Travels In Moby: RMS Queen Mary

Today's Travels in Moby brings us to Long Beach, CA, home of the RMS Queen Mary. The Queen Mary is a retired ocean liner owned originally by the Cunard-White Star line. That's the same company that owned the ill-fated RMS Titanic. We went to this ship to get a sense of what it might have been like to be on the Titanic and compare it to the cruise ships of today.

With the outbreak of WWII, the ship was converted from a passenger cruiseliner to a supporting full military troops. At the time, she was known to be one of the most luxurious and fastest and largest cruise ships of all time.

Eventually, when she was no longer able to operate on a profit, the city of Long Beach, CA bought her and that's why she sits where she does today. One of the conditions of the sale was that the ship could no longer operate as a cruiseliner so her boiler room and engine room was disassembled and the metal sold for scrap.

She does have a very haunted history. The hull of the ship was damaged when another ship, ran into her and was literally cut in half. Many men died in that crash. There is another story in the boiler room where one of the workers was trying to stop a boiler from exploding super hot steam. It did however, explode, and the worker was killed instantly. Room B340 is, for some reason, the most haunted room on the Queen Mary. There is also the swimming pool. Site of a little child that drowned there. Finally, there was one person referred to as Half Hatch Harry who was caught in the #13 hatch in the engine room and crushed to death. See pictures of the hatch #13, the boiler room, the pool, and b340 below.

Third class passengers did not really receive any luxury at all. Their rooms were small and sparse and did not even have a bathroom or carpetting. just a bed, a desk, and a chair. See picture below.

First class passengers on the other hand, had very nice rooms and access to first class dining rooms and the swimming pool. Back then, the pool was located inside the ship. The pool, itself is also haunted and there is lots of activity in the dressing rooms.

The Queen Mary has beautiful Art Deco styling and while there is carpetting in the hallways, it is not original. The original flooring was a compositive of rubber and plastic similar to Marmolite.

Queen Mary outside view