I attempted to visit Hornet while in the Bay Area as part of the DSL meetup in May 2025. Unfortunately, when we arrived, there was a long line to get onto the ship, as they were hosting a furry convention1 that day. Now, I have nothing against museum ships doing unusual things for money, and I'd heard of CarrierCon, a more general fandom convention hosted aboard Hornet, but that was a few months ago.2 The real problem was threefold. First, one member of our party had checked their website that morning, and not seen anything about this, so it was a unpleasant surprise to find the ship full of people, with an hour-long line. Second, upon arrival we were told that admission would require a con pass, which was $50 instead of the normal $25. Third, it was Memorial Day weekend, and while I'm sure that this wasn't one of their busier weekends,3 doing a convention of any sort4 on that weekend feels tacky and a bit disrespectful.
That said, I do want to zero in on the second of the three issues. My basic problem is that because the ship was hosting a con, the experience onboard would be much worse than it would normally have been. I got a look at their map, and pretty much every large public space aboard was being used for panels and the like, which is going to make talking about them much harder, even with the relatively small group (8 people) I had. The only open area on the ship looked to be the flight deck, which is fun, but not $50 worth of fun. And while I am sympathetic to the operational difficulties of trying to separate the general public from con guests, charging people who actually want to see your ship (instead of the thing on it) more for a worse experience isn't a great look.
There's the bigger issue of balancing financial stability and visitor experience. In an ideal world, all ships would be well-funded by wealthy donors, and they'd be able to pay for more crew and provide free admission. But we obviously do not live in that world, and museum ships are expensive to keep running, so there's a lot of demand for ancillary sources of income. And some of these are pretty harmless (gift shops) or even useful (extra tours for those willing to pay more)5 but others can trade off pretty directly against the general visitor experience. And those need to be evaluated pretty carefully, because we are ultimately not supposed to be doing this for money.
I also think it's worth emphasizing that they did this on Memorial Day, and we even saw a flyer for the ship's Memorial Day celebration on Monday, the last day of the Con. I'm not really sure how I'd feel holding a ceremony to honor those who fell defending our country in the middle of a furry convention, and I rather hope this bothers Hornet's management to the point that they don't do it again.
I'm not planning to organize a boycott of Hornet, which I rather liked on my last visit. I'm not even going to advise against going, and will probably go back next time I'm in the Bay Area. But I am going to check their website for events very carefully, and I recommend you do, too.6
1 To be clear, I have nothing in particular against the specific convention, who apparently decided that hosting aboard a carrier would be fun. If anything, I appreciate in the abstract that they are funneling money to a museum ship, even if the implementation left a lot to be desired. ⇑
2 Also, a couple years ago, CarrierCon partnered with Azur Lane, one of the shipgirl games. (Simple fighting games with busty anime girls who are somehow also ships. No, I don't understand it either.) I try not to judge too harshly how museum ships make money, but I find the whole shipgirl thing unbelievably weird and repulsive, and I think some judgement is in order here. ⇑
3 Back when I was on Iowa, I went down to the ship to volunteer on Memorial Day, figuring it would be busy, and it was no busier than usual and probably quieter. At least I didn't have to dodge trucks on the freeway on the way in. They solved this problem by moving Fleet Week to Memorial Day a couple years ago. ⇑
4 OK, yes, Iowa was hosting LA Fleet Week at the same time, but the difference between the two is pretty obvious. ⇑
5 Pricing and timing of these can also reveal interesting things about a ship's volunteer availability. ⇑
6 Of course, this assumes the event is actually on their website. Both years I was in LA, I ended up taking people to Iowa during LobsterFest, a (now-defunct) celebration of the lobster held in Iowa's parking lot, which really snarled up logistics, even if the ship tour was unaffected. I'm not sure they put it on their website, and I had probably overlooked notifications to the ship's crew. ⇑
Comments
I would never not go to a museum again because they gooned up their schedule, but I will say it's damned irritating. A few years ago I was home in Ohio and went to see the MAPS Air Museum in Akron; one of my favorite small museums. Checked the website, no issues, drove an hour south from Cleveland...and it turns out they're closed for the day because there's a group having a luncheon there that day. Woulda been nice if that had been on the doggoned website.
The last two times I came to the the US was in 2016 and 2018, for MantiCon, the main convention of the The Royal Manticoran Navy, and it was held both times during the Memorial Day Weekend, mostly because that's when a lot of people take some days of vacation, and a lot of SF&F or whatever cons are held during that weekend.
Maybe not on a CV, MantiCon was held at the Hilton at Minneapolis Airport. And I doubt that they would have organised it on one, as TRMN is top heavy with veterans and servicemen. Even in a lot of them later participated to a LARP held on museum DD...
For those interested the first two book can be downloaded for free from Baen Books. https://www.baen.com/on-basilisk-station.html
I am not trying to critique the idea of holding cons on Memorial Day weekend in general. It makes a lot of sense for logistical reasons, and I don't think people have an obligation to spend the entire weekend contemplating or anything. My problem is the combination of extremely non-military con and museum ship on that specific weekend. (I'd even think MantiCon would have been in better taste, given the military bent. They'd show up to the memorial service, and not in fursuits.)
Wait, which one? The only museum destroyer I can think of on the Great Lakes in the one in Buffalo.