Dead & Alive from The Queen Mary & Dark Harbor Experience

This week we have another special episode because I am recording live from the infamous Queen Mary in Long Beach, California! The Queen Mary’s creation and launch was nothing if not extraordinary and her story is rich with history, elegance and grandeur. From the time her construction began in 1930 in Clydebank, Scotland, the Queen Mary was destined to stand in a class all her own. Despite suffering economic setbacks during the Great Depression, which stalled construction on the ship for several years, Cunard Line spared no expense on building the Queen Mary. In this episode we’ll talk to Queen Mary Commodore Everett about its haunted history and his personal experiences with the QE2’s ghostly guests. And I’ll also speak with Steve Sheldon, Executive Producer of the Queen Mary Dark Harbor experience. 

I have said this on my show before but there are so many hotels or other locations that try to deny or hide it and one of the things that I LOVE about the Queen Mary is how they embrace it. I love to hear about the things others have experienced, the nightly ghost tours and I love that you use those stories as the basis for some of the mazes in Dark Harbor! And recently re-opening the most haunted room on the ship to allow brave souls like me to spend the night!! We are going to talk more about that later but I am a definite fan.

https://www.queenmary.com

Ghost Magnet Facebook Group: 

https://www.facebook.com/Ghost-Magnet-with-Bridget-Marquardt-2480154975336666/

Bridget Marquardt

Bridget Marquardt is best known to television audiences and pop-culture connoisseurs as the sweet and brainy star of E! Networks’ wildly popular reality show “The Girls Next Door.” After moving out of the Playboy mansion in January 2009, Marquardt hosted “Bridget’s Sexiest Beaches,” a sixteen-episode series on The Travel Channel in which she traveled the globe searching for the world’s best surf, sand, and sun in countries including Croatia, Jamaica, Thailand, Spain, Australia, and the United States. 

@BridgetMarquardt on Instagram

@Bridget on Twitter

@BridgetMarquardt on Facebook

Lisa Morton - Ghost Reporter

Everyday is Halloween to award winning horror author and Ghost Reporter Lisa Morton. She has published four novels, 150 short stories, and three books on the history of Halloween. Her most recent releases include the anthologies Haunted Nights (co-edited with Ellen Datlow) and Ghost Stories: Classic Tales of Horror and Suspense (co-edited with Leslie Klinger), both of which received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly. She lives in the San Fernando Valley, and can be found online at www.lisamorton.com .

https://lisamorton.com/zine/

Amazon Link: 

https://www.amazon.com/Lisa-Morton/e/B001JRZ8NC%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

About The Queen Mary. 

The Queen Mary’s creation and launch was nothing if not extraordinary and her story is rich with history, elegance and grandeur. From the time her construction began in 1930 in Clydebank, Scotland, the Queen Mary was destined to stand in a class all her own. Despite suffering economic setbacks during the Great Depression, which stalled construction on the ship for several years, Cunard Line spared no expense on building the Queen Mary!

On May 27, 1936, the Queen Mary departed from Southampton, England embarking on her maiden voyage. She boasted five dining areas and lounges, two cocktail bars and swimming pools, a grand ballroom, a squash court and even a small hospital. The Queen Mary had set a new benchmark in transatlantic travel, which the rich and famous considered as the only civilized way to travel. She quickly seized the hearts and imaginations of the public on both sides of the Atlantic, representing the spirit of an era known for its elegance, class and style.

Since her retirement from the sea as an active liner in 1967, the Queen Mary has never been more popular as an iconic Southern California attraction, hotel, and venue for special events. The ship carried some 2.2 million passengers in peacetime and 810,000 military personnel in the Second World War, but here in Long Beach, an estimated 50 million people have visited. The day the ship was launched in 1934, a well-known English psychic, Lady Mable Fortiscue-Harrison would predict, “The Queen Mary will know her greatest fame and popularity when she never sails another mile or carries another fare-paying passenger.” A compelling insight!

For three years after her maiden voyage, the Queen Mary was the grandest ocean liner in the world carrying Hollywood celebrities like Bob Hope and Clark Gable, royalty like the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and dignitaries like Winston Churchill. During this time she even set a new speed record, which she held for 14 years. But when the Queen Mary docked in New York in September 1939 that would be the last time she would carry civilian passengers for many years.

As World War II started, the Queen Mary's transformation into a troopship had begun. She was painted a camouflaged grey color and stripped of her luxurious amenities. Dubbed the "Grey Ghost" because of her stealth and stark color, the Queen Mary was the largest and fastest troopship to sail, capable of transporting as many as 16,000 troops at 30 knots. After the end of WWII, the Queen Mary began a 10-month retrofitting process, which would return the ship to her original glory. On July 21, 1947, the Queen Mary resumed regular passenger service across the Atlantic Ocean, and continued to do so for nearly two more decades.

The increasing popularity of air travel helped signal the end of an era for the Queen Mary. By 1965 the entire Cunard fleet was operating at a loss and they decided to retire and sell the legendary Queen Mary. On October 31, 1967, the Queen Mary departed on her final cruise, arriving in Long Beach, California, on December 9, 1967. She has called Southern California her home ever since. The Queen Mary is now a floating Hotel, Attraction and Event & Wedding Venue, home to three world-class restaurants and an icon in Southern California.