Boarding the Titanic

As a late Valentines day present Phil took me to the Titanic Museum in  Pigeon Forge, TN. This is a new attraction that just opened in 4/8/2010. It is a two-story museum shaped like the RMS Titanic and is built half-scale to the original ship. We have been wanting to go for sometime but never could justify the $25 dollar ticket per person, but it made a great Valentines day gift.

When you enter, you receive a boarding pass with a name of a crew member or passenger and at the end of the tour, in the Titanic Memorial Room, you find out if you survived or perished.

This who Phil was: Colonel Gracie (1 st class) on a trip without his wife and daughters. He had an interesting  survival story. He was in the water once the Titanic sank and got sucked in one of the smoke stacks that had fallen. However, once the whirlwind started in the ocean due to the suction of the boat, Colonel Gracie was shot out of the smoke stack and landed next to an over-turned life boat. He was the last person to be saved from the Titanic but due to his injuries  he received, he would die a week later.

I was  Augusta Goodwin: Mother of 6 and traveling 3rd class to America to find a new job for my husband who was an electrical engineer.  I thought it was ironic since Phil is also an EE. Mrs Augusta Goodwin, 43,boarded the Titanic with her husband, Frederick, 40 and six children, Lillian, 16; Charles, 14; William, 11; Jessie, 10; Harold, 9; and baby Sidney. The entire family was lost in the sinking. It was odd since most women and children survived and most men perished.

You are not allowed to take pictures inside due to copyright laws but I did find some online.

 

The grand staircase was designed to be used only by first-class passengers; if you were second or third class you were not allowed in this area. We were told a funny story about this grand staircase. The builder of the Titanic wanted the passengers in the first class to only have the best of the best and when they entered the Titanic he wanted them to be amazed. The grand staircase flooring was going to be marble however the builder sent it back because there was a new material that just came out and was more expensive than tile or marble. When passengers entered they would even bend down to touch it because they had never seen this great materiel before. The mystery flooring was linoleum. lol too funny 🙂 This room was built from the blueprints of  the one on the Titanic.

This was the first class smoking room. This was a male only room no women were allowed. If you notice, this is also the room that Leonardo Dicaprio did his famous  stretch of nude Rose. Also built to scale.

This is a picture of the Third class cabin. Beside this display was the story of me, The Goodwin family, They stated that this was our cabin and we fit 8 people in this small room. Also there was only 2 bath tubs for the third class passengers.

The picture with the girl climbing show the different slopes of the ship while it was sinking. Between the first and the second one is only 15 mins and just a few more mins between the second and the third, the third is a 45 degree angle. I tried to climb it a hold on, it wasn’t easy.

Als0, there was an Ice burg room; there you could touch an ice burg. This room was also were you could feel the temperature of the air and the water the night the ship sank. The air was 32 degree but the saltwater was a blistering 28 degrees. They told us to dip our hands into the water and move our figures around to get a real feel for it. I couldn’t honestly keep my hand in there longer than 20 seconds and once I removed them they hurt.  I couldn’t imagine having my whole body submerged. They said no one drown in the water they froze to death. You could only live in the water for 10 to 15 mins.