Titanic sails into Tennessee

For cruise passengers and cruises enthusiasts - there is nothing more fascinating than the story of the Titanic - and now you don't have to be at sea to enjoy it, especially if you're based in Tennessee.

The new Titanic Museum Attraction in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, 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”
• Study some of the largest, most detailed Titanic models ever built
• Grip the ship’s wheel and follow the Captain’s commands
• Tour world-class galleries and the rare historical artifacts they hold
• 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
• Dive to Titanic’s wreck site via spectacular underwater camera footage

The Titanic Museum Attraction – which is conveniently located to all areas of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and Sevierville – is now open every day from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. ET. Tickets are available online at www.TitanicPigeonForge.com or by calling 1-800-381-7670 and visitors are urged to purchase tickets in advance.

PHOTO: Titanic Captain Edward Smith (Lowell Lytle) and Margaret "Molly" Brown’s great granddaughter Helen Benziger McKinney on the Titanic Museum Attraction’s Grand Staircase