Living the Titanic experience

I remember the first time I ever watched the Titanic. My dad rented the video player (back when not everyone had one), the movie and my brothers and I munched Astros as we stared, wide eyed at the screen. I felt disturbed for days after the screening by the image of the man falling down the deck and hitting the propeller. The movie has remained beautiful since it first came out and everyone knows good ol Jack and Rose.

Today we visited the exhibition of the real Titanic and the reality that this was really an event that happened to people hit us. It was also soooo well done and beautiful and was well-worth the price we paid.

On arriving we were each given a boarding pass:

and at the back of the Boarding pass, was information about an actual person who boarded the Titanic. You were then left to see whether or not they survived at the end:

My passenger's name was Winnie and I was her protector. I suddenly became very worried that she might not make it through the journey. This detailed idea on the part of the exhibitionists really made the whole thing a lot more personal. It made you see that each person aboard the ship had a purpose for being there and had a life they were living. It also lends itself to you imagining the experience from Winnie's experience. We all started comparing our passengers...the others had first class passengers and Jackie's passenger was even a celebrity!

You then start your journey through how the Titanic was built and all the hype surrounding it, some of the artifacts that were found afterwards. They add in details that you would not even think about like how many eggs were taken aboard (40 000). They also took 1500 bottles of milk but 15 000 bottles of beer. The captain was quite the socialite and many people simply went on the voyage to have a good time with him. Then you move into the ship where they have created a replica of the actual ship:

Boarding

The Entrance into the ship

Passage way which led on to the cabins

Dining table in the first class cabins

The first class passengers' rooms

The infamous clock staircase

The third class passenger cabins (Where Winnie would sleep)

The deck looking out onto the stars

Never a dull moment

They also had plaques with individual passenger stories which were so interesting...
One couple went onboard under alias names because they were celebrities and did not want to be bothered.
Another man had kidnapped his children from his wife and was taking them across to America. He unfortunately didn't make it, but the two sons did. It took them months after the ship sank for them to identify the boys as they were too young to know these details, they eventually were reunited with their mother.
A couple that was on their one year honeymoon were warned by the wife's mother to not take to the sea, rebelling against her, they left their Butler to travel around European countries and post postcards home which they had written before in order to trick the mother into thinking they were still travelling on land. Cruelly, the husband didn't make it and the wife was left to receive these romantic postcards for months after she eventually got home.
If you think back to the film, you'll remember the old couple who held each other as the ship went down? This was them...the wife was getting onto the lifeboat when she realised her husband was not getting on...she got off to be with him, saying the words, "Where you go, there I will be".

They had the sound effects and timeline to match the whole event with the exact times each warning was sent out. It was extremely humbling. The whole voyage had only actually lasted about 5 days when it went down which is why there are so few photos of people on the Titanic that have been uncovered. They also had newspapers and articles depicting the whole event.

This is a keepsake one I bought. It's filled with all the newspaper articles. Although it's not an original, it's probably the most expensive newspaper I will ever buy.

The experience was extremely enjoyable and interesting and the whole exhibition definitely paid a wonderful and respectful tribute to the people and the Titanic. The sad news is that it is said that by 2050, there will be absolutely nothing left of the ship as it lies disintegrating on the ocean floor. The good news is that all of our passengers survived! I don't think that either of us would be able to contain ourselves if it hadn't turned out this way.

And before you ask if the whole Jack and Rose story was real...probably not. But this definitely was: