Queen Mary:
Queen of the Seas Serves as Queen of Romantic Hotels

by Paris Permenter & John Bigley

The regal Queen Mary now serves as a romantic hotel...and even a wedding site for some lucky couples

Long Beach lies right in the middle of some of Southern California's biggest attractions--Universal Studios, Disneyland, and Knotts Berry Farm, to name a few.

Lucky couples can stay aboard the Queen Mary (and can even get married on board--related story). Step aboard the regal ship and step back in time to the 1930's, when wealthy travelers journeyed between England and New York on a ship so lavish it appears to be something right out of a movie set. At 1,019 feet long (over three football fields!), the Queen Mary offered large staterooms, lavish ballrooms, exercise rooms, beauty salons, and much more for her 2000 passengers.

Because of its bulk, the ship was expensive to operate and in 1967 the vessel was put up for sale. Fortunately, the City of Long Beach purchased the "Queen of the Seas" and permanently docked her in the harbor. After a renovation, the ship opened as a top tourist attraction and also an elegant hotel. The staterooms where passengers such as Greta Garbo, Winston Churchill, Fred Astaire, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor once stayed are now lavish hotel rooms. A few changes have been made to the rooms -- visitors can no longer choose between salt water and fresh water showers -- but the rooms are basically like those enjoyed by the earlier passengers, including portholes. Like the rest of the ship, the rooms are decorated in an art deco style that makes visitors think they've really taken a time journey.

But you don't have to be a guest at the hotel to experience the luxuries of this massive ship. For a few dollars, visitors may board the Queen Mary and enjoy any of her restaurants or shops which offer gifts from around the world.

But no visit to the Queen Mary is complete without a tour. Pick up a guide map for a self-directed tour of the Queen Mary's many decks, and a look at her experiences both as an elegant cruise ship and a rugged troop transport ship during World War II, a role that won her the nickname "The Gray Ghost."

The self-directed shipwalk tours, with about 50 points of interests, includes a look at the engine rooms, WWII displays, officer's quarters, re-creations of first, second and third class cabins, and much more. One highlight is a walk on the Promenade Deck, the wooden open-air deck where passengers once huddled under blankets to ward off the chill of the Atlantic air. Today the deck is decorated with huge photographs of its most famous passengers, as well as displays on some of the other famous liners of the Cunard line.

The Queen Mary was often called the "Ship of Beautiful Woods," and as you walk among the richly panelled corridors it's easy to see why. Different kinds of wood were used throughout the ship, one to represent each of the British colonies at the time the ship was built. The wood is found in everything from pictures made with a jigsaw technique of interlocking wood pieces to telephone booths, where woods were steamed to construct curved edges.

The Queen Mary is built in a canoe shape, a fact that's very obvious if you stand at the bow or stern and look down the corridors. The middle of the ship is lower than the ends, a design which meant that every piece of furniture on board had to be specially constructed. A look at some of the doorways will show you just how uneven the floor is.

This canoe design is also the reason behind the rough ride Queen Mary passengers had to endure. Unlike modern cruise ships which experience little side to side roll, the Queen Mary was plagued by such frequent motion that unusual measures had to be taken to keep passengers and furniture in place. Handrails were installed along all the corridors, and during high seas passengers literally pulled themselves down the hallways. Dinner was a unique adventure, with the chairs attached to the floor by a rope to keep passengers from sliding all over the dining room! Several wet tablecloths were placed on each table, covered by a dry cloth. Waiters then pushed the plates down on the tablecloths to make an indentation and prevent the plates from sliding too far. Only very experienced waiters were successful aboard the Queen Mary.

With all this evidence to show modern visitors how rough the journeys were aboard this ship, it makes it even more surprising to see a swimming pool on board! An indoor freshwater pool, surrounded by deck chairs and art deco designs, was enjoyed by passengers, even when rough seas caused much of the water to come spilling out of the pool. Legend has it that a woman in a green dress was found drown here, and supposedly her ghost still haunts the ship today.

According to ship employees, this ghost is not alone in her wanderings. A stowaway once died in the lower reaches of the ship after hiding in a compartment which reached unbearable temperatures. A ghostly $4 million attraction on board showcases the ghostly apparitions which many have spotted in its grand rooms. (Related story)

These lower areas of the ship, never seen by passengers during the cruise days, are some of the most interesting areas of the ship. A stockade, used for housing prisoners, is found down in this area, along with the enormous area which once held the boilers used to power the ship. Today, visitors can see this area by walking on a precarious-looking catwalk spanning the room which lies three stories below. Following the Queen Mary's final voyage, the boilers were removed, leaving the ship quite a bit lighter. To compensate for the weight loss, concrete was added to numerous places throughout the ship.

For more on the Queen Mary, see http://www.queenmary.com

copyright Paris Permenter and John Bigley