- Daughter, Age 14: “I liked the part where they had names on the boarding passes and you could follow the story of the person on your card. I also liked hearing about how the musicians played the whole time, until they literally couldn’t any more.”
- Daugter, Age 12: “I think it was the really cold room.”
- Daughter, Age 9: “Putting my hand in the cold water and the cold room!”
- Daughter, Age 5: “The freezing cold water! It was neat to feel how cold the Titanic water was. I also liked the big ice cube at the beginning and the shovel where you could shovel coals into the fire to keep the boat going.”
- Son, Age 3: “I liked the little phone thing with the music”. (LOL, this was the audio device…it really made an impression on him!)
- Baby, Age 6 months: While I loved looking at all the cool things, I was so glad that it was baby and stroller friendly. Mom even found a nice bench to take a break on while she fed me. A baby’s got to eat when a baby’s got to eat. Even in the Titanic Museum!
Obviously, we had a great time while we were there! I would highly recommend the Titanic Museum if you are ever in Pigeon Forge, TN or Branson, MO. It’s a great place to make lasting memories. In fact, if you find you’re in the area soon, their Christmas season just opened up on November 1st. Go see the Titanic all decked out in it’s Christmas garb. I bet it’s beautiful in there!
Leave a Reply