This is the fifth post of a new travel series to Branson, Missouri. To start at the beginning, go HERE!

The Titanic Museum

One cannot drive through the main drag of Branson without seeing this gigantic ship. I saw it on one of our previous trips to Branson and I made it a priority to see it someday. Well, this vacation to Branson it was finally time.

The exterior of this museum is its best feature in my opinion. The giant ship definitely catches your eye and is impossible to miss. I love how they even have a water feature and ice glacier that the ship appears to hit.

The next best attraction of the museum is this grand staircase. It is a one million dollar replica built from the original blueprints. It's really fun to imagine yourself back in time walking down this staircase.

You aren't allowed to take photographs on the main floor of the museum due to copyright restrictions, but you can take photos on the second floor so all my photos are of the second floor.

When you first walk into the museum you are given an identity of one of the Titanic's passengers. You can look for clues about your passenger as you travel through the museum, and you can find out at the end of your tour if your passenger was a survivor or not. My passenger was Emily Ryerson; a first class passenger. My husband's passenger was William Greenfield; also a first class passenger and a Jew. We thought it was so appropriate that my husband got him as his passenger as he loves Israel and the Jewish people. The museum has a special exhibit about the Jews on board the Titanic, so he found out more clues about him other than his survival status. I only found out the survival status of my passenger.

The museum has over 400 artifacts and personal belongings of the Titanic passengers. Most of what you see is displayed behind glass showing these artifacts.

I loved how they showed the hallways of the upper class rooms; they used mirrors to make it look really long but in reality it was just a few feet.

I forgot to take a photo of one of us in this spot. It's the ship's top deck overlooking a starry night. It's suppose to also be a photo op where you stand on the deck and look at the stars.

I did get a photo of hubby standing at the ship's wheel.

The next two photos show displays of clothing worn by the ship's occupants. Below is children's clothes, and the next photo is footwear.

Original life vests of the Titanic.

Here is the Jewish exhibit. The one thing I learned about the Titanic which I didn't know before was that it wasn't a cruise ship, it was designed specifically for transporting people to the United States.

This was a really cool experience, and actually kinda hard. There were three exhibits which you could climb up on demonstrating the difficulty of how hard it was to climb up the deck as it was sinking. Each exhibit was set at a different degree from lowest to highest. Hubby is on the highest ramp.

A replica of one of the Titanic lifeboats. You can sit in each section and hear a different story of what the people in the lifeboats experienced.

There were two other exhibits we enjoyed but are not pictured. One is when you just walk in the door of the Titanic. There is a glacier that you touch so you can feel how cold and hard it is. The other is the actual water temperature of the Atlantic waters. You put your hand inside the water and press a timer to see how long you can leave your hand in the cold water...it is not long at all before you have to remove your hand because the water is so cold.

The Titanic also has lots of exhibits showing how/why the ship sunk and how deep the wreck is today. It also included the recent story of the implosion of the submersible Titan that went down to explore the Titanic.

At the very end of your visit to the museum, you then look at this board which displays all the names of everyone on board the Titanic and their survival status. It really puts in perspective the loss of lives when you see them all in this tiny print.

We were relieved to discover both of our passengers were survivors.

Although I did enjoy our visit to the Titanic Museum, I didn't think it was worth the cost. It cost us $93 for the two of us, and we were only there a few hours...and we read EVERYTHING so we would get the most for our money. I looked for discount tickets, but they seemed to have discount tickets for all things Branson except the Titanic. They also recommend you buy your tickets and reserve a time on line, but then they charge a fee for that. It turned out it was completely unnecessary to do that as we were there during the off-season and there was hardly anyone else there. If you're really into the Titanic, it is worth it as you will never see this many artifacts and information anywhere else, otherwise, I would skip it. I also have to say that the employees of the Titanic are EXCELLENT. They are very attentive and knowledgeable, almost to the point of being intrusive. They constantly start walking up to you asking if you have any questions or they just start talking about what you're looking at.

Where We Stayed: The Lodge of the Ozarks

I usually don't share where we stay when we're on vacation because we tend to just stay in mid-range hotels like Hiltons or Best Westerns and we rarely spend more than one night in the same place as are always on the move. This time, however we stayed in the same place for six nights and it was wonderful not to have to pack a suitcase everyday.

I picked The Lodge of the Ozarks because it had great reviews on Hotels.com and I liked the location. It is located right in the heart of Branson; I could see the Titanic from my room. I looked into staying at one of Branson's resorts up in the mountains, but I really wanted to be close to everything and not have to drive too much. It turned out to be the best decision as we loved The Lodge of the Ozarks.

It is a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous hotel! And the best part for us is that is a Christian owned property. There is a bible verse on the marquee of the hotel, and Contemporary Christian music is playing in all the common areas. They even had a special touch of leaving an open bible in your room with a sweet note about enjoying your stay. The whole place was just so peaceful and relaxing, we loved it. And, they serve the most amazing free full breakfast everyday!

The hotel must have been purchased by new Christian owners as there was a bar, but it had this little sign on it. My husband found this both funny and awesome. No alcohol in this establishment!

We really liked that there were several options for dining within walking distance of our hotel as Branson traffic can sometimes be very busy. The first night we walked to the Side Chick and ate on the roof top of their restaurant. They serve great food, mostly chicken dishes, but I had the most amazing Macaroni and Cheese dish. Here are some photos of our view from the rooftop of the restaurant.

Where We Ate

Before our trip, we watched so many Branson food videos of where to eat while visiting, and then we couldn't remember any of them while we there and didn't really eat out much at all. Our breakfast at the hotel was so huge, we were never hungry for lunch, so we just went out for dinner (or linner). I've always wanted to try Paula Deen's restaurant and we ended up loving it so much we went there TWICE! That was one of the first times we went to the same restaurant more than once while on vacation. We just loved her catfish and we wanted to try some of her other southern dishes too.

Paula Deen's serves family style. You pick how much food you want to try (two entrees, three entrees, etc.) and you pay per person. We always went for a Linner so we got the lunch price, it's about $20 per person and you get all this food plus the most amazing dinner rolls I ever did have! And, you can ask for more of any dish, which of course we never did as look at all this food!

I loved the decor of the restaurant too...so clean and crisp. As I said earlier, we were there for a Linner so we had the place pretty much to ourselves.

The restaurant also has a gift shop attached to it so I got to meet Paula Deen herself...just kidding! 😀. I purchased one of her "Sweet Tea and Jesus" t-shirts. It's so cute!

Another restaurant we went to was Mellow Mushroom. This restaurant is a favorite of ours and we go to one almost every time we travel as we don't have Mellow Mushrooms in Wisconsin. We always get the exact same thing: I order a Great White and hubby orders a pepperoni pizza and then we split a Greek salad.

This is the roof top of the Side Chick restaurant which I told you about earlier. I know we were in Branson for six days but I can't remember any other restaurants we ate at. We did eat at a Mexican food truck once which was located right across the street from our hotel so maybe we didn't eat anywhere else because if we ate at Paula Deen's twice, then Mellow Mushroom, then Side Chick, and finally the food truck that's five meals. We must have been too full for dinner the last night. We did have custard one evening at Andy's Custard stand. That place was a hoot but we got a laugh at their menu because they wouldn't allow you to put sprinkles (like candy bars, etc.) on a regular ice cream, you had to have it "blended" in a concrete. 😆

I do have to mention the remodel of their historic downtown. As some people may know, Branson's downtown district has been under construction all summer long which really hurt their businesses, but boy, the improvements are sure worth it. I love the new signage they completed.

And finally, the main highlight of every single trip to Branson we ever take: a musical at the Sight and Sound Theatre. If you have never attended a play here, you need to! Whether you are religious or not, their plays are incredible and you will NEVER, EVER see anything like it (including on Broadway) anywhere else. In fact, Broadway needs to send some people over to see how Sight and Sound Theatre does it because I keep hearing Broadway is in trouble. Sight and Sound Theatre is so popular, almost all of their shows are sold out all the time. I purchased my tickets six months in advance and I was told by several ushers that I had the best seats in the house.

So what makes Sight and Sound Theatre so incredible other than the religious message and family-friendly plays? Number One would be the special effects. This is the third play I've seen here, and the special effects just keep getting better and better. This time we saw "David" and the David and Goliath scene was just jaw dropping. The audience went nuts when Goliath dropped to the ground. I don't want to say too much because I don't want to give anything away, but it was like nothing I had ever seen done on stage before. Second would be the scenery...oh my gosh! The scenery is so realistic you feel like you've been transported in time. They use the entire arena to tell the story. The main drama not only occurs on the main stage, but on both sides of the theatre and the main aisles. Cast members and live animals perform and run right through the main aisles. And they even do special effects on the ceiling and in the air around you. It's incredible. Third would be the talent...the singing, the dancing, the acting...everyone is as good as anyone you'd see on Broadway. I just can't recommend their plays enough, if you haven't been to one GO! It will be an experience you'll never forget. If Branson is too far for you, there is one on the east coast too, but I haven't been to that one so I'm not sure if it'll be the same.