We walked from the Holiday Inn (see also review) to the City Hall and took Bus 26 to the Titanic Quarter.
The building is visible from afar and the stop easy to locate.
On the site of the Titanic is the SS Nomadic, which delivered 1st class passengers to the Titanic from Cherbourg. She was also a restaurant on the Seine in Paris for a while, before being returned to her birth place. The SS Nomadic is the only surviving ship built for White Star Line at Harland & Wolff. She can be also visited against an entrance fee.
The building, where the Titanic Belfast is housed, is majestic.
It is made of glass and the same height and shape as Titanic's hull. It looks amazing and shimmers when the sun is shining.
Surrounding it are Rowan Gillespie's sculpture "Titanica", a brief history of Belfast and it's harbor, huge columns, marking where the Arrol Gantry was located, the former head quarter of Harland & Wolff and much more.
We bought our tickets online and paid around 15.50 GBP per person, ca. 20 Euro or 25 USD. They can be picked up at the counter or printed off from a ticketing machine on the ground floor, where some of the restaurants are located.
There was a compass rose incooperated in the floor and a beautiful atrium completed the design.
The exhibition started on the first floor. We were introduced to the history of Belfast. It was interesting with old photographs and a silent movie, old advertising and much more. It showed Belfast had a vibrant business scene, which included brewers, linen makers and sweet factories at the time. At some stage in the 19th century Belfast had more inhabitants than Dublin.
Next the White Star Line and Harland & Wolff were introduced.
Another exhibit concerned itself with the building of the Titanic. There was a ride, which showed how the rivets were added. The noise was ear deafening. It was also fascinating to see what the Arrol Gantry looked like and how immense it must have been.
It showed also the splendor of the finished product.
The first class was very luxurious, second class upscale, while third class was basic, but clean and a big step forward against other steerage classes.
At the exhibition we found out more about the route the RMS Titanic took, the collision with the iceberg and the aftermath. It dealt with the employees and passengers on board. Some turned into heroes, others into villains.
Positive figures were the ship's doctor William Francis Norman O'Loughlin, the musicians Theodore Ronald Brailey, Roger Marie Bricoux, John Frederick Preston Clarke, Wallace Hartley, John Law Hume, Georges Alexandre Krins, Percy Cornelius Taylor and John Wesley Woodward, Harland & Wolff's naval architect Thomas Andrews, Margaret "Molly" Brown and J.J. Astor amongst many more.
Captain Edward Smith seemed to be too shocked and stunned to react appropriately. It would have been his last voyage before retiring.
J. Bruce Ismay managed to climb into one of the few life boats and survived. A lot of people thought he should have stayed on board and that he was at least partly responsible for the sinking, by urging Captain Smith to try and break the time record.
The majority of passengers died. Only 25 % of third class, but 97 % of first class survived.
Some of the bodies were never recovered. Most of the dead are interned at a cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Identifying the bodies was sometimes impossible, so those graves are nameless.
You could hear the SOS signal the telegraphers sent out and voices of real survivors, describing their experiences.
The sinking of the Titanic sent shock waves throughout the world.
There were two trials, one in the United States and one in the UK. It found there were too few life boats amongst other things.
The reason why the Titanic sank and so fast is still not completely clear. Some claim it was the inferior steel used to build the ship or the rivets used had been wrongly treated before being used.
The next section was dedicated to popular culture and how creative minds depicted the persons involved and the sinking.
The experience concluded with showing how deep sea excavation is working, where the wreck of Titanic is located and what was found in and around it.
Of course an attraction wouldn't be complete with a gift shop.
We went to Bistro 401 (named after the yard Titanic was built at, yard 402 was the sister ship Olympic's),but unfortunately the experience there wasn't as high caliber as the exhibit. It was self-service, but there were no plates for the cakes, so when we asked friendly we were ogled at odd by the staff and then without saying a word handed two. We also ordered two hot chocolates from the same lady. The cake was dried out and the hot chocolate too sweet to drink. It was the only thing we didn't like about Titanic Belfast. Catering should be changed immediately.
When you visit, please bring a lot of time with you, we needed around 3 hours to take it all in.
We will return at some stage, but we won't be eating at Bistro 401, as long the concept / offerings / service doesn't change.
©2015
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