If you are a viewer of “Live with Regis and Kelly” (I am) then you know that Branson, Missouri has a new, must-see family attraction. Its official name is: “The World’s Largest Titanic Museum Attraction,” and Regis was recently a celebrity guest at the opening festivities. He raved about it during the “host chat” portion of the show and it peaked my curiosity enough to search for additional information to see whether it was worth the time and money to pack up my family and head to Missouri.
Here’s what I found. If you are driving through Branson, you don’t have to worry about missing the museum’s exit off of Highway 76. Unlike traveling exhibits, Titanic Branson, is a permanent two-story museum attraction shaped like Titanic herself. It was built half-scale to the original and towers 100 feet above the highway. The building is anchored in water to create the illusion that it is floating at sea. To further enhance its authenticity, the pool of water that the bow of the ship sits in sprays water as though it were cutting through the ocean.
If you visit the attraction’s website, www.titanicbranson.com, you learn that visitors enter the museum through a mock iceberg tip that juts out of the ships’ side. Once inside, you take a 90-minute, self-guided tour past more than 400 artifacts in twenty galleries. The tour is designed to make you feel as though you are a passenger aboard the ship’s ill-fated 1912 maiden voyage. (In fact, your boarding pass includes the name of a passenger who was aboard that maiden voyage.) You can also climb the grand staircase, which was rebuilt especially for this exhibit. The staircase takes you from the third to first-class cabins and proceeds to a darkened deck area chilled to recreate the same conditions Titanic passengers felt in April 1912. The deck also provides a barely-there view of an iceberg under a field of stars.
Another interactive gallery gives you the chance to touch a regenerating iceberg. You will also get to see two of the most historically perfect Titanic ship models ever built, including director James Cameron’s 26-foot recreation of Titanic’s deteriorating bow section as seen in his 1997 movie. You will also get the opportunity to stand beside a replica of a gigantic Titanic propeller built to scale. Other stops along the tour include looking inside authentically detailed rooms, including the Captain’s bridge and the First Class Dining Salon, seeing the only known photographs taken onboard Titanic in the Father Browne Gallery, and sitting in a lifeboat and listening to passenger stories of survival.
The museum has enough hands-on exhibits that even if one of your children isn’t very interested in the Titanic story (while your others are) he/she can still have a great time.
The Titanic Museum is open daily. Admission for adults is $16.95; children 5-12 get in for $9.95.