Down time

Recreation of the grand staircase from the Titanic

I woke up this morning and started thinking of all the things that needed to be done today. We had to meet with the bathroom contractor, then pick out paint colors. Then I made my list for the day and realized it was a good days work. Shannon and I had been talking about going to the Titanic Exhibit in Sandy, UT for a couple of weeks, so we decided to punt on most of the day.

The exhibit was interesting and they had a number of items from the period about Titanic. Stuff like brochures, postcards, and pictures. They had a large number of items from Titanic's sister ship, Olympic. There was a large number of serving items, dishes, cups, chairs, and other items. All of these were from Olympic and represented as what would have been on Titanic. They recreated the grand staircase of Titanic, a first class sitting room, and a corridor that would have been in first class.

My favorite item was a small teacup and saucer that actually came from Titanic. Titanic departed from Southhampton, UK and then made stops in France and Ireland. At one of these stops some guests disembarked and took the cup and saucer as a souvenir from their trip. Apparently, they were just taking a short trip and avoided the tragedy. As luxurious as Titanic was, it is easy to forget that ocean liners were primarily intended to transport people and mail. Titanic was actually designated as a royal mail ship, hence the RMS Titanic. The guests that took the cup and saucer likely just saw this as fun way to get to their destination. It's not the same concept as cruise ships today.

Experience review

We enjoyed the exhibit and seeing what they had put together to share some of what Titanic was like. They had some really cool effects in there and I liked seeing what things would have looked like in three dimensions and color instead of black and white photos. I was less enthralled with the price of the exhibit. With ticketing fees, it was about $40 per adult and another $10 for the audio tour. So Shannon and I spent about $100 total. The audio tour was a let down. They give you a QR code to scan and you end up holding your phone to your ear to hear it read most of what you see explained in posters. Meh.

I was a little disappointed in how they portrayed some aspects of Titanic. They definitely made Bruce Ismay, the owner of the White Star Line and Titanic, as a villain. You are introduced to him right at the beginning and the poster says that he overruled having enough lifeboats for all of the passengers. Then at the end, the exhibit has a poster that explains that Titanic had more lifeboats than was actually required by regulations of the time. It may be true that Ismay prevented more lifeboats from being installed, but there's no information as to why that would have been or a source from it. Bruce Ismay was immediately a controversial figure in Titanic's sinking because he survived it. Mike Brady of the Ocean Liner Design Youtube channel has a great video on Bruce Ismay.

Titanic was and still is a subject of some controversy, even 113 years after it sank. The loss of life was tremendous. One of the things that the exhibit did well was to illustrate the lives lost in the sinking. Each guest receives a "boarding pass" when entering the exhibit, which has information about an actual passenger from the voyage. The pass gives information about them and why they were traveling on Titanic. However, it makes no mention of whether they survived or not. You don't find that out until you reach the end of the tour and come face to face with a wall of everyone who was on the ship, what class they were in, and whether they survived. Titanic nearly had as many crew members as they had passengers and their names are included as well.

My passenger was John Hugo Ross. He was a first class passenger who had to get to New York, but was still sick with dysentery and was put on the ship on a stretcher. He did not survive.

Shannon's passenger was Emily Maria Ryerson. She was a first class passenger who boarded with her husband and three children. They were traveling back to America because their eldest son had been killed in a car crash. Emily and her three children survived, but her husband Arthur lost his life in the sinking.