LIke most people, I enjoy seeing something massive that has been used in battle. The USS North Carolina is one of the biggest ones that isn't an aircraft carrier.
view from the front.. obviously
It is impossible to be in Wilmington and not know about this thing seeing as how it is visible from nearly all the other tourist attractions in the city and it is likely the only thing in the city that is nearly 750 feet long and weights 44 thousand tons.
You can walk around and admire it for free or you can go on board for the full tour for a mere $14. I really wanted to go on board but we arrived too late and the tours were no longer happening for the day but we could observe from the side a bit. We did see some kids playing withe the anti-aircraft guns which still operate (obviously they don't fire) but it was pretty wild that they rotate and what not.
This particular battleship was made in the late 30's and participated in a number of things but one piece of very ineteresting history is that she was supposed to be in Pearl Harbor during that famous December day but a last minute decision put the North Carolina on patrol missions in the Atlantic as fears of the Germans increased. After Pearl Harbor she was called over to the Pacific fleet and was very successful in missions - i leaned that this ship was particularly useful against aircraft and on more than one occasion "saved" and aircraft carrier.
In one battle that solidified the ship's awesome power in air defense it fired
This ship also survived a direct hit from a torpedo and while i don't' know the specifics, that sounds pretty darn special to me.
We almost didn't get to go look at it at all. We nearly turned around because the parking lot was flooded from some crazy rainstorm the night before. However, as we were about to pull away, some guys in a big pickup truck offered to drop us off on the other side. haha. Good times.
I believe that this is a great attraction for kids and adults of all ages provided you are physically capable of climbing some stairs as it should be quite obvious there are no elevators on the battleship. I think the pure size of this thing inspires awe and a visitor need not even be interested in the ship's history in order to appreciate the attraction.