Visiting Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum It’s Top Gun for Real – @USSMidwayMuseum @visitsandiego

Top Gun is one of my favorite movies so when we decided to visit San Diego, my first stop had to be the USS Midway Aircraft carrier.  How could I pass this experience up? Did you know the USS Midway was one the United States longest serving aircraft carriers?

 

The museum takes visitors back in time aboard the 20th century’s longest-serving aircraft carrier in which  225,000 sailors served aboard during   its nearly 50 years of operation.

 

And walking amongst the29 restored aircrafts on the flight deck that served the country from WWII to Desert Storm was quite an amazing experience.

 

So many fun photo ops. We  learne what each of the colored uniforms role is up on the flight deck. This was cool for me.

As you tour the carrier, you can get a glimpse into the day-to-day lives of the 5,000 crew members  sailors that serve aboard the Midway. This was just an eye-opening experience. Seriously, I can never get over that 5,000 people live aboard an aircraft carrier for many months.   Walking through the kitchen with it’s enormous vats to cook in will floor you. They are just huge. You can not imagine how tight the living quarters are until you see them. So much for privacy, right.

That is of course not the same for the officers but you really get see how they lived. Just to being this  close really  brings their  day to day lives  to life.

You can take a self-guided audio tour to 60 exhibits throughout the historic aircraft carrier or just plain wonder. I liked that  there  are also museum docents scattered throughout the ship. We were able to  ask questions of men who served on a carrier during it’s time in service.

 

This is one of the highlights of my trip so I definitely recommend you taking the time to visit the USS Midway.  And definitely fun for kids and so many photo ops. Make sure you allow at least 3 hours for your visit. It is located on the Navy Pier in downtown San Diego which makes for the perfect visiting experience. After your USS Midway visit,  you can wander the Pier where you can stroll along, taking in the huge Unconditional Surrender statue and then enjoy a lunch  or some shopping at Seaport Village.