I just returned from a 3-night visit with my awesome friend Marcia who lives in Long Beach, California. We decided we would stay aboard the Queen Mary during our visit since neither of us have been on the ship before.
A few quick facts about the Queen Mary:
- Her maiden voyage was in 1936.
- She was regarded as the only civilized way to travel by the elite of high society in that era.
- She served the Allied cause in World War II and played a significant role in virtually every major campaign by carrying more than 800,000 troops across nearly 600,000 miles of ocean.
- She was retired in 1967 and purchased by the city of Long Beach. She has since become a favorite destination of visitors to Southern California.
- She’s big. At 1,019.5 feet, she’s 136 feet longer and weighs close to twice as much as the Titanic.
During our stay, we visited many of the restaurants and shops on board. Everyone working there was extremely nice and helpful. Though we did leave the ship to do other things, we could have easily stayed on board the whole time of our visit and still would have had plenty of things to see and do.
My tips for visiting or staying aboard the Queen Mary:
- Unless you like spending hours on end in gridlocked traffic, don’t drive to get there. Traffic in the LA and Long Beach area is its own little version of hell. I decided to drive there since I only live about 6 hours away and I like do drive my own wheels versus renting a car. I’m no scaredy cat behind the wheel, but after that experience, I’ll fly in next time, thank you very much.
- Take at least one of the many tours offered. We took an hour-long tour about the general history of the Queen Mary and were lucky enough to have a former ship captain as our guide. It was very informative and we got to see some of the first class dining and ball rooms we wouldn’t have seen otherwise. There’s even paranormal tours if you’re into that (yes, the Queen Mary is reputed to be haunted, but we didn’t see any ghosts during our stay).
- While on board, take a map of the ship with you everywhere you go. Unless you have a built-in GPS in your brain like my husband does, it’s very easy to get turned around on the ship. Needless to say, we got our exercise during our stay! 🙂
You can make reservations online at The Queen Mary’s website.
Here’s a few pics I took during our stay:
View of the bow from the parking lot
View of the middle of the ship from the parking lot
View of the bow from the Sun deck
View of the bridge from the bow
The Crow’s Nest
View of Long Beach from the bow
One of the three smokestacks. These suckers are huge! Compare the size of the smokestack to the doors on the bottom of the pic.
Starboard side Sun deck
The Bridge
Sir Winston’s restaurant on the stern Sun deck
The Main Hall
In the Queen’s Room while on tour
Evening view of Long Beach from the Promenade Café
I hope you enjoyed the info and the pics! 🙂 If you have any comments or have visited the Queen Mary and want to share your story, please do so in the comment section below!
Happy Travels! 🙂
Great pics! I was 5 years old when the Queen Mary had its last voyage to the USA and my god parents were emigrating from the UK on her. My family went to Southampton to wave them off – I remember it so clearly!
Wow! You got to see her while she was still sailing, and on her last voyage to boot! How cool is that? Thank you for sharing! 🙂
Great to have the opportunity to share!