BEST ATTRACTION - AQUARIUM . . . GOT TO BE KIDDING, RIGHT?
Knowing the City Paper's fondness for ironic humor, let's hope the naming of the Aquarium was one of those attempts.
http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A24047
As a licensed city of Charleston tour guide I drive carriages and conduct daytime history walking tours as well as nighttime ghost and prostitution tours. During my six years as a guide I have averaged giving tours to 5000 people a year and I have NEVER had a single person tell me they came to Charleston to "visit the Aquarium". After all, Myrtle Beach and Atlanta have better aquariums, but lousy food and no charm.
Calling the South Carolina Aquarium the "Best Attraction" is like calling Ringo the most important Beatle, Dr. Watson the better detective or Neil Simon the 20th century Shakespeare.
http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A24047
As a licensed city of Charleston tour guide I drive carriages and conduct daytime history walking tours as well as nighttime ghost and prostitution tours. During my six years as a guide I have averaged giving tours to 5000 people a year and I have NEVER had a single person tell me they came to Charleston to "visit the Aquarium". After all, Myrtle Beach and Atlanta have better aquariums, but lousy food and no charm.
Calling the South Carolina Aquarium the "Best Attraction" is like calling Ringo the most important Beatle, Dr. Watson the better detective or Neil Simon the 20th century Shakespeare.
posted by Mark R. Jones at Sunday, March 11, 2007
3 Comments:
I hear you, Mark. But the Aquarium wasn't "chosen" Charleston's Best Attraction in our current Best of Charleston issue by us editors — it was voted Best Attraction by our readers. Those of us at the paper had diddlysquat to do with that selection, other than reporting it. A lot of the readers voted for different local attractions. But the Aquarium got the most votes by far. It's also worth noting that the kind of people you're giving tours to and the kind of people voting in our BOC are vastly different groups: voters are overwhelmingly locals, and tourists are overwhelmingly, well, tourists. Those groups apparently have different ideas about what Charleston's single best attraction is.
But Mark, you left out the glaring fact that the ghost tours are lame. 20 bucks to hoof it around downtown in the dark, listening to questionable first-hand accounts of apparitions, all the while deflecting the guide's attempts to sell his book to the captive audience does not make for a good time.
Give me sharks, parrots, and stingrays any day.
Hey, if people voted this as the best attraction, this should not come as a big surprise to anyone. Although I am not familiar the sites of Charleston, I can say after 28 years of professional experience setting up and maintaining aquariums in offices and elsewhere that they are very popular and soothing to the patrons of these offices. The Pediatric offices in particular found the children were much less wild and sat still once the aquarium was added. Customers even commented that the sounds of the pumps and filters were soothing, not to mention the main draw; the fish and creatures.
Carl Strohmeyer
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