Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum — Local services in Hatteras Island

I'm a museum junkie so I liked it a lot. Things I liked.... The floor, which felt like sand. The Fabulous information on the Hatteras Lighthouse Lantern and lens's mysterious disappearance. The markers and information throughout the parking lot. Clever shape of the building. Details and behind-glass objects from wartime sea battles, some of which is still under study & renovation. The film room, which has continually running films. There are, however, things that need work. The museum lacks focus and though the individual exhibits are interesting, they do not flow together; the overall effect is a lack of cohesiveness. Yes, the Titanic sank in the Atlantic, but the information doesn't seem to belong here on the Outer Banks. The films shown are interesting, but they are more about the science of underwater recovery in general, and not so much about shipwrecks and history. Information about Queen Anne's Revenge assumes the viewer already knows all about Blackbeard. Needs more background. The comprehensive info on sportfishing seems better suited to a museum of sea, or a general OBX museum because it's unrelated to the Graveyard theme. Overall, it's definitely worth a visit. And for sure make time to read the panels in the lobby about the Hatteras Lantern. But I hope efforts will be made to more finely tune and curate...

On my list of things to see while in OBX, this museum did not disappoint. We had a long day of travel and at first my kids did not want to make an extra stop on the way to our hotel but by the end of the experience they were gushing with gratefulness.

If I had to change or add something, I think it would be really helpful to add some kind of markers to the flooring so upon entering you know where to go because it is a little confusing that the entrance is behind the desk. And also entering the museum itself the flow of traffic is just every which way and your often struggling to see things with people moving both ways on the same pathway (if that makes sense) so maybe like some arrows to show which way the museum should be viewed and to keep everyone moving in one direction would really help.

Also the man at the front desk interrupted me reading the passage on the wall to my children to offer them a scavenger hunt (which I wanted to do anyways) but instead of interrupting me he really could have waited.

I am still giving 4 stars though because we really enjoyed it. My kids favorite part was listening to the stories of the survivors.

I think this place is a must see if traveling to OBX and I would...

My family and I took four hours out of our trip exited to look at this place because of the advertising; for the whole family and museum. It did not fit.

The whole thing was 3 rooms. The smallest room was the entrance with attached bathrooms and it had small amounts of text on the walls and a few nick knacks, but nothing of note. The other two rooms, of equal size, were the gift shop with overpriced kids’ stuff, and the main exhibit.

This main room was filled to the brim with text on every corner about all kinds of unrelating things. One example is the titanic, which had no artifacts from it in the Museum, but a large section of wall dedicated nonetheless. It was all preliminary information for someone who knows nothing about the ships which would be fine if there was something other than text on the walls. The number of things on display was incredibly low, and nothing of note other than a Dorito bag. If you want to do reading and for some reason don’t want to do it online, with no visual component, this is your place I guess.

There was some kids’ stuff like a scavenger hunt, but it was certainly not for the whole family and just kids, save yourself a visit and read about notable boats...