Retired Cunard Liner Now a Long Beach Hotel and Museum
1126 Queens Highway, Long Beach, CA 90802
Age
All Ages for tours; 21+ in bar areas
Cost
$$$
Day-pass tour rates, hotel stays, and ticketed paranormal events all priced separately. Check official website for current rates and program calendar.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Historic ocean liner with elevators, narrow corridors, and shipboard stairs
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1934 · 1934 Cunard Liner · Blue Riband Holder · Gray Ghost WWII Troopship · Long Beach Historical Landmark · National Register of Historic Places
The Queen Mary was launched at the John Brown shipyard at Clydebank, Scotland, on September 26, 1934, and entered Cunard transatlantic service on May 27, 1936. The 1,019-foot liner carried up to 2,139 passengers in three classes between Southampton and New York and held the Blue Riband for fastest transatlantic crossing for several years.
The ship was converted to wartime use in 1940. Painted gray and stripped of her civilian fittings, she carried Allied troops between continents at sustained speeds above thirty knots, earning the nickname Gray Ghost. During her wartime career she transported approximately 765,000 military personnel. Resuming civilian service after a 1946-1947 refit, she remained on the transatlantic route until October 1967, when the rise of jet air travel ended Cunard's express-liner business.
The city of Long Beach, California, purchased the ship from Cunard in 1967 for $3.45 million. The Queen Mary arrived in Long Beach on December 9, 1967, and has remained moored at Pier J since. Pacific Southwest Airlines opened the first one hundred fifty hotel rooms in 1972; Hyatt Hotels took over from 1974 to 1980. The Walt Disney Company acquired the ship for a period in the late 1980s; subsequent operators have included RMS Foundation, Inc. The ship is currently operated by Long Beach with a third-party hospitality manager.
The Queen Mary is a designated Long Beach Historical Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Substantial restoration work has been required across the past decade to address corrosion, lifeboat-deck stability, and the historic Promenade Deck.
Sources
The Queen Mary's paranormal program is the most commercially developed of any American hotel ship. The most-promoted location is Stateroom B340, a guest room created when the ship was reconfigured for hotel use in 1967 by combining three smaller third-class staterooms. By the 1980s the room had been closed to booking because of repeated guest complaints; the Walt Disney Company, during its ownership in the late 1980s and early 1990s, formalized the room as a haunted attraction with theatrical effects.
The documented history of these claims is unusually well-traced. Author Nicole Strickland's Spirited Queen Mary documents the late-twentieth-century origins of the modern B340 mythology, and recent reporting acknowledges that the ship has no documented record of an onboard murder. What guests do report is consistent across decades: bedcovers reportedly pulled away while sleeping, clothes hangers rattling, footsteps in empty corridors, and unexplained knocks. B340 was reopened for booking on September 13, 2024, after years of intermittent closure.
The first-class pool deck and the engine room are the other most-cited focal points. Visitors describe the sound of children laughing or splashing on the empty pool deck and a sense of heaviness in the engine spaces, the latter often linked to the documented 1942 collision with HMS Curacoa in which the Queen Mary, on troop service, struck and sank the British cruiser with substantial loss of life.
The Queen Mary has appeared on Ghost Adventures, Ghost Hunters, Travel Channel productions, and numerous documentary series. Visitors interested in the paranormal programming should approach the ship's reputation with awareness of its theatrical history while engaging with the unambiguous documented record of the 1942 Curacoa incident and the larger maritime history of the vessel.
Media Appearances
Stay aboard the permanently moored 1936 Cunard liner. Restored first-class staterooms preserve the original Art Deco woodwork, ports, and shipboard fittings. Stateroom B340, restored to overnight booking in 2024 after years of closure, is the most-requested room for guests focused on paranormal history.
Multiple guided tour options cover the ship's engineering spaces, the WWII Gray Ghost troopship era, and the Art Deco public rooms. A separate Paranormal Ship Walk covers Stateroom B340, the first-class pool deck, and the engine room compartments most frequently reported.
Several restaurants and bars operate aboard the ship, including the upscale Sir Winston's, the Observation Bar Art Deco lounge, and the casual Promenade Cafe. Reservations recommended at Sir Winston's.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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