A different sort of British Classic

[blanston12]

I recently had a chance to stay on a different sort of British Classic, the RMS Queen Mary.

Bought by the City of Long Beach to function as a restaurant, museum, and hotel, she left Southampton for the last time on 31 October 1967 and sailed to the Port of Long Beach where she was permanently moored. After undergoing extensive refurbishment and modifications, Queen Mary opened to the public in 1971 and has remained operational since.

We stayed on her for a week, here are a few pictures of the ship.


The RMS Queen Mary

The 'Midship Marketplace'

The Observation lounge

Topside

Royal Salon

The Long Beach skyline

The stacks at night

The Bridge

The first class pool, unfortuantly unuseable

The ships one remaining propeller

Room description

The Antechamber

The servants quarters

The bedroom

One of the two wash rooms

The sitting room

Finally the two of us

Forgive the messiness of the room, I took them as we were packing to leave.

The submarine next to the Queen Mary is the Soviet submarine B-427, it was brought Long Beach in 1998
by the company that was leasing/operating the Queen Mary. It fell into disrepair and was closed in 2015. That company has gone bankrupt and the City of Long Beach regained control in 2021, since then they have been trying to get rid of it but they have been unable to find out who actually owns it.

[TSR2]

Thats absolutely fantastic looking Joe! Great way to spend your birthday!

[Tako_Kichi]

I remember the look of those inside shots! When I was a kid I got a 'View-master' for Christmas one year and among the picture discs I got with it was one giving a 'Grand Tour' of the Queen Mary. She was stunning back in the day. It's nice to see she's been restored again as there were fears that she'd have to be scrapped as she was in disrepair and in danger of taking on water and flooding.

[Aharon]

AMAZING PHOTOS Thanks for giving me free tour of that ship!!!!

Regards,

Aharon

[Vancouver]

Different QE tale, but the QE2 this time. As my troop were Sea Scouts in the late 60's, we were invited to the Glasgow Docks for a tour around the QE2. Wish then I had taken some snaps but it was verboten we were told (massive fib by the btw). That was the pinnacle of luxury for its time. It had just been finished and was soon to be launched I guess. Sad for her to end her days in Dubai though.

[blanston12]

I also remember reading about the maintenance problems, before the company operating it was responsible for maintaining the ship and if they fell into hard times maintenance would suffer. Now the city of Long Beach has taken over maintenance of the structure and the company operating just takes care of the interior. You may notice that the life boats are gone, apparently after 90 years there weigh was doing bad things to the davits so they were recently removed.

[blanston12]

One interesting thing about our quarters, it has a second washroom, it’s located just inside the bedroom door and when that door is open the WC is hidden. We did not know about it for two days as we had no reason to close the bedroom door.

[simondix]

When I was a child we went to the Isle of Wight for a holiday. My birthday occurred whilst we were there and I was taken out as a treat for it to see the QM go past outward bound to Le Havre. We were in a small tourist boat and the wash was brilliant. Got the photos somewhere.

[Airspeed]

Hi Joe,
Thanks for those photos. Like the big old mansions, they're great to see, but the maintenance costs are also massive.
Glad you enjoyed some luxury.

[saltysplash]

Great pics Joe and thanks for posting. I have an old cine film that my father took as she was loading up for her final voyage to the US. A classic ship during a classic time.