I have lived 20 minutes outside of Boston my whole life. I think because I live so close sometimes I forget about the cool attractions in my own backyard. My kids have a lot of interest in history and I knew they would love the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum. This is an awesome experience that not only allows you to learn about history but live it! We had a blast!
They are located at 306 Congress Street with several locations around them to park at a discounted rate. The area is gorgeous!
When you arrive you are assigned to a a tour time. The whole tour is guided and takes about an hour and a half. We were lucky and arrived at 11:15 and were assigned to the 11:30 tour. They do get busy so you may need to wait a bit for your tour to begin.
You then proceed to meeting Samuel Adams (seen here with the blue jacket) who gives you a feather and tells you to go in to the Meeting House. You are then filled in on all you will need to know about your experience and about the meeting that is about to happen and how you should respond to different things that are said. Examples are hissing, booing, banging on the wood, and saying Huzzah! As you know experiencing something helps you learn more and getting to participate allowed the kids to get a better grasp of the history. They actors did a fabulous job!
You feel like you are a part of history as you participate in this meeting learning all the way.
You are assigned a persona so you can read about some of the people who participated in the Boston Tea Party. The feather is so you can disguise yourself on board the ship as you toss the tea overboard.
Next you head on to the boat!
This is the part the kids couldn't wait for.
Yes you do get to toss the tea overboard!
The first round of tea going overboard was only done by a few kids and then we headed down in to the bottom of the boat. Don't fear though if you didn't have a chance you will have ample time when you come back up on deck.
Lauren better hide out as she could now be accused of treason!
Here is some video on board the ship.
Here are some photos inside the boat.
On deck.
The Tea!
After getting off the boat you gather at the museum. You learn more about the Boston Tea Party before entering the museum.
You are not allowed to take photographs once you enter the museum but I will let you know it is spectacular! You will see amazing holographic images, one of the remaining 2 boxes that had tea in it from the actual event, and an amazing movie. The Robinson Half Chest you see in the museum is one of two surviving chests from December 16, 1773. This chest is one of 340 tea chests that were dumped in the Boston Harbor. The only other surviving chests is displayed in Washington DC. It is pretty cool that this chest is right over the water it was originally dropped in to.
After you exit the museum you enter Abigail's Tea Room. Lauren was very excited about this as she had a Famous Person day at school and dressed up as Abigail Adams!
There are drinks (of course they have tea), food and pastry items. I went with the 1/2 tuna sandwich and clam chowder and it was really good. There is peanut butter and jelly (though it does have rasberry jam) and macaroni and cheese on the kids meal.
What a lovely view from our table.
A lovely view if you eat outside.
You can then exit out through the gift shop.
We had so much fun and learned a lot. Definitely check out the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum!
Disclosure: I was provided with tickets for my family for the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum. No other compensation was received and all opinions are my own.
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