South on our radar
Groups touring Dixie can choose from some exciting new sightseeing options Here is just a sampling of what’s creating a buzz in the South: ALABAMA GulfQuest, the National Maritime Museum of the Gulf of Mexico, opens in late 2011 on the downtown waterfront in Mobile. The ship-shaped structure will include a full-size replica of a container ship. Exhibits will cover early settlements, maritime archaeology and shipwrecks, animal and plant life, weather and hurricanes, maritime and coastal environments, commerce and shipbuilding, and offshore oil/gas platforms. The first museum dedicated to the Gulf Coast’s rich maritime heritage and third interactive maritime museum in the world, GulfQuest will be the centerpiece of Mobile Landing, which now includes a convention center, cruise ship terminal and riverside park. The
museum building will house a ferry terminal. (gulfquest.org)
destroyed by fire in 1957. Highlights include leaded-glass windows and iconic Tiffany Studios lamps as well as art glass and custom furnishings. (407645-5311, morsemuseum.org)
FLORIDA The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, the most comprehensive collection of Louis LOUISIANA Comfort Tiffany materials in the world, The National World War II will open a new 12,000-square-foot Museum, home to the new Solomon wing in February 2011. The addition Victory Theater, Stage Door Canteen will provide, for the first time, longand American Sector Restaurant, is term public access to the recently continuing its $300-million expansion restored Daffodil Terrace from Louis with construction of the United States Comfort Tiffany’s celebrated Long Freedom Pavilion: Land, Sea and Air, Island home, Laurelton Hall. ONLINE EXCLUSIVE The 11 new galleries will Go online and read the article about a new four-state also feature approximately alliance, Gulf Coast Economy: Ready 4 Takeoff, that aims to 250 art and architectural bolster the region’s tourism prospects. Log on to http://leisureobjects from or related to grouptravel.com/?p=20296. the long-lost estate,
TAMMY WYNETTE: First Lady of Country Music Presented by
August 2010 – June 2011 Don’t miss this exhibit that tells the powerful story of the woman whose talent and
NEW
determination took her from the cotton fields of Mississippi to the heights of stardom.
The Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum
UNIQUE GROUP TOUR PACKAGES AVAILABLE
Dow n tow n Nas hvil l e , Te n n e s s e e
800-852-6437 CountryMusicHallofFame.org
Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum is operated by the Country Music Foundation, Inc., a section 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization chartered by the state of Tennessee in 1964.
34 October 2010
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due to open in spring of 2012. The museum’s largest building, it will feature aircraft, including the Boeing B-17G “Flying Fortress,” and an immersive submarine experience representing the USS Tang in the Pacific Theater. (504-528-1944, nationalww2museum.org) MISSISSIPPI The Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum will be part of a new museum complex set to open in Biloxi in spring of 2012. The original museum was destroyed in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. Besides the maritime/seafood attraction, the complex will include a Mardi Gras Museum and Katrina Museum. The trio of museums will be located on Highway 90, just to the east of the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art and across from the maritime museum’s Schooner Pier complex, where a pair of 68’ two-masted Biloxi Oyster Schooners are moored. Some of the maritime museum’s exhibits will include Native Americans/Colonial period, Boatbuilding, Tools of the Trade, Shrimping, Oystering, Crabbing, Marine Blacksmithing, Wetlands, Barrier islands, Biloxi Seafood Factory, Historic Boats of Biloxi, Managing Marine Resources, and Nets including Turtle Excluder Devices. One artifact on display for the first time since Katrina will be the restored Ship Island Lighthouse Fresnel lens, made in Paris and dating back to the 1820s. It was completely shattered during Katrina. (228-435-6320, maritimemuseum.org)
LeisureGroupTravel.com
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