Trip to Titanic

I was very excited to stumble upon a Titanic exhibit in Los Angeles, as I have long been obsessed with the tragic story of the ship deemed “unsinkable.” I rushed to buy tickets before it left town on 12/31. Fever was the ticket agency that handled this exhibit, and I would have to give them a “you s#$k” in the customer service department. I ended up not needing the second ticket, so contacted them (only option was email) to see if I could upgrade into one single premium ticket (which would have included a photo and exhibition booklet). Other than the automated “we have received your inquiry” email, nothing else came of my request. Strike #1. The drive up to LA is always a negative, but I can’t blame anyone on that (I’ll just silently stew on that one). Upon entering the large building that housed the exhibit, guests were given one of these:



Here’s what an original Titanic ticket looked like:



In this day and age of computer graphics, would it really have taken that much more effort to design something that at least looked authentic? The answer is “no.” Strike #2. The backside of the ticket gives a passenger name that you can look up later in the exhibit to discover their final fate.



My guy survived! Edited from an online article unrelated to the exhibit:

On the evening of the disaster, Chevré was playing cards in the Café Parisien with Pierre Maréchal and Alfred Fernand Omont and Lucien Philip Smith. When the ship stopped, Chevré thought it too cold to go outside to investigate, and asked a Steward to open a porthole and have a look. Even though the accident didn't appear to be serious, Chevré and Omont pocketed their cards and decided to get into one of the first lifeboats being lowered, No. 7. Some of their companions chided them for getting into the boat, but Chevré wasn't taking any chances. He died in Paris on 20 February 1914. "Paul Chevré was a passenger on the ill-fated Titanic," read his obituary in the Montreal Gazette, "and although he survived the shock, it is doubtful he ever recovered from it."

A scale model of the ship was on display in the lobby:



Once I whizzed by the souvenir photograph/tourist trap, I entered the first extremely dark display room. Each room had similar dim lighting with only a handful of plexiglass enclosed displays but lots of large descriptive signage that gave some history of the Titanic. For me, I want to see the artifacts; the space-filling signage meant very little. One of the first “artifacts” I saw was this White Star Line ceiling rose. It was from the Nomadic, not the Titanic. Granted, that ship was launched around the same era as Titanic (on April 25, 1911), but it was built to transfer passengers and mail to and from RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic.



This gold pocket watch was given to a Titanic Harland and Wolff employee upon his retirement. Kind of cool, but not a piece recovered from the wreck. In fact, virtually none of what was on display here had come from the wreckage; most were from other White Star Line ships. 



I was somewhat excited to see the almost full-size recreations of the Titanic interiors. Sadly, these created a three-strikes-and-you’re-out situation.



With inappropriate-period light fixtures that looked like they came from Lowes (maybe not even that good), these recreations didn’t even seem passable for a local TV production.



Supposedly a first-class parlour suite; don’t look too closely or you’ll be disappointed by the cheapness of it all.



None of the china at the exhibit was from the actual Titanic, but rather what was left from the other White Star Line ships’ stock. Here’s what would have been seen in second class:



These pieces were salvaged from the Arabic, a White Star Line ship that was sunk on August 19, 1915 by a German submarine.



A first class dining room chair from…you guessed it, another ship. This one was from the Olympic:



The big “showstopper” was the recreation of the grand staircase, where all the exhibit guests loitered taking endless selfies.



If you squint and don’t look too long, you’ll think it’s not all that bad.



If you look closer, you’ll see it for the horribly cheap and shoddy disaster that it is.



At the Las Vegas Titanic exhibit at the Luxor hotel, the recreation of a ship deck was cooled to the appropriate temperature so that guests could feel what the passengers experienced the night the ship struck an iceberg. No such attention to detail here. Just a few cheap patio chairs from Lowe’s and some twinkle lights. The mirror on the right was to give the illusion of depth.

Trust me, I was not fooled.



A White Star Line deck chair and blanket from…fill in the blank but be sure not to put “Titanic.”



The boiler room recreation. I think the ship would have sunk even faster if the boiler room looked like this.



Hang on folks, we actually have an artifact that was recovered from the body of Edward Lockyer:



Lockyer was a Titanic third class passenger traveling to Ontario, Wayne County, New York. Unfortunately, he died in the sinking with his body later recovered by the Cable Ship Mackay Bennett.



The exhibit had a few props from the 1997 James Cameron film:



For the Heart of the Ocean prop, they used a J. Peterman replica. Not even from the film, this is what people could buy from the Peterman catalog at the time of the film’s release.



The WORST replica in the exhibit were these two costumes that were supposed to represent Rose’s flying dress and Jack’s garb.



The word “cheap doesn’t even cover it. Did these come from Amazon’s Halloween collection?



At the end of the exhibit they had an interestingly tasteless interactive display. A cheap representation of the wreckage that Rose Dawson (Kate Winslet) clung to while waiting to be rescued in the 1997 film:



You have to see it to believe it.



There was an entire room devoted to a recreation of the wreckage site:



Yes, I was completely disappointed. It was hardly worth the drive up and back to L.A.

BUYER BEWARE! If you decide to see a Titanic exhibit, be sure to do your homework and see what is on display and especially who put the exhibit together. I would only recommend this one to those who have very little knowledge of the ship and are mainly concerned with social media selfie opportunities.

See more Titanic related photos at my main website.