thunder bay national marine sanctuary

One of the true gems of the Sunrise Side of Michigan. The exhibits are are extremely well done. Great for the entire family. A learning experience for all ages. When coupled with the Shipwreck Boat Tour makes a great day!

The Great Lakes are fantastic & tretchurous with beauty along with the threat of storms & wild water at any time or just a lovely day! The great ship wreck tour shows you just how often tradegy has happened in history. The Great Lakes Light House Festival is a wonderful time to visit light houses & ship wrecks...

Very nice museum! Many activities for children! The displays were very well done, and well explained. The gift shop was nice,and provided a god selection of items.

The waters off Alpena, Michigan - Thunder Bay - are home to hundreds of shipwrecks. Recently the protected area was expanded from 400 to 4,000 square miles. The history of the maritime commerce and travel of this part of Michigan are protected here by federal designation, mooring buoys, law enforcement. The Maritime Heritage Center - on dry land - lets the landlubber explore the artifacts and exhibits. Divers from snorkelers to technical divers explore the underwater cultural artifacts and shipwrecks. And a glass bottom boat tour allows a glimpse of the shallow wrecks. This is a first class experience.

For two hours, the two guides kept the guests of the Glass Bottom Boat well informed and interested. Everyone we met that worked on this attraction were extremely nice and welcoming. We attended the Lighthouse Festival and this weekend The Glass Bottom Boat offered an extra tour around the waters of the Thunder Bay Lighthouse, which is being preserved. They also included a shipwreck and even took us to an extra wreckage on our return to the Bay. We thoroughly enjoyed the views and would highly recommend seeing this beautiful museum, boat tour and gift shop. It was very informative to have the former lighthouse keeper from the Coast Guard on board to give us exciting information about living on this island during his tour of duty for nine months of the year for four years. This may have been an extra feature for this special Lighthouse weekend, but the information you receive regarding this history of the area, Lake Huron, shipping industry and boat wreckages is well worth the stop.

It's always nice to visit the museum when we're in town. Interesting displays and very friendly people.

The best part about this museum is the boat exhibit that you can walk through and see what living on a boat in the late 1800's would be like. They also have a very nice theater where we watched a movie on the history of some of the ships and wreck sites.Other than these two exhibits, it's standard fare. Worth checking out but you won't spend a lot of time here.

This a free museum that has great displays about the Great Lakes. The docents are friendly. There is plenty to see and they also offer Glass Bottom Boat Tours out to the many shipwrecks in Thunder Bay. We did not take the time for this.

Amazing! It was a beautiful day - crew & narrator were top notch - very helpful and informative.I loved everything about it.

Very interesting and informative glass bottom boat tour. Would recommend it to everyone. It was free this time but it is well worth the actual price.

We enjoyed our visit to both the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary and a ride on the Lady Michigan glass bottom boat. The Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary is a free museum and one of a kind - both educational and fun at the same time. If you would like to see ship wrecks up close and personal be sure to jump aboard the Lady Michigan for an outstanding narrated trip along the shores of Alpena and out into the Thunder Bay, very beautiful and informative. Both are a must see when in Alpena-they do Alpena proud!!

I love that we have this in our own backyard!!! The staff are so knowledgeable and friendly. You can tell they truly love what they do. Admission to the museum is FREE and the boat tour is well worth the price! The glass bottom boat tour is fantastic!! The tour guide gives a very interesting and informative narration at each stop that is made, giving you ample time to see the shipwrecks and take pictures. Recommend for folks of all ages!

Very interesting and knowledgeable. I would do it again. The kids had a great time and it was a beautiful day for it.

Loved the museum perfect for families with kids of all ages...boat tour a disappointment an expensive for what you get

We enjoyed everything about the museum. We had our two children ages 1 & 4 with us and they really enjoyed it. We have already recommended this destination to many others. Oh, and the fact that there was no admission charge was shocking, we left a nice donation and shopped the gift shop. Hopefully others will do the same.