A Harvard University student gained entry to the New England Aquarium in Boston on June 10 with a ticket that was older than she is.
Rachel Carle, 26, was given the “Late Gate Ticket” by her great aunt Catherine Cappiello, 85, who purchased it in 1983.
“You have arrived too late to fully enjoy our facilities, this ticket is good for admission at anytime in the future,” the ticket read.
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Some feel-good news:
My great aunt kept this ticket in her wallet for ~40 years and gave it to me when I moved to Boston. Today the New England Aquarium honored it as my admission ticket ? Thank you @NEAQ staff for being so sweet and having a laugh with me! pic.twitter.com/GSG4nWDeUg
— Rachel Carle (@rcarletweets) June 10, 2021
Cappiello obtained the ticket during a 1983 trip to Boston with her partner. The couple arrived at the aquarium at the end of a day of sightseeing, but it was around closing time, so they were given the tickets they could redeem in the future.
“I probably changed it from one wallet to another and just kept it in the new one. It was one of those things, I thought that maybe someday I’d get back there, but I wasn’t sure,” Cappiello said.
The tickets were discontinued in the late 1990s, but the aquarium still honors them and sees about one every year, said Aquarium President and CEO Vikki Spruill.
Carle visited her great aunt in New Jersey when she was driving from Washington, D.C., to move to Cambridge.
Carle was not confident the aquarium would accept the ticket, but employees were aware of a policy directing them to accept it.
“I’ve never seen one of these old late gate tickets before, but I have heard that once in a blue moon they do come up, so I was surprised to see it,” said Jenni Coppola, the cashier who accepted the ticket.
The ticket had no expiration date, so she decided to accept it, she said.
Carle’s story “became an opportunity for people to talk about how much they love going to the aquarium, and this reminder of what it means for places like the aquarium to be part of our community,” she said.
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She had a “fantastic” time on her visit that was 38 years in the making, she said.
