I’m posting this, not because I was amazed by the Titantic Museum Attraction — I’ve never been there — but, because I find it amazing that this kind of museum finds a home in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. To me, it seems the unlikeliest of spots. Do you know of other museums that seem out of place?
Titanic Museum Attraction is a half-scale, permanent, three-deck recreation of the Titanic. The museum houses 20 galleries to
display nearly 400 authentic, priceless Titanic artifacts that were either carried from the ship and into lifeboats by passengers and crew, or were found afloat soon after the sinking and quickly salvaged by rescue boats.
Inside the Titanic Museum Attraction, visitors find full-size recreations (built to actual Titanic blueprints) of Third-Class quarters, a First-Class suite, dining rooms and – the museum’s centerpiece – a $1 million exact reproduction of the Titanic’s Grand Staircase. The First-Class suite in the Titanic Museum Attraction, which is dedicated to Isidor and Ida Straus who co-owned Macy’s Department Stores, was also the cabin used in James Cameron’s blockbuster movie Titanic as Rose’s suite.In addition to being a world class museum in the truest sense of the word, Titanic Museum Attraction is also highly interactive and offers a hands-on experience for children, teenagers and adults. The ship is anchored in water to create the illusion of Titanic at sea, and a two-hour self-guided tour gives guests the sensation of sailing on the original ship’s 1912 maiden voyage.
Upon entry, each guest receives a boarding pass bearing the name of an actual Titanic passenger or crew member whose fate is revealed on the Memorial Wall at tour end. Along the way, powerful emotions surface as guests:
• Walk Titanic’s Grand Staircase
• Touch the frozen surface of an “iceberg”
• Feel the chill of that fateful “Starry Night”
• Test the 28 degree water
• Interact with various Titanic models
• Grip the ship’s wheel and follow the Captain’s commands
• Tour world-class galleries and the 300 rare historical artifacts
• Sit in a Titanic lifeboat and listen to actual survivors tell their stories
• Send an SOS from the Marconi Wireless Room
• Test their balance while standing on mini-decks built to show the ever-steeper slope of Titanic as she sank
• Watch children eight years and younger explore the special interactive TOT-Titanic Play-and-Learn Room. 1) steer a ship 2) Meet the Titanic Polar Bear 3) build the Titanic ship
• Dive to Titanic’s wreck site via spectacular underwater camera footage from the owner who put the second Titanic expedition together and produced the first Titanic TV special.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
