Ripley's Fisherman's Wharf: Fun For All Ages (Believe It Or Not)
A $5 million renovation of the Ripley’s Fisherman's Wharf Odditorium in 2010 has updated the longtime family attraction. Seventy new interactive exhibits at Ripley’s Fisherman's Wharf are among its mostly new collection of more than 300 "Believe It Or Not!" oddities, with many accompanied by videos.
It may be a tourist trap, but if you’re visiting the Wharf with kids, they’ll leave with big smiles on their faces. So will you.
The Ripley’s entrance makes it instantly clear that this is a fun place. Off to the left of the motorcycle made of license plates, a three-piece mannequin band plays lively jazz. Oh, and that eight-foot-eleven dude holding the cello as if it’s a fiddle? That’s Robert Wadlow (1918-1940), the all-time world’s tallest man and the subject of one of 18 galleries inside.
Visitors to Ripley’s learn as they enter the Odditorium that Robert Ripley became the first millionaire newspaper cartoonist while drawing 45,000 strips beginning in 1918, each documenting how strange and amazing our world can be. The rest of the museum contains proof in the form of authentic and representational objects, with the story behind each one described in signs or videos.
You will see a Coke-bottle coffin, a mammoth tooth, the world’s ugliest woman and a girl raised by wolves. Themed galleries are devoted to the Old West, cannibals, sports oddities and space exploration. Art lovers will appreciate the room full of art made exclusively with Rubik’s Cubes, pushpins, chicken wire, nail polish, pennies or human flesh. You can also step into a kaleidoscope chamber, take a coordination challenge, have fun with distortion mirrors and play antique, coin-operated games.
HelloSanFrancisco tip: For a few extra dollars, you can enter Ripley’s Marvelous Mirror Maze upstairs. Darkness (except for multi-colored LED floor lights) and 200+ perfectly clean, door-sized mirrors make it impossible to tell where mirrors block your path, so you have to feel your way through and guess right. Expect to be “lost” in the disorienting maze for at least 10 or 15 minutes.
Posted on Feb 14, 2011 by Bob Cooper
