Eagle3
04-04-04, 09:07 PM
As Billntwrk mentioned earlier in another thread, the opening date is June 7, 2004. I'll try to find out what events are scheduled for that opening weeke ASAP. I also received this from NavyBob:
All,
A little more museum news for you. Remember, like any good Navy project, nothing about this is certain yet so don’t hold me to it.
-- Opening day is Monday June 7th. It was originally planned for Saturday, June 5th, but there’s some other major event in downtown that day so they moved the opening to Monday. This is better since we’ll have all week to get the bugs out of stuff before the first weekend crowds show up.
-- A “civilian” ladder is being built. We call it the Bunny Slope. It will be on the after most starboard sponson, directly over where the starboard CIWS was, and will be accessed from the hangar bay just forward of the new men’s head. It will be a standard staircase that will take you from the hangar deck to the flight deck. A small portion of the hangar deck is being cut away to make room for this.
-- Parking on the pier is going to be a mess. The pier is still owned by the city or Port Authority or someone like that. They plan to charge $6 or $7 for parking. If you’re lucky you can find other parking nearby and just hoof it to the pier.
-- We’re not sure yet how the tours are going to work. There will be self-guided audio tours as part of the regular admission price and docent-guided tours for another price. There may not be any docent tours when we first open until we see how the flow of people is going to go. They might also want all the docents to help out with guiding everyone around the first few days.
-- There’s a possibility that docent-led tours will only be by reservation only. If a bunch of you ex-Midway sailors want to get together, I’d be happy to lead your tour. I’m sure I’d learn more from you than you will from me. I’ll let you know more about this as we get closer to opening day. Right now too much is up in the air.
-- That reminds me: When you ex-Midway guys do go on a tour, go easy on us docents. Most of us were not Midway sailors, some were not carrier sailors and a few weren’t even sailors. There’s one guy in my class that was a soldier in the Battle of the Bulge!! So, we’re eager to learn and if we say something that is not quite right, please correct us nicely.
That’s it for now. I’m sure several of us will keep the forum updated with more news as it comes up. See you all in San Diego soon.
NavyBob
All,
A little more museum news for you. Remember, like any good Navy project, nothing about this is certain yet so don’t hold me to it.
-- Opening day is Monday June 7th. It was originally planned for Saturday, June 5th, but there’s some other major event in downtown that day so they moved the opening to Monday. This is better since we’ll have all week to get the bugs out of stuff before the first weekend crowds show up.
-- A “civilian” ladder is being built. We call it the Bunny Slope. It will be on the after most starboard sponson, directly over where the starboard CIWS was, and will be accessed from the hangar bay just forward of the new men’s head. It will be a standard staircase that will take you from the hangar deck to the flight deck. A small portion of the hangar deck is being cut away to make room for this.
-- Parking on the pier is going to be a mess. The pier is still owned by the city or Port Authority or someone like that. They plan to charge $6 or $7 for parking. If you’re lucky you can find other parking nearby and just hoof it to the pier.
-- We’re not sure yet how the tours are going to work. There will be self-guided audio tours as part of the regular admission price and docent-guided tours for another price. There may not be any docent tours when we first open until we see how the flow of people is going to go. They might also want all the docents to help out with guiding everyone around the first few days.
-- There’s a possibility that docent-led tours will only be by reservation only. If a bunch of you ex-Midway sailors want to get together, I’d be happy to lead your tour. I’m sure I’d learn more from you than you will from me. I’ll let you know more about this as we get closer to opening day. Right now too much is up in the air.
-- That reminds me: When you ex-Midway guys do go on a tour, go easy on us docents. Most of us were not Midway sailors, some were not carrier sailors and a few weren’t even sailors. There’s one guy in my class that was a soldier in the Battle of the Bulge!! So, we’re eager to learn and if we say something that is not quite right, please correct us nicely.
That’s it for now. I’m sure several of us will keep the forum updated with more news as it comes up. See you all in San Diego soon.
NavyBob