One of the last museum in Door County that was still on my short list of Must Do in Door County was the Door County Maritime Museum in Sturgeon Bay. Since we were headed to Door County for volleyball, I figured we could hit the Door County Historical Museum and the Door County Maritime Museum at the same time.
After doing the Door County Historical Museum (highly recommend), we headed over to the Maritime Museum since it was across the street where we planned on having dinner. It is $12/adult and $5/children which does include the light house tower. The museum is open year round except for major holidays in winter and school snow days so it is a perfect stop in winter as well.
The first floor has exhibits of ships, shipbuilding, and many models of ships that were built in Sturgeon Bay since shipbuilding was and still is a key industry in the area. I am not one to look at models so I did not find it as interesting as Death's Door Maritime Museum. If you are into models of ships that were built in the area then this is the perfect museum for you.
The second floor had an picture exhibit about the ships in World War II which was interesting.
It also feature an interactive ship navigation feature where you had to navigate a ship through the shipping canal, through the bridges of Sturgeon Bay, and into the harbor for dry docking. The hubby excelled at the this. I didn't even try as I knew I would never get it through the shipping canal.
We also climbed the light tower. This is still under construction so it was not fully open yet. We opted to skip the video to maximize our time since we only had about an hour in the museum before it closed. After taking the elevator to floor 10 we looked at the different pictures and was able to take in Sturgeon Bay from 10 stories up. The hubby opted not to go on the roof. The views were spectacular especially on a nice fall day. Each floor of the tower is supposed to have pictures and exhibits. Hopefully it will be done soon.
After we left the museum, we took a few minutes to check out some of the tug boats docked. Those were very impressive to see especially the various sizes.
Overall, it wasn't a bad museum. I just preferred Death's Door Maritime Museum better. It is worth checking out. Personally I'm not sure it was worth the price of admission but between the tower and the ship navigation experience it just might be.
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