A sinking feeling

"The World's Largest Titanic Visitor Attraction" is scheduled to open this month in Belfast, where the RMS Titanic passenger liner was built. The $150 million building includes a Titanic-themed, 750-seat banqueting hall and nine galleries that include "a dramatic sensory experience, which induces the urgency of those tragic last moments."

Next month a huge cruise ship will retrace the one and only journey of the Titanic, which sank on April 15, 1912. Berths cost up to $9,400, and some passengers are having costumes made to recreate the appearance of the original travelers. Musicians are auditioning for places on the string quartet that played as the ship went down. Passengers will dine as their counterparts did a century ago: oysters, roast squab and sautéed chicken Lyonnaise for those in first class.

For those who can't travel that way, half-scale models of the Titanic in Branson, Mo., and Pigeon Forge, Tenn., will have to suffice. For only $20.68 at Branson, guests receive a passenger boarding ticket showing the name of an actual Titanic passenger. Later, they find out whether that person lived or died: Most died.

The Branson website announces, "As visitors touch a real iceberg, walk the Grand Staircase and third class hallways, reach their hands into 28-degree water, and try to stand on the sloping decks, they learn what it was like on the RMS Titanic by experiencing it first-hand." First-hand! Pigeon Forge also offers charms, although tickets there cost 70 cents more.