Our local Science Centre is hosting a special Titanic exhibit. The Kid has had a long interest in this ill-fated voyage and the ship. We've read a few books on the topic and even done a fun project or two; so when we heard of the exhibit, we definitely wanted to take it in.
Cue my surprise and displeasure to arrive at the venue only to find that while the admission to the Science Centre is $6 as expected... admission to the Exhibit? $20 for me and $15 for The Kid. Gak!! Cough!!! Wheeze!
Not wanting to disappoint and deny my kiddo the chance to be ENRICHED and EDUCATED and ENGAGED and EXCITED (and I'm sure a whole bunch of other "E" words) I ponied up the money and off we went with our little handy recorded tour guide thingey. (which was NOT loud, at all, you had to hold it right up to your ear... and we only had the one between the two of us. And after the first few times crouched down to crush this device between our skulls, we realized it was basically just reading out what was on the wall placards... sheesh...)
I won't lie. The exhibit was very unique. It was cool to see some actual items and artifacts recovered from the sunken vessel. We learned things. Stuff.
But it sure wasn't worth $35.
Color me jaded.
3 comments:
Those types of things are such a rip off! Our zoo does that with the special exhibits, only they charge too much general admission and then who feels like spending another $6 per person for the exhibit?
It is interesting how these exhibits still persist when we have such great access online and through other venues. I suppose that's why the prices have sky-rocketed the past couple decades as it's probably harder to drag people in these days.
Then again, the higher prices have that same effect, huh?
Yeah, some years back, we took the kids (however many of 'em we had at the time) to the Big City Zoo an hour-and-a-half down the road. Which was a mildly hefty admission all by itself, by the time we sorted out who got the 'student' fee, and who was an 'adult' (and just between you and me, why do 13yo's count as 'adults' for zoo/museum admissions, but nowhere else?), and who got the 'too-little-to-understand-anything-anyway' free admission. Then there was a Dino-mation exhibit that was a separate admission. It was really cool, but it puts parents in a tough spot to stand at the entrance to the exhibit trying to decide who we'll spend an extra admission on, and who not. . .
Funny story from that, tho. . . One of the Dino-mation critters was a woolly mammoth, which was very realistic-looking, and, as it happened, stuck up above the surrounding wall which was supposed to keep the riff-raff from seeing the stuff they hadn't paid for. Jen decided that she didn't want to pay the extra admission, so she just waited for me and the couple kids who did. A bit later, we were in the part of the zoo adjacent to the special exhibit, and Jen spied the mammoth sticking up above the wall. She got all excited, and started jumping and pointing, saying, "Look! They've got a MAMMOTH!! How did they get a MAMMOTH!?!" So I had to explain to her that, no, it wasn't, you know, a REAL mammoth, 'cuz, like, mammoths are, you know, extinct and all. . .
But you know, in a 'Jurassic Park' vein, there's probably plenty of mammoth DNA available, if anybody wanted to clone one. . .
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