My Cuppa Irish Tea: Belfast - The Titanic Quarter

The Titanic Experience is located in a part of Belfast previously called Queen's Island and is now known as The Titanic Quarter. Until the last few years it was a wasteland punctuated only by the two world famous cranes, Samson and Goliath and the former offices of Harland and Wolff. The area is now home to the fantastic Titanic Experience, a six floor exhibition which takes you from the boom-town Belfast during the building of the Titanic to the aftermath of the sinking.

The building is the same height as the hull of the Titanic

We were all starving when we arrived so we had a quick lunch at one of the cafes that they had on the ground floor. Joe had a great meal…can you tell from the picture? I think it was some kind of beef stew. I just had to take a picture. If we weren't driving you could even indulge in a Titanic Quarter Beer from Hilden Brewery.

Getting our tickets

There were other sites that you could see outside but it was pouring rain. I know they have a 2 hour outside tour that I would love to come back and do another day, so we just bought tickets for the museum. Starting on the first floor we learned about industrial Belfast. A lot of important industries were located here and the city by far overshadowed Dublin in terms of its economic progress. The rope, linen and alcohol industries along with the shipyards were all major employers in the city. We learned a lot about working in the shipyard, the work was hard and dangerous. Eight men lost their lives working on the building of the Titanic.

The original gates of the Harland and Wolff shipyard

Then it takes you to a mock shipyard that shows you the construction of the Titanic. You then take a quick elevator to the top floor which is supposed to be the gantry that was built for the Titanic.

Bottom of the Gantry

Top of the Gantry

Next you take a short shipyard ride which is a dark ride that uses special effects, animations, and full-scale reconstructions to recreate the reality of shipbuilding in the early 1900's. It was a neat ride.

We learned a lot about rivets and how they were installed. They had five man teams to hammer in red-hot rivets. Each worker was paid for each rivet that was put in. The workers often got burns by chips flying off the metal. Left and right handers were assigned different positions for efficiency.

Then we experienced the launch of the Titanic. An estimated 100,000 (which is 1/3 of the population of Belfast) came out to see the launch. There is this large window that is looking straight down the actual slipways on which both the Titanic and Olympic once rested. The window has this state of the art glass that switches from the normal view to a superimposed image of the Titanic on the slipways. Its basically showing a vision of how the ship would have appeared sitting on the slipway. It was pretty cool.

The Launch

After the Titanic was launched it then gets fitted-out. This ship of dreams was the most luxurious, sizable and prestigious ocean liner afloat with furnishings, fittings and food to rival the finest hotels in the world. This floor of the museum shows original artifacts and models to show you the interior of the ship. They even have exact replicas of the first, second and third class cabins. K and T informed me that their room here in Ireland looks like the 3rd class cabin except they don't have the wash basin. Ha! I definitely think the dimensions are pretty close.

First Class Cabin

Second Class Cabin

Third Class Cabin

They had this room where you stand in it and its pretty much like a mini imax movie. Its a movie that has incredible imagery to illustrate all the floors on the ship. It journeys through the dining areas, engine rooms, etc. I took a video of it but I had focusing issues since the movie was going so fast. But I found a great one on youtube. Here you go!