Boise’s Titanic Exhibit Lets You Be a Passenger for a Day

A museum exhibit will let you feel what it was like to be on board The Titanic before it sank, and you'll even get a boarding pass that includes a real passenger's story.

I made the mistake one summer of planning too many fun things with the kids right out of the gate the minute school ended.  We went on three hikes, went bowling, went to the water park, and had four Nintendo Switch tournaments at home all in the first three days!  That set the bar way too high and it made the rest of the summer feel blah like we were on the backside of the peak slowly sliding down and we'd arrive at the bottom right about the time school started.  SO, as a parent who is always trying to learn better ways to do things, now I set the bar super low at the beginning of the summer and let them sleep in and hit the screens as much as possible early on, so they'll be bored of that by mid-summer and ready to hit the ground running.  Here we are, and it's perfect timing.  Let's hit the museum.

The Discovery Center of Idaho will have the Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition for another five weeks or so, and it's a chance to immerse ourselves in the famous ship's atmosphere that up until now, we've only seen in the Leo DiCaprio-Kate Winslet movie.

I usually try to find fun and positive bonding activities that leave the kids full of hope and trust that the world is a wonderful place, but in this case, a really horrible sad-but-true ending is what they're getting.  Real-life happens, and it's not always puppies and rainbows, and this will be another good opportunity to appreciate that.  They've seen the Titanic movie and they know Jack's fate, so I think they'll be able to handle this too.  We'll go out for ice cream afterward.

Boise.org says the exhibition puts us "in the shoes of one of Titanic’s 2,240 passengers and crew that fateful night 106 years ago. With over 120 authentic artifacts, recreated accommodations, and the innovative thought and mastery of STEM throughout, Titanic will inspire visitors to dream big and learn from our trials and errors."  We'll get a replica 1912 boarding pass with a real passenger's story, and that will be a big discussion starter with the kids.

Or, make it a date day!

The Boise exhibit closes Sunday, August 15th.