New York City - USS Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum

Anyone been to the Intrepid lately? I was thinking of taking grandkids for a visit and I'm wondering how bad the lines are.

I was curious to see the Space Shuttle and I passed by last saturday... Mind that it was the second day since the space pavillon was opened.
Hours long lines, all of them, wheelchair line, online tickets, regular tickets... I waited 5 minutes and I gave up (I hate lines..).

I'm pretty sure it was because of the weekend and the recent opening, I'll try to go next friday and see how it is...

I thought we'd turn this into a general resource for the Intrepid while we're on the subject. Here are the links to the museum website as well as the Space Shuttle thread:

http://www.intrepidmuseum.org/

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/new-york-city/1320500-space-shuttle-enterprise-land-jfk-atop-shuttle-carrier-aircraft.html (April 2012)

We went there on Friday, 7/27. We arrived at about 11:30 and waited about one hour for admission to the ship. The line for people who already had tickets was only about half an hour.
You have to pay a separate fee for admission to the Space Shuttle Pavillion. There was no wait there. It is definitely worth the price for anyone with any interest in the space program and aviation. I never realized it was so BIG. Really amazing.
The Intrepid Museum is a great American resource and should be visited by anyone in the NYC area.

We went there in June; waited maybe 15 minutes because we asked which line to wait in and the guy directed us to the wrong one (the line for purchasing tickets) when we had pre-paid tickets (one of the passes). If you prepay or have a pass, go to the far left (this merges with the general line for the metal detectors), then again to the far left.

Our boys are 12, 10 & 8. We did not do the Growler (submarine) because the wait for that was about an hour. The top deck of the Intrepid (with a number of planes and helicopters) was very hot (out in the full sun) but the bridge was nice. The middle deck was great--lots to see and touch and read. And the bottom deck was OK (do a quick walk through for bunks and mess hall, etc. As noted, the Space Shuttle (and the Concorde) are extra. So is the private guided tour which supposedly has extras off limits to the general public. So are the simulators. Anyway, if you do everything, you can rack up quite a bill.

Thanks for the reports, thebat and eefor jfp! :cool: