I’m so excited to be traveling again! It has been over a year since I was in New Orleans, and now I’m finding myself enjoying a vacation of a type I thought I’d never choose: a quite nautical trip on a cruise ship. And this time on these brand new and different adventures, I’m joined by my lovely, lovely boyfriend, Matt, who did so much heavy lifting finding the best deals, looking up all the best cruise tips, and helping us get organized in so many ways. (Seriously, he watched hours and hours of YouTube to help us prepare. I’ll capture as many tips as I can in a stray tips section at the end of some posts when it makes sense.)

While I must admit I thought I’d never choose to go on a cruise, big ships have always fascinated me, especially ever since I was about 10 years old when I watched a National Geographic VHS tape about the Titanic, learning about how incredible that ship was and also how sad that ship is. Matt also shares with me a fascination with large ships; indeed it was one of the first things we bonded over in our early dating days.

I also thought I’d never find myself in Los Angeles ever again, a city I never found particularly alluring: a giant behemoth of plasticized fakery and endlessly inefficient highways, meandering about without purpose. That said, it wasn’t without reason we chose to sail out of California and then down the Mexican coast. We wanted to avoid Florida at all costs on account of their idiot government; and many islands in the Bahamas just aren’t very friendly to queer folks. So, departing out of LA it is!

We decided to arrive in the city a day early so that we could explore and spend a night in the Queen Mary, one of the last surviving steamer ships, docked and turned into a hotel in Long Beach, a suburb of LA. “It’s the closest we’ll ever get to experiencing the Titanic,” Matt and I would occasionally remark. The Queen Mary is also only one of two retired ships turned hotel, the other being the City of Milwaukee in Manistee, Michigan.

When we landed, we traveled to the Queen Mary by Lyft (“There’s no traffic” our driver remarked, as we stared out at heavy traffic, our driver later elaborating that normally the route on a Friday evening would be a bumper-to-bumper parking lot), and we arrived at the ship about twenty past six. And how exciting it was to see the Queen Mary in person, having watched so many YouTube videos about the ship ahead of our arrival. While the ship was built some 25 years or so after the Titanic, outwardly the two ships look like they come from the same era: giant red smoke stacks; a tall, stately bow emerging from the water perpendicular to the sea; a grand hull painted a elegant black or dark grey; the bridge rising imposingly white and tall above the deck.

Inwardly, however, the Queen Mary is much different to what we know about the interior of the Titanic. Built in the 1930s, she revels in art deco design, unencumbered by any florid Georgian and Jacobian styles to be expected on the Titanic. The Queen Mary featured simple, symmetrical lines; humble, rounded edges; graceful geometric shapes.

Once we were checked in and enjoyed a brief glimpse of the luxury of our deluxe stateroom with a king sized bed, we made our way to the onboard restaurant, Chelsea Chowder House and Bar, for our first meal. (Barrio at MSP airport earlier in the day doesn’t count.) We first stopped at the restaurant’s bar quickly to enjoy some old fashioned drinks, and then we were promptly seated, libations in hand. We didn’t have a reserved table, and we didn’t seem to need a reservation, but I might suggest you organize a reservation just in case.

To start, we had spinach and artichoke dip, and it was your average version of the staple, but still enjoyable. I also elected to have a bowl of the clam chowder, and then for our mains I had fish and chips and Matt had the shrimp casarecce. I also elected to have a glass of Queen Mary champaign, which was kind of fun. Generally, though, everything seemed fine. I couldn’t really fault anyone for anything, but the meal just didn’t quite wow me in ways other meals have. (Matt seemed more impressed the me.) Regardless, it was still a lovely and romantic evening together, and I enjoyed every moment of it. All this said, I would suggest that if you are spending the night at the Queen Mary, then go ahead and enjoy a meal at the chowder house. However, if the only thing you’re going to do is dine at the Queen Mary, I’d say skip it and find something else.

Following dinner, we took some time to explore the ship. One area we discovered was the Model Gallery, where there were scale reactions of various ships: the Titanic, the Queen Mary 2, and a few others. The models were built in cross section, splitting them right in half down the middle the long way so on side you can view the outer structure and on the other you can view all the decks in impeccable detail. It was just so cool to see the innards of the ship, locating grand staircases, elegant dining halls, and sturdy engine rooms.

