Ships Of The Sea Maritime Museum — Attraction in Savannah

"But problems do arise when expectations do not match experience." - Ships Interim Executive Director.

Let me start with the quote above that summarizes our entire wedding experience with Ships. Our actual wedding was beautiful, so much fun, and we have so many memories to keep with us, however, our experience with Ships was horrendous from start to finish. And since I was accused of making a threat, let me be CLEAR, I planned on reviewing my experience with Ships regardless of the outcome. If you are a middle-class, DIY, or on a budget bride, Ships of the Sea is NOT for you. They only cater to privileged bridal parties who are in a financial position to hire wedding planners or coordinators. As a result of our complaints, they made this an official policy. A policy that is classist and flat out discriminatory. Ships will NOT take accountability for anything, and we barely got an apology. No matter what we said, they kept telling us "You are not professionals. A professional would not have let these things happen." I am extremely saddened by this experience. My only hope is that brides in the future take this information and choose wisely when deciding their venue.

My husband and I went through THREE venue coordinators over the course of five months when planning our wedding. Each time a coordinator would leave, I was never notified of their departure, and several details of our wedding were lost during each transition, so it felt like we were starting from square one each time. Due to our extreme disappointment, we decided to take our complaints to the Interim Executive Director. My Day Of Coordinator (with years of event planning experience) sent her complaints to her, and that's when we received the quote above. In the phone call, the Interim Executive Director essentially blamed everything that happened on us for not having a wedding planner. She stated, "You didn't know what you were doing because you are not a professional." I was FLOORED. I kept every single email and document since booking the venue, I pointed out every single incident of miscommunication and lack of accountability from her staff, and she stood firm to her statement that having a planner would have prevented all of this from happening. I read off emails her staff sent, and she told me that she DID NOT see the email chains, but was only looking at our contract. AGAIN, I WAS SPEECHLESS. Here we are, customers who paid, who have proof of when Ships employees were clearly in the wrong, and she didn't even bother to read it so that she could have a better understanding of why we were upset. At that point, I knew Ships did not care. They did not care about us, they did not care about our complaints, they were not going to take accountability, or even acknowledge the mistakes their employees made. The interim Director had a terrible attitude and even accused us of not having "common sense" when I noted that one of the issues could have been easily resolved if her employees just communicated. We requested a refund and it was immediately denied because they "upheld their end of the contract." Words cannot express how...

Ships of the Sea is such a beautiful venue, but I was so disappointed by their team. They emailed us a week before our wedding to let us know they had just finished installing an art exhibit outside, in the venue space that we would be using. This was not a festive or lighthearted theme for a wedding venue, but instead featured many somber items including sculptures of severed hands in the reflecting pool. Our contract stated they could install art exhibits in the venue space, but they would have to let us know when the installation was scheduled. The exhibit had been planned since 2020, and they only gave us a weeks notice in October of 2021 (after installation was complete) sending us into a frenzy to get rentals to cover up the exhibit. The venue coordinator was extremely rude and unhelpful - even though they breached the contract, she was extremely confrontational when we asked for reasonable accommodations (taking parts of the exhibit down or paying to cover everything up). Luckily I had a wedding planner so I did not have to deal with the stress of this on the day of my wedding, but overall this sent stress levels through the roof for everyone the week of the wedding. You would expect an organization that makes the majority of their money from venue rentals would be more accommodating and sympathetic to the client. The actual venue is so beautiful – the garden feels so intimate for the ceremony, the cocktail hour space is wonderfully set up, and the reception area is the perfect size for larger or...

Visited 10/3… I’m a solid three star rating. As one recent guest said, “Has more rules than ships. Paintings more interesting. (I disagree with this part). Skip this place and go to Savannah Historical for a more interesting, less snobby experience.” I’d put a little emphasis on snobby. The guy at the desk giving an introduction sounded absolutely robotic and quoted more rules than “we’re so glad you chose to spend your time with us today” comments. There are no guides around anywhere to answer questions or discuss the museum contents. All they have is one frumpy older guy upstairs who walks around glaring at people and giving orders to make sure your mask in 100% perfect on your face… doesn’t speak politely nor did he even bother to say please or thank you! Disinterested employees is what we encountered. The only redeeming quality would be perhaps the gardens which are beautiful!! Oh, and the young lady at the front desk… she was the only one who was polite and wished us a pleasant day upon leaving. Not a place I would rush back to and would only suggest to people with several caveats as...