This past weekend my daughter and I spent the night on the Intrepid in New York City.  It was a fun-filled weekend of adventure, activities and very little sleep.  

The Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum hosts Operation Slumber multiple times over the course of the year  for families, organized youth groups and their chaperones.  The overnight is ideal for children 8-12 years old and is a wonderful way for young people to experience life aboard the Intrepid.

We arrived at the Intrepid this past Saturday for a 6pm check in and picked up our itinerary and information regarding our group.  

We dropped our sleeping and overnight bags at our assigned cots on the hanger floor (after testing them out to see what we had in store for the night), and then headed up to the newly renovated Space Shuttle Pavilion located on the Flight Deck.  

After a brief orientation meeting regarding rules and regulations we headed down to the Mess Deck for chow time–a choice of chicken nuggets or hot dogs with salad–yum!

Our itinerary included a list of activities which started with a guided tour of the flight deck (with flashlights) followed by free reign of the aircraft carrier until midnight when the lights went out for some well deserved sleep.  Activities included:

• Exploring the hanger deck and Exploreum Interactive Hall with hands-on fun
• Searching for “treasure” during a special scavenger hunt
• Chow down in the mess deck (dinner and breakfast)
• A ride in the XD Theater (my daughter’s favorite part)
• Fun projects such as make and fly your own paper airplane, space goggles and squadron art

Lights came on at 6:30 the next morning.. and my daughter was of course bright eyed and bushy tailed and could not wait to start the day.  She reminded me of our berthing regulations (packing all of our belongings and folding our cots) which was a prerequisite before we could head down to “chow down” on breakfast and prepare for an 8am departure.

As we left, all kids were handed a goodie bag full of trinkets and passes for a future visit –that being said, my daughter is already planning our next trip back. 

In addition to Operation Slumber, The Intrepid also holds other fun events during the year–a summer movie series on the flight deck (there are two remaining dates for 2015–August 13th and 20th), camp programs and birthday parties.