Fulcrum7 spoke with the "Answers in Genesis" Communications Director this week to get an update on the full-scale Ark being built in northern Kentucky. Here is the latest regarding this exciting project.
With more than 1.4 million visitors expected to tour the life-size re-creation of Noah’s Ark known as Ark Encounter its first year, the organization behind the attraction, Answers in Genesis, has just opened an online ticketing system to help manage the requests. With a nod to the number of days and nights it rained while Noah and his family were on the Ark, tickets will be sold for separate daytime or evening visits during the first 40 days of opening, starting July 7.
Meanwhile, excitement is building in northern Kentucky (south of Cincinnati) as the opening date nears, and workers at the Williamstown site are busy constructing the internal exhibit areas of the Ark now that the external shell is largely complete. As the largest timber frame structure in the world – 510 feet long according to the dimensions specified in the Bible – the Ark Encounter is getting a lot of attention not just across America, but around the world. Ken Ham, president and founder of Answers in Genesis, is eagerly looking forward to the educational and evangelistic opportunity the Ark will be for so many thousands of guests expected to visit daily during the first forty days and nights. “Today, we don’t need another Ark to save animals and people from a global Flood,” Ham said. “But we do need another kind of Ark, to take people on what we are calling a ‘voyage of discovery.’”
While the Ark Encounter can accommodate about 16,000 guests per day, research has shown that more could be expected during the first few weeks of opening, especially during the summer time frame. This was the reason for establishing daytime entry tickets and nighttime tickets for the first 40 days.
For the first 40 days, guests can purchase daytime tickets for 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. or nighttime tickets for 5 p.m. – midnight. The day and evening times will also offer some differing experiences. Tickets are $40 for adults, $28 for children and $31 for seniors. Parking is $10.
The Creation Museum in Petersburg, 40 miles from the Ark site, has been visited by over 2.5 million guests since opening in 2007. In the past two years, the museum unveiled a world-class $1.5 million exhibit of an allosaur dinosaur skeleton, and hosted the famous Bill Nye/Ken Ham evolution-creation debate (conservatively estimated to have now been watched by upwards of 15 million people).
Editor's note: I was especially interested in the construction of this project because they used spray foam insulation to insulate the interior hull of the ark. They obtained the material from one of my suppliers, the Jameson Company. Very cool.
For more information about AiG, visit http://www.answersingenesis.org. The Ark website, with video and photos, is www.ArkEncounter.com.
As they say in Kentucky, "Y'all come!"