The Queen Mary

The liner

The ship was laid down at John Brown & Co. in Clydebank in December 1930, stalled by the Depression, and launched by Queen Mary on September 26, 1934. She left Southampton on her maiden voyage on May 27, 1936, took the Blue Riband that August, lost it to the Normandie in 1937, and won it back in August 1938.

In the war she was painted gray and carried troops. Her log for one crossing in July 1943 records 16,683 people aboard, which her National Register nomination quotes as "the greatest number of human beings ever embarked on one vessel." Shortly after 2pm on October 2, 1942, about 40 miles off the north coast of Ireland, she struck her escort, the cruiser HMS Curacoa, and cut it in two. Sources put the cruiser's losses between 331 and 339 men, and the collision was kept secret for years.

Door No. 13

In the early morning of July 10, 1966, during an emergency drill, John Pedder, an 18-year-old crewman in the engine room, tried to get through a closing watertight door and was crushed. That account comes from the ship's archives, read out by its archivist, Bill Winberg, to the Los Angeles Times in 1988. A former ship's officer who later worked through the log of deaths aboard confirms the name, the year, and the door, No. 13. Sources disagree on Pedder's job title and on where he died.

The engine room exhibit shows a door labeled 13. One long-running history of the ship says the original door was taken out when the engine rooms were gutted after 1967, and nobody has settled which is right.

Long Beach

The City of Long Beach bought the ship for $3.45 million, and she arrived on December 9, 1967. The conversion that followed removed three of her four propellers, the boiler rooms, and the forward engine room, renumbered every cabin, and merged many small cabins into larger rooms. The first hotel rooms opened in 1974.

By March 1988, ghost stories were already part of the business. The ship's public relations director told the Los Angeles Times that staff "used to stay away from talking about it," and overnight ghost expeditions with a seance were selling for over $100, a first-class room included. Disney, which one later account credits with inventing the ghosts, bought the ship's operator 18 days after that article ran.

B340 and the pool

The ship sells Stateroom B340 with the claim of "many stories of haunted encounters noted in the ship's logs." B340 was made after 1967 by joining three third-class cabins, and every cabin was renumbered in the conversion, so no log from the sailing years can name it. The deaths told about the room conflict with one another and have no record behind them.

The operator also tells of Jackie, a child heard giggling at the first-class pool. The former officer who worked through the log found no death recorded in either pool, and the second-class pool where the girl is said to have drowned was removed in the conversion. The surviving pool has been dry since about 1990.

Who runs it now

The ship shut in May 2020. On June 4, 2021, the city took back full control after the operator surrendered its leases in bankruptcy, and the city cited "decades of deferred maintenance." The city reports spending about $45 million on the reopening, which came in stages from December 2022 to mid-2023.

General admission runs daily from 10am to 6pm and was $45 for adults in September 2026, including a 30 to 45 minute embarkation tour. Everyone aboard needs a ticket, a room key, or a restaurant reservation. The Haunted Encounters tour comes with the $55 Legacy Tours ticket; the evening Paranormal Ship Walk ($75, about 2 hours) and the after-midnight Graveyard Tour ($85, Fridays and Saturdays, ages 16 and up) cost extra.

Door 13 is on the self-guided route through the engine room exhibit on D Deck, and the pool is seen from a viewing area on R Deck. B340 and three newer themed paranormal staterooms are sold prepaid and non-refundable. The steel walls carry sound now that the engines are gone, and the front desk keeps earplugs.

Dark Harbor, the ship's Halloween event, runs on select nights from September 18 to November 1, 2026, and guest parking moves off site with a shuttle on some event days. Parking is $25 a day, or $39 a night for hotel guests.