Following the gallery, we made our way to the Observation Bar & Art Deco Lounge to enjoy some more cocktails (a beer for Matt and a mezcal sazerac for me), and I do recommend a visit here to the bar to immerse yourself in more art deco design. I was especially entranced by these circular ceiling light fixtures in red and gold, suspended gracefully. But time was moving too quickly, and we had to finish our drinks in some haste since we had a 9:00pm commitment for a tour of the ship.

For the tour, we thought it would be fun to attend the paranormal tour. Lore has it that 58 recorded deaths happened on the ship, but it’s very possible the number could be much higher. Because of this death toll, the ship is notoriously haunted (if you believe in that sort of thing, which I don’t; but how I do wish ghosts were real, but they probably aren’t).

The tour itself was designed not to be a spooky affair, our tour guide clarified. And I’m sorry, but I didn’t write his name down in my notes, and now I have no memory of his name; but I did really appreciate his matter-of-fact and deadpan style of delivering information to us. I also highly recommend you book a tour, as you’ll get to view areas of the ship that I normally unavailable.

And one of those off-limits areas was the bridge itself, which was super cool to see, almost as if onboard the Titanic: three wheels, stately and commanding; old fashioned levers, shining in brass, to send instructions to the engine room; small lights arranged along a silver panel to indicate which watertight doors might be closed; and, of course, a spectacular view of the bow of the ship.

Additional highlights from our tour was the captain’s dayroom (a spacious, stately suite complete with a bedroom, a lounge area, and bathroom); the Veranda grill (mostly empty of furniture, but a real highlight was an expansive mural by artist Doris Zinkeisen, a festival of ballerina dancers and circus performers); the pool (in quite disrepair, now looking like something out of a Silent Hill game, cracked and crumbling tiles, sagging floors, a rusted old water slide); and the engine room (viewed from aloft from a gangway platform that tested my fear of heights, empty of the engines, industrial girders of steel elevating additional sturdy support beams, rust red paint chipping away and revealing an aged ship).

As we made our way throughout the ship, our tour guide told us about the various apparitions that apparently appear, he himself apparently an apparent witness to several apparent sightings, apparently. (“Sure. Ah-huh,” I sarcastically sighed to myself.) He even invited us to download a ghost hunting app on our phones that apparently picks up apparent ghost energy (apparently). I watched my phone supposedly “hear” such illuminating words like “grape” and “Mexican.” (I’ve since tried the app in other locations not declared haunted, and the app generally reveals similar results, including in our cabin on our cruise ship that I’ll be writing more about in the next post.)

Anyway, I did enjoy hearing about some of the ways that people died on the ship, the stories delivered dead pan and dryly by our guide. The most memorable of the stories was the death of Senior Second Officer William E. Stark in 1949. The Queen Mary was heading to Southampton from New York, and Stark decided to make some gin drinks. He searched around for the gin in the captain’s cabin and found what he thought was a bottle of gin when in fact it was a bottle of carbon tetrachloride which they used to clean furniture. Stark drank some, commented on the bizarre taste of the gin, only for the captain to realize that Stark had poisoned himself. His health began declining, and when they reached Southampton, he died some days later in the hospital. A chilling tale indeed!

And with those ghost stories firmly implanted in our heads, Matt and I headed back to our cabin to get some rest after a long day’s journey and a robust exploration of the Queen Mary. But our adventures have just gotten started…

Stray tips:

1. LAX airport is quite large with something like 8 or 9 different terminals. If you land in terminal 1 and if you elect to take a Lyft or Uber, you have to meet your driver in a designated shared car pickup zone (zone 30B, to be exact). Your phone or the airport signs may direct you to take a shuttle, but the shuttles circle all the way around all the other terminals before arriving at zone 30B, so it’s just easier to walk directly to the pickup area.
2. Our cabin was on the port side, and I can’t remember why we chose that side specifically, as it just overlooks a drab parking lot. While we still enjoyed our cabin, the views on the starboard side would be better, as that side of the ship faces Long Beach, which looks so lovely and glowing and sparkling at night.