Despite growing up in East Tennessee, and having been to Gatlinburg more times than I can count, I never actually made it to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not located there. I decided it was time to change that and headed to the Orlando location on International Drive.
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[lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”true”]It has a very exciting façade, a building gone sideways as if there’s been an earthquake. The first exhibit is a hologram projection of Robert Ripley, the founder and apparently cartoonist that started the Believe It or Nots Museums. I had no idea it was originally a daily newspaper cartoon. There were all sorts of little relics from around the world from different cultures, lots of little tribes and countries I had never heard of. Then there was a video playing about being able to roll your tongue and a mirror to practice it in front of, but I skipped that.[/lgc_column]
The next room had all sorts of optical illusions and tests to see if you could figure it out, like the one where you’re trying to tell if it’s a bunny or a duck, but I 
never found an answer key to some of the questions. There were tons of posters on the walls scattered throughout drawn as if they had appeared in a newspaper with two or three fun facts on each one. There was also all sorts of intricate art made out of strange mediums, everything from portraits made of sugar to a gorilla made of tires. As you kept going, you passed through a musical hallway where the floor was a keyboard into a sideways room, I assume from the same earthquake that tilted the outside of the building, that just made me dizzy as I tried to get through it. The next area was a hodge-podge of native artifacts from different areas of the world. Then you came to a large display dedicated to teeny-tiny little sculptures done on top of pin heads that needed microscopes to be seen. There was a room dedicated to medieval torture devices that I’m certain I’m going to have nightmares about, and an area talking about dinosaurs. One of the very last rooms was a two way mirror, where you could see people practicing their tongue rolling. I’m glad I went right past it the first time!
Ripley’s has some interesting stuff. My favorite parts were all the little fun facts rather than the actual displays. My biggest problem was I had seen a lot of this stuff before, and half the posters were fan submitted facts and I felt like I was reading a collection of the world’s most unlikely to be true Tumblr text posts. I guess that’s the point of Believe It or Not. And maybe I would have been more impressed if I didn’t spend so much time online.
Cost: Gate Price is $19.99 per person. Buying your tickets online in advance saves you three dollars making it $16.99.
Duration: 1-1.5 hours.
Value: Cool to do once.
Add On Options: Museum Collection Book for $2.00. I passed. There’s also some sort of scavenger hunt you can do from your phone, but I was too busy walking my Pokémon.
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