Titanic Museum Attraction

A museum built as a half-size ship, anchored in a pool of water on the Pigeon Forge Parkway, is one of the area's best-known attractions. Smoky Mountain Living reported in 2010 that the 30,000-square-foot, $25 million museum had opened that spring with more than 20,000 visitors on its opening weekend. Regis Philbin hosted the grand opening, which coincided with the 98th anniversary of the sinking, and the magazine described the building as a half-size reproduction of the original ship, anchored in water to give the feel of a vessel at sea.

Inside, the scale changes. The same report described full-sized models of third-class quarters, a first-class suite and dining rooms, and a $1 million reproduction of the Grand Staircase built from the original plans by Harland and Wolff. There were 20 galleries and nearly 400 artifacts, which the magazine said were carried from the ship by survivors or found floating in the wreckage. Visitors were given a boarding pass bearing the name of a real passenger or crew member, whose fate is revealed at the end of the tour, and could touch an iceberg, send an SOS signal or test a water tank chilled to 28 degrees.