For Anyone Going to Visit Nauvoo

Lessons Learned

There are some things I wish I’d done differently and advice I’d give someone visiting Nauvoo. The main issue was not enough time.

We should have flown into Kansas City, and drove to Nauvoo while doing the MO sites. I really regret not having more time in Independence (we had about 25 mins). Feasibly, you could try to fly in on a Saturday as early as possible, spend the rest of the day in Independence and Liberty (depending on how early the flight in was) and get a hotel. Then you could leave early Sunday to see Adam-Ondi-Ahman, and Far West on the drive to Nauvoo. On Sunday, some of the Nauvoo sites are open, including the old visitor’s center. You’ll probably want to stay in Nauvoo through at least Friday, if not Saturday. Ideally, we’d have driven down the Mississippi on the last day and flown out of St Louis. Without stopping it’s about a 4 hour drive.

Having a cooler full of ice and water bottles was a necessity. Hit a grocery store the 1^st day and buy a flat of water, a styrofoam cooler and ice. Healthy snacks are also highly valued, since many days we ended up eating meals late in order to see sites. Buy ice and more snacks at mini-marts throughout the journey.

In Nauvoo, I liked doing the wagon ride and old visitor’s center first. After a day or tow, it would have been nice to do the carriage ride and the ox cart ride, but we didn’t have time. There are no vignettes, demonstrations or other shows that I’d pass up on; as a matter of fact, there were some we couldn’t see because they weren’t shown on the days we were there or we didn’t have time (detect a theme?). You need to get tickets for the some of the shows at the visitor’s center a day or two in advance.

Note: for endowments and baptisms, you need reservations, but not for sealings.

Taking Stephanie down to the river (at the end of Parley street there were a couple of benches on the other side of the stage) to watch the sunset was one of my favorite moments. Dinner at the Hotel Nauvoo was nice. The buffet was good. Bring bug repellant.

Jerika had a great idea for souvenirs for the boys. We bought them wooden rubber-band shotguns in one of the gift shops and took it to the pre-pageant activities where we got them branded with the pageant logo.

Don’t underestimate how much time you may spend in the lands and records office. If you do some genealogy work *before you go so you have a list of names of ancestors that may have lived in Nauvoo at the time, you’ll come home with a ton of information about them. You could spend a couple hours there gathering information. When you are done, they burn it to a CD for you to take home.

Speaking of time, leave enough time every day for journal writing, and personal time. I’d suggest every morning.

Of course, you have to see the pageant. The night or morning before you are going to see the pageant, take tape and papers with your names on them to the audience area and reserve seats. I’d say shoot for the back of the front center section. You can get too close and be careening your neck too much. I would like to have seen the pageant twice.

It was nice to visit the old cemetery knowing what relatives we had that died there. It was a good, slow down, rest and ponder moment. Visiting the grave sites of Joseph, Emma and Hyrum was also one of those moments.

There is a very nice campground in Nauvoo, but it may be full of pageant performers.

The ride to St Louis: On the way back you could visit Hannibal, MO early enough in the day to do the Twain (train) ride (closed at 4:00 pm) and maybe the museum. I’m not sure I’d do the cave again. The Mark Twain historical portion was nice and the tour was entertaining, but I’d rate the cave itself quite low as far as caves go. There were very few geologically intriguing aspects. Maybe if it weren’t so costly it would be a definite. In St Louis, if there’s time, you could see the arches. We didn’t have time.

Before you go

Visit nauvoopageantcousins.org before you go (it is available there as well in case you can’t do it at home) and put in as much information as you can to find out which of the characters from the pageant you are related to. Print it out and bring it to the pre-show activities. You can get pics with the performers, plus it’s nice to watch for those characters in the performance.

Visit the Historic Nauvoo web page and look at the calendar and schedule. It’s a good idea to generally plan your week beforehand so you don’t miss things. Leave time for rest, pondering and journal writing. Note that some of the sites are only open in the afternoons.

*See note about doing some genealogy work before you go. Print out the information and bring it along.