A wax museum is the perfect place to confront your greatest celebrity enemies without enduring the threat of being reverse-paparazzi'd or recruited to Scientology. With today's Groupon, $9 gets you a ticket to Madame Tussauds, the world-renowned, interactive wax-figure museum (a $20 value). For more than 200 years, Madame Tussaud and her museums have delighted the masses with impressively detailed and meticulously maintained wax renditions of celebrities, musicians, political figures, and sports stars.

Madame Tussaud began crafting wax facsimiles at the tender age of 17, while working as a housekeeper for a skilled wax sculptor. During the French Revolution, she furthered her craft by searching through gaggles of corpses for the freshest decapitated heads, which she used to make beautifully detailed death masks. When her sculptor-employer died, Madame Tussaud inherited his vast collection of wax figures and eventually opened a museum. Today, the Madame Tussaud wax-figure experience is fully interactive—you can hug them, high-five them, and comb their hair—so bring a 20-megapixel digital camera and make a poster of yourself dancing with Beyoncé or challenging Johnny Depp to a staring contest.

Being in the company of famous people is an agreeable experience as long as they can't talk back to you. The experience is even more thrilling with famous politicians. Lucky for you, Tussauds' DC museum (located at 1025 F Street) has a number of politicos, such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, George Washington, Marion Barry, and newcomer Michelle Obama, who joins Barack in front of a picturesque White House setting. And if you're thinking about making it a family outing, there are plenty of kid-oriented figures, including Selena Gomez, star of Disney's series The Wizards of Waverly Place, and the tween-melting Jonas Brothers, all recently unveiled.

Reviews

Frommer's gives this Madame Tussauds location an exceptional rating, saying:

• Seven other Madame Tussauds exist, only two others are located in the U.S., and only one allows you the pleasure of sizing up George Washington, mingling with Beyoncé, helping Tiger Woods line up his putt, or discussing the state of the world up close and personal with Pres. Barack Obama and Michelle Obama. – Frommer's

While some reviewers found admission pricey, many found resolve in the ensuing and priceless photographic memories. Yelpers and TripAdvisors give 3 to 3.5 owl eyes and stars:

• The figures are life-like. They are arranged nicely. And it is fun to be able to touch the statues and pose with them for pictures. Kids would probably love it. – 1VAnurse, TripAdvisor
• I shared a laugh with Reagan, and got hit on by Will Smith. I helped Tiger with his putting. I even got a personal phone call in the oval office. It was not over crowded and it was so much fun...Go wild. Get creative. – Troy M., Yelp