Business Review – Ripley’s Believe it or Not!

This is one of those places that I have walked by hundreds and hundreds of of times before. By myself, with others, usually accompanied with a “We really need to come here sometime”.  But times square is always so packed with people and whenever I’m in the area I just want to get the heck out. As such I had never gone here.

I was lucky to be selected for this exhibit by yelp. If not, there is the possibility that I may have simply continued to walk by and say “I really want to come here someday.”

I arrived at the front, immediately you are greeted by a huge “bumble bee” from the transformers. Believe it or not he is completely made up of different car pieces. Pretty cool.

I went to the desk and stated I was from the yelp group. They immediately gave me my tickets, no issues. “The laser game is included sir”.

While I waited for my son I saw a few friends, I said hi and continued to wait. I met this young guy that works at Ripley’s up front named Nick, we spoke about the exhibit for sometime and shot the breeze. I explained how yelp works to him. He seemed pretty excited and he said he will join yelp.

My son arrived, we hugged and proceeded in. The first thing that greets you upon entry is a lizard like tattoo man. My boy was excited and wanted to rush through and see everything. “Come on pops”. We took a few pictures, a worker asked us to pose for some official pics as well. (Because we can take our own pictures in here, we didn’t buy any of the pics. If I like them, I do buy them, but unfortunately the pics weren’t impressive.)

There are alot of weird things in here, ranging from very large humans to big hissing cockroaches. Some of the exhibits allow interaction, my son and I were “heads in a glass jar”, and various other weird thingamajigs!

They have this tunnel called the “Black hole”. It’s an illusion, but I will tell you it’s crazy!  There is a little bridge, and this spinning image that gives this illusion that the bridge is spinning. When you walk through it’s normal, but after a few moments you feel as though the bridge is starting to move. I felt as though I was being turned sideways. I grabbed the ledge and tried not to fall. It’s amazing how the mind works. I even got sweaty in there. Your body reacts as though it’s really being spun. Crazy.

Right by the black hole there is a laser exhibit. It’s like one of the scenes from a movie where you have to sneak in without triggering off the laser lights. So of course you know me and my son had to do it. That was fun. Picture me in my dress pants and button down dress shirt crawling and throwing myself all over the place trying to avoid those laser lights.

It’s a bit of a competition. I beat my son on the first attempt. But because we were from yelp were allowed multiple goes (thanks guys). Our next go showed a massive improvement on my son’s time and he blew me out of the water. Little showoff! Lol. It’s very hot in there though, it’s like a sweat box. Also you are crawling if you want to avoid the lasers. So dress comfortably.

I think the staff was rather cool. Mostly young folks, they look like students and the sort. We were treated quite well by the staff. Even the ones that didn’t know we were there with yelp were very nice. These guys take care of their clients, and they take care of their friends.

There are far too many things in here to describe everything we saw, you have to go and see things for yourself. I recently went to the Harry Potter exhibit and the Pompeii Exhibit. This Ripley’s one was far more fun for me and for my son. We were disappointed with the other exhibits, this one did not disappoint..

On the way out I met another dude, we chatted a bit. I also told him about yelp, perhaps another joiner. I think I should get a job as an official yelp promoter. Whenever I go to these events I tell tons of random people about how I got hooked up by yelp, and try to sell it. It’s fun for me. Just naturally flows with the conversation.

“Yeah that black hole was crazy. Pretty cool. I actually got comped admission today. Yeah, yelp.com hooked me up. No, you don’t pay to join the site. It’s free. If you look for a review, odds are yelp is one of the places that shows up, it’s mostly a review site. But we host events, the site hosts events and they have talk threads as well. Yeah, check it out, nothing to lose. Look me up, Angel R.”

That conversation started with a random dude outside because he saw my Ripley’s shopping bag. I bought my son a glow in the dark shirt, I bought one for me, alot of candy, some magnetic snake thing, and some powder candy. I spent quite a few dollars in there. Everybody wins I guess.

It’s worth the few bucks to see the things inside. The area that most impacted me was the “horror/torture” area. That “iron maiden” is some nasty torture business right there. Damn… That thing would pierce your eyeballs, brains, heart, and all vital organs. Serious deathness coming your way.