The meeting of two Queens!

Tweet

Los Angeles. We arrived at around 06:00 to rendezvous with the original Queen Mary at Long Beach currently used as a Hotel & historical Museum. 10 million rivets were used on the Queen Mary. The Queen Mary was in service between 1936 & 1967 plying the North Atlantic route. The last time they were together was 20 years ago. Unfortunately there was an ugly Carnival Cruise ship that blocked our view so we could only just see the funnels. There was a fleet of pleasure boats to meet the rendezvous & several Helicopters flying overhead to record the momentous occasion. After an hour we then went to dock at the San Pedro cruise terminal. Immigration was an absolute farce. At one point there were over 1,000 people in the immigration hall waiting to be processed then they stopped for lunch we finally got off the & through immigration at 2:30pm. We then got an Uber to the Queen Mary where we had booked a night in one of the first class Cabins. Much of the original fittings remained although some things were not working but were for display purposes only. The cabin had a bedroom, two bathrooms & a separate lounge area. Thankfully the beds were upgraded modern beds. After dropping our bags we went out to explore the ship. It was absolutely fascinating a long covered promenade deck either side of the ship. A saloon bar, first class lounge, restaurant, the telegraph room, the bridge, Captains quarters & chief engineer’s quarters. One of the staff told us to stand up by the bridge as he was about to sound the ships horns. The ships horn was very loud but not quite as loud as QM2’s Horn which can be heard up to 10 miles away. We went to the restaurant for dinner which was rather disappointing although the cocktails were very good. After dinner we continued looking around the ship. We had a good night sleep before getting up grabbing a coffee & pastry before checking out the rest of the ship before it opened for general visiting. It was at one time the fastest ship on the ocean winning the blue ribbon cup. Most of the life boats were removed due to the possibility of sinking due to poor upkeep. One of the original life boats can be found at the entrance to the ship. Although she was the height of luxury travel at the time it would not have been very comfortable as we know it today. The Queen Mary is definitely not as stable as QM2 with enhanced stabilisers. There were ropes to grab hold of to steady passengers trying to get around the ship. You would definitely have needed your sea legs on the rough Atlantic crossing. She had carried 2,112,000 passengers between Southampton & New York over her life span including carrying 15, 740 soldiers returning to the USA after the D Day landings the highest number of people on board a ship at any time. She had carried over 800,000 troops by the end of the war. The Queen Mary was based at Long Beach, Los Angeles. The photo is an AI version celebrating our meeting.