Titanic Museum Belfast

That was the day the boys were waiting for! Titanic Museum here we come!

But first…

We needed to check is everything ready, so…

do we have tickets somewhere handy on our mobiles (we booked those online for GBP 46.50 for a family 2+2)?
do we have comfy shoes (9 galleries to walk through, slipways outside the museum, SS Nomadic to visit)?
do we have snacks for the boys (the second we walk out the house they are hungry)?
do we have water (same as above – door of the car slams behind us and then: Mom, have we something to drink? – life 🙂 )?
do we have boys with us (do not even ask)?

After all of the neccessary checks we were ready to go.

After a short drive from the place we stayed overnight (really good deal found by Mom on booking.com – city suburbs house that sleeps 8 for GBP 260.00 for three nights stay) we arrived at our destination.

The building of the museum is making huge first impression. Its desing is intended to reflect Belfast’s history of shipmaking. Alternatively, it has been suggested that the building looks like an iceberg, and locals have already nicknamed it “The Iceberg”. It looks more like an iceberg to us.

Just after we came in, we headed to the kiosk to collect our tickets and to hire some audio-guides (available also in Polish) for GBP 4.00 per set.

There are also lockers available if you wish not to carry your belongings around the musuem. It is very warm inside, so we would recommend to leave your jackets in the lockers.

Titanic Belfast’s exhibition consists of nine interpretative and interactive galleries, covering the following themes:

Boomtown Belfast – the city at the start of the 20th century ;
The Shipyard – a ride aboard a mini-car up and around a replica of Titanic‘s rudder;
The Launch – how Titanic was launched on 31 May 1911 ;
The Fit-Out – the fitting-out of Titanic from her launch through to April 1912;
The Maiden Voyage – the journey from Belfast to Southampton, and from there to Cherbourg, Cobh and westwards;
The Sinking – the disaster of 14/15 April 1912;
The Aftermath – the legacy of the disaster;
Myths & Legends – the facts behind some of the stories about the Titanic;
Titanic Beneath – about the wreck of Titanic and its rediscovery.

I must warn you at this point, that I will not be describing what was dispalyed at every level of the museum, I would rather tell what we fell while we were exploring the building.

That was some experience we had! Our boys could not make their minds where to go next or what to see. The older one had some lessons about Titanic at school and now he was here exploring the museum. He was delighted. And for us, parents, it was the most amazing thing to see – all of that excitement in his eyes, the way he was absorbing all the information in font of him! The Titanic topic was the top disscusion subject for the next few days 🙂

Although our tour took around three hours, we could not feel tired. The amount of information and they way it was presented (a lot of displays we could touch, a lot of screens we could use to search for what we were interested in) caused the time flew and we did not even noticed it!

Despite the fact that during our visit there were a lot of tourists we could see some benches ready to rest whoever was not feeling fit enough. Halfway through we had a small pit-stop to refresh and to reacharge batteries with a sip of water and a small snack.

Overall experience – amazing! We learn a lot about Belfast back in the days, we gather more information about how the Titanic was built. But.. (yes, there is but) we also felt that there are more possibilities to show how big the ship was (maybe some holograms on the window glass, from which you can see where Titanic and Olympic were built). Do not get me wrong! That visit was something that will remember for a very long time. We were sattisfied in 99% 🙂

In a pill: