Having grown up on the Great Lakes watching ore boats sail by all my life, I really loved the Valley Camp museum ship in Saulte Ste. Marie, MI. A former working ore boat, it makes a fascinating site to explore and see how it’s all put together. It even contains an aquarium devoted to the Great Lakes sea life.
I’ve been on many other museum ships, but this one fascinated me the most.
This is a good one. There’s quite a bit of ship access, and the ship seems to extend on and on almost endlessly. In my day you could sneak down 5-6 decks below the hangar deck, but now it’s restricted to just the galley level. However there’s quite a bit to see up on the island.
As a bonus, there’s a museum sub right next to it, but I didn’t find the sub much to write home about.
I tend to find the subs all blur together. They’re small and tight and nothing stands out on them. But if you’ve never been on one, the first one is worth the visit. Doesn’t seem to matter which one.
For a unique preserved ship - the Coast Guard vessel, the USCGC Mesquite, was deliberately sunk in one of the Great Lakes to create a site for recreational divers Pictures after the sinking showed the file cabinets filled with waterlogged documents.
For other ships, this site:
A couple years ago we toured the Col. James M. Schoonmaker freighter in Toledo. It was a self-guided tour. Very impressive. I especially liked the control room. The engineering that went in to it is incredible.
I’ve been aboard dozens of historic ships and Warrior has always been my favorite. It occupies a unique space between the style and artistry of the age of sail and the sterile utility of the age of steam and steel. And it looks like it could still up-anchor and make way at a moment’s notice.
It’s technically not a Museum Ship, but the Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City has a fascinating collection of Civil War-era artifacts, which were remarkably well-preserved after the ship wrecked on the Missouri River and was then buried in sand after the river changed course.
In case it’s not clear, the USS Massachusetts is located at Battleship Cove in Fall River, MA, which Cal Meacham mentions upthread, and which is an hour-ish drive from Boston.
I’ve been there four times - twice on Scout sleepovers in the battleship, and twice because I like the place so much that I took visitors to it. There’s a ton to see there (as noted in Cal’s link), and the crawl through the Lionfish submarine is alone worth the trip.
Definitely recommend, even with the drive (unfortunately the MBTA commuter rail won’t go to Fall River for another year, and the bus service there is really slow and occasionally unreliable).
Baltimore’s Inner harbor has the submarine USS Torsk which was active in World War 2:
I quite enjoyed visiting it. There are some other ships in the harbor as well, but the sub was my favorite.
Baton Rouge LA has a destroyer, the USS Kidd, from the Korean War. I enjoyed that quite a bit too.
When I was a Boy Scout in the 1980s, I got to sleep overnight on the USS Kidd!
When my son was a Cub Scout we slept overnight on the USS New Jersey in Camden, NJ. It was pretty cool. Also as an ex-Navy Electrician’s Mate I was able to answer a lot of questions the Scouts had about the Ship that the Docent didn’t know. So that was kind of cool.
I have only visited two, the battleship North Carolina and the cruiser Aurora in St. Petersburg. The North Carolina was the better museum ship, but the language barrier may have downrated the Aurora.
The USS Missouri 3 times before it was stolen from Bremerton, Washington. The first time was a field trip when I was in 6th grade. The second time was when my Boy Scout troop went for a visit. The third time was after I had a job interview at the Navy ship yard in Bremerton. A few months prior to that it had been announced the Missouri was going to be recommissioned as part of Reagan’s plan to poke Gorbachev in the eye. According to the tour guide, the Missouri originally wasn’t on the list of ships to be recommissioned because it was considered a national treasure. But it was added to get back at Washington Senator Henry Jackson, he was leading the charge to prevent Reagan from spending billions of dollars to stop Ronnie’s plan for his 600 ship Navy. After be retrofitted, the Missouri spent 6 years or so traveling the world as a floating museum. It was sent to the Persian Gulf in 92 and fired a ceremonial missle at Iraq so it could be said the Mighty Mo participated in the war. She was retired again and came back to Bremerton but was never opened as a museum. The state of Washington at that time had lost a lot of clout in DC and Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye was able to convince the Navy to send the ship to Hawaii. The berth in Bremerton where the Missouri sat for years now has another ship tied to the pier but the USS Missouri sign is still in place.
Wikipedia, that immaculate source of information, says she fired 28 missiles in the first five days of that war, and then did some shelling after that….
I don’t have the DEEPEST knowledge of the Gulf War but I was under the impression the USS Missouri was sent to deliberately make a bunch of noise and make the Iraqis think the US Marines were going to make an amphibious landing in the Kuwait area instead of the actual broad front approach we did, and this plan actually worked
I’ve visited the USS Alabama in Mobile, AL. I’ve always thought it was a great ship, well preserved. I think it’s a sister to the USS Massachussetts, South Dakota, and one more.
Next to the Alabama is the USS Drum, a very cool fleet-type WWII submarine. Similar to the USS Pampanito in San Francisco. They’re both very worth a visit.
USS Turner Joy destroyer is in Bremerton, also very worth a visit.
And finally, I’d definitely see the U-505 in the Chicago Museum of Sci. and Industry, as mentioned upthread by at least two posters. It’s in fantastic condition, and is now located indoors. (When I saw it the first two times, it was stationed outdoors…you walked through a bridge or tunnel of sorts from inside the museum to board it.)
All the ships I’ve seen have been first rate. I’d be hard pressed to say which was the best or “worst.” Well…the USS Hornet in Alameda (famous for picking up the Apollo 11 capsule and crew after the moon landing) was only OK and not that great. But maybe it’s been improved since then.
I’ve been to several of the ships mentioned here. Every one has something to recommend it(like being able to ride the aircraft elevator on the Hornet) but the one that stands out in my memory as “the best” is the USS Massachusetts. Lots of great exhibits and I really liked seeing the “guts” of the 16" gun control and shell storage and transport rooms.
Having said that, the “coolest” has to be the USS Cairo. Even though it’s not much more than a shell with some hardware remnants, you do get to walk through it. I remember seeing it for the first time underneath that big tent/pavilion–it was definitely a “Wow!” moment for me. Unfortunately when I went the museum next to it was closed.
A couple of ships not mentioned yet that are worth checking out: the SS Red Oak Victory in Richmond, the USS Cavalla (sub) and USS Stewart (destroyer escort) at the Galveston Naval History Museum. The Queen Mary used to be worth a visit but it’s fallen on hard times lately and I don’t know what kind of shape it’s in these days.
Yep, the Vasa beats them all.
I’ve been to several – the Constellation, the Constitutions, the Bounty (replica), the Charles W. Morgan et al. in Mystic CT, but I’d say the most impressive was the U.S.S. Midway in San Diego.
In addition to the ships that are preserved from the Old Days, there are at least three replicas in Ne England – The Mayflower II in Plymouth and the two Boston Tea Party ships in Fort Point Channel in Boston
The Boston Navy Yard not only holds the USS Constitution, but also the USS Cassin Young, a museum ship.
