The Titanic Museum in Branson

One of the most memorable sites I visited in Branson is the Titanic Museum at 76 Country Boulevard. One of the most remarkable tributes to the people who boarded the ship on its fateful crossing of the Atlantic in April 1912. Tens of thousands of people a year visit the Titanic Museum of Branson Missouri and it is one of the city’s most famous attractions.

The structure of the museum is 50% to scale the original Titanic and houses 400 real artifacts from the ship valued at over four (4) million dollars. When you arrive, you'll receive an audio tour and your ticket, which represents one of the 2,208 people who boarded the ship, and at the end of the tour, each guest will discover the fate of the passenger or crew member that they got.

The museum is meticulously designed and includes incredible pieces such as this 18-foot custom scale model of the Titanic. Some exhibits showcase what life was like on the ship for the third class, second and first-class passengers. Recreation of a cabin representative of what accommodations and amenities different classes of passengers got inside the ship. Visitors get to marvel at the opulence and the luxury of the first class passengers’ experience in their staterooms and suites. Guests also learn about how the Titanic revolutionized steerage travel during the era. They show how a typical third class looked like and how it gave dignity to many of these immigrants who embarked on a journey to find better lives across the Atlantic. In the Titanic, steerage accommodations have bunks beds in each room with their linens, and served three meals a day for the whole voyage. For some of the third class passengers aboard, these basic amenities are already a luxury compared to the way of life they are used to.

So one of the coolest things about this museum is how interactive it is. For instance, there is an actual iceberg. A piece of the wall that guests see upon entering the building is kept frozen all the time to allow visitors to touch and feel how cold the iceberg that collided with the ship must have been. Other interactive exhibits include mapping out the course that ship took during that maiden voyage. Visitors also get to experience how life is deep down the bowels of the ship complete with a display that allows shoveling coals in the boiler room. Guests are also taken to the wheelhouse of the Titanic complete with a window view of how dark the night of the sinking is. And right outside the wheelhouse, tours are allowed to experience the slopes of the sinking ship, sitting in a lifeboat and embracing the ice-cold water passengers endured. A tub of water kept at 28 degrees Fahrenheit, which is approximately the temperature of the water that the passengers who went down with the ship experience, is placed with a timer to allow guests to test how long can they last on the frigid waters of the Atlantic on that fateful evening.

Over 400 real Titanic artifacts are on display inside the museum. From time to time, the museum also enters into loan programs with private collectors to be able to exhibit rare items. On one rare occasion, the Titanic Museum was able to display Wallace Hartley’s violin that is one of the instruments that played the last music heard during the sinking. For the 20th anniversary of the James Cameron movie ‘Titanic’, the museum was able to secure some of the original costumes and props used for the movie and displayed them temporarily. And speaking of the movie, the museum also commissioned a recreation of the fictional necklace ‘Heart of the Ocean’ that predominantly appeared in the film. Although a recreation of the movie prop, the necklace on display at the museum is made of actual sapphire and diamonds. Also part of the permanent collection of the museum is many recovered items from the wreck such as dinnerware, parts of the ship structure, and personal belongings of the passenger and crew of the Titanic.

During the tour of the museum, you will be guided by friendly staff often dressed on historical recreation of the crews’ uniforms. Every museum representative on the floor is specially trained on the history of the ship. They're happy to provide information. And on the people and the workings of the ship.

If there's one reason to come to this museum, it's for this beautiful grand staircase, it's an exact size replica of what was in the Titanic. Perhaps this part of the sip is the most iconic up to this date, a huge thanks to the 1997 movie. The museum staff calls the Grand Staircase the ‘million dollar room’ as it took that amount of money to build these two flights of stairs to the exact specifications of the real one. You may not find your Jack waiting below the Grand StaircaStaircasebut you will surely find love with the hand-carved angel and gold-plated ironwork.

And finally, we arrive at the memorial hall where we ended the tour and on the wall is written the names of all the passengers and crew of the Titanic. In this part of the journey, guests will find out the fate of the person assigned to them on their boarding pass. Overall the museum represents the passengers of the Titanic. Researchers and curators have spent years looking into each passenger story. The Titanic Museum is surely worth being included on your next Branson tour with the family.