The Dells

With Christmas fast approaching, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to write a little bit about where we got engaged: the Wisconsin Dells.

My fiancée’s family have visited there for many years, and it is something of a family tradition. This was why it seemed such an appropriate place to pop the question, and I was very much looking forward to going; that said, I had little idea what to expect from ‘the Waterpark Capital of the World’ (aside from the obvious.)

Now, the place itself… how can I describe The Dells in the context of Britain?…

Take Blackpool, or any seaside tourist town, but take away the seafront itself. Then surround it with Center Parcs. That’s not really anything like The Wisconsin Dells, but it is as close as I can get!

The whole city is entirely based around tourism, existing purely for holidaymakers, and all of the shops in the city centre seem to sell either cheap tat or t-shirts (or, on many occasions, both.) Every hotel in the area also has at least one waterpark, with many having them both indoors and outdoors; Noah’s Ark is the largest in America, over 70 acres with 51 water slides.

But the tat shops, and the t-shirt vendors, and even Mr Pancake’s big breakfast, all pale in comparison to the Tommy Bartlett Exploratory.

From the name, you would be forgiven thinking this is a cutting edge, state of the art science complex. But to be honest you couldn’t be further from the truth. My fiancée’s dad used to come and visit here when he was a child, and from the looks of it hardly anything has changed since then.

Upon entry we entered a lift with a glass wall through which you could see a painting of space on the wall opposite; the slow upward lift journey meant to simulate lift off into the cosmos. As the doors open an old clunking robot, looking like the lovechild of K9 and one of the Smash Martians, shook while an electronic voice welcomed us to the exploratory, before slowly moving up a rail alongside the path we were to follow.

The main museum itself was equally as dated – some exhibits didn’t work, whilst others could no longer be considered anything close to even modern commercial technology. The thing was… it didn’t matter at all. All of the children there were having fun, and we joined in by having a go on as many things as we could on the way round. Even the 80s green screen volleyball game!

The real highlight was in the building next to the main exhibits. Crossing the walkway led through a door to none other than the Mir space station. The real Mir space station.

Obviously this wasn’t the one that went up into space and burnt up in the Earth’s atmosphere, but in total three Mirs were made. One that went into space, one that is locked up in Russia somewhere, and one that Tommy Bartlett himself bought to exhibit in Wisconsin. The amazing thing was the fact that there was barely anybody there! This key piece of human spaceflight history was just casually sitting there, surrounded by slightly dated space shuttle posters and videos. I even got to control a rover (remote control buggy) on Mars (red painted board)!

For me, the whole experience seemed to illustrate a slight difference between American and British attitudes. (Warning, huge over-generalisation coming up…) I can’t help but feel that if the Tommy Bartlett Exploratory were in a British seaside town, the majority of people would tut on the way round, commenting on the aging exhibits or parts that weren’t working. They’d probably complain about value for money and consider leaving a negative review on Trip Advisor. But in America it seems that people look at the positives far more, enjoying the experience and making the most of what is on offer. It might seem from my mini review that I don’t think much of the place, but that couldn’t be further from the truth; it was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

I can’t wait to go back.

EDIT: After posting I checked on Trip Advisor and the Tommy Bartlett Exploratory has a solid four out of five! (Even if the latest review does say “The place hasn’t changed since I was here as a child.”…)