As long as you are not hard of hearing or deaf.

Imagine paying for goods and services but only receiving half of those goods and services?  What would be your feelings and thoughts?

This is what happen to me when my husband and I went to the Evergreen Air and Space Museum in McMinville, Oregon. We bought our admission ticket which included tickets to the museum's theater which were valued at about $12.00. Theater tickets are sold separately apart from museum admission for those who want to watch the movies but not tour the museum.  I asked the woman at the counter if the movies shown had captioning available or if the theater had other assistive listening devices. I was told sorry no. "But the sound is really loud" the women told me. FYI; cranking the volume up does not mean I can understand what is being said. This is true for many people with severe hearing loss. My husband then said he'd be the only one needing a ticket but the women insisted that she had to also sell me a ticket with admission to the museum even though I was unable to attend any of the movies shown. So I sucked it up,we paid our money and went into the exhibit area. At least, I thought that I could look at the airplanes and various space related items such as the,

Moon Rover. There was also a piece of the Berlin Wall that had been between the cities of Zicherie, West Germany and Bockwitz, East Germany.

However I was further disappointed to discover that I was going to miss out on the extra background information provided about many of the exhibits. Why? Because that information was shown in video format on televisions scattered throughout the museum, none which had captioning. I was unable the hear the TVs.  Information dispersed visually was limited and incomplete compared to the information provided via audio. I felt cheated a second time. 

Maybe Evergreen should have four admission prices: Children, Adults, Seniors, and Hard of Hearing/Deaf?  I will be contacting the museum to bring to their attention that the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) has been in effect for well over twenty years and includes those with hearing impairments.  Here is a museum dedicated to science and technology and the powers-to-be have not used any of that technology to make the museum fully accessible! 

Well at least I had no problems bringing Hearing Dog Cherelle with me. Thumbs up to Evergreen Air and Space Museum being service dog friendly, two thumbs down for accessibility to those with hearing loss.

Warmest Wishes to all from me and tail wags from Cherelle aka Cher.