Queen Mary - Difficult On A Budget

     In the early 70's, I saw the Queen Mary, in Long Beach, California, for the first time.  Along with the Spruce Goose, it was an amazing site.  I didn't do any tours on the ship at that time but made up for it in 2005 with a revisit and an over night stay on the big ship.    
     Sticking to a budget when visiting the Queen Mary is pretty difficult.  My grand daughters and I decided to scrape and scrounge, sleep on friends floors, what ever it took to do this adventure.  Much to our surprise, it just wasn't all that bad.  Let me show you how it went for us and then I will show you the cost of a trip from last month.

To start - parking was $15 per night.

     The Queen Mary offered lots of packages back then, that are no longer offered.  Some deals with in room pizza and breakfast, some with tours, and some with in room movies.  Tell me - who wants to sit in a room and watch movies or eat when you have this huge ship to roam around on.  After all, there are a lot of ghost to hunt down.  Believe me, we dawned our Ghost Busters attitude and did some searching.

     I opted to not take a package and got a great deal on the room.  Mid summer and mid week, we got the room for about $140., including taxes.   Great deal for the venue.

     We had an ice chest and snack box so we did breakfast in the room, light lunch at the Deli (which has been replaced by the Starboard Bakery), snacks in the room and dinner at Promenade Cafe, which is reasonably priced and host a fantastic view.
For all four of us, we spent about $75 for food while on board.

 

     Tours - there are a lot to choose from.  What is great is that as a guest you get a super discount.  Back then, the walking Ghost Tour was $12 for adult and $5 for the kids.  There was a History Tour that was somewhat boring for the kids (yeah - me too) but the good parts made it all worth it.  And it was super cheap at $5 each.

 
     The best part of the tours is that we got to see so much of the ship, above and below deck, that we then knew where we wanted to wonder to on our own.  And we did a lot of wondering.  We lucked out with the ghost tour and has a remarkable guide.  She had the young ones, and us oldies too, in a permanent state of goose bumps.  It was great.

     Let's take a look at our stay.
We arrived about 11 am and stored our luggage until our room was ready at 1 pm.  It was nice that we got in earlier then the 4 pm check in.   Wondering around the ship started right away and were soon making friends with the 'spirits' that accompanied us.   We had a family stateroom so there was plenty of room to spread out.  After a quick lunch we hit the Ghost Tour which left us with time to visit the gift shop for a quick peek and do a little more exploring before getting ready for dinner.

     Again I wonder why anyone who go for a package with movies or anything else that would keep you in your room.  We spent the best evening ever, taking in the sites from every deck there was.  It is almost all open.  I felt safe sitting on the deck, enjoying the view while the girls were reading the signs, peeking in windows (not of others rooms) and climbing around, all in eye or ear range.

     The next morning we did the breakfast, shower, pack routine, which we are pretty good at.  Carried our stuff out to the car and picked up where we left off the night before.

      The history tour was amazing tho a bit slow in some places.  The gift shop had some neat little trinkets for reasonable prices.  We were off the ship and feeling pretty good about what we had done by 1.  We made sandwiches at the car, wondered around the little shopping area that is part of the 'park' that is incorporated with the ship, cruise ship dock and small convention type center. Bought our fresh fudge and hit the road, heading south to the Huntington Beach.

     OK - as for the cost -
Room and parking  -  $ 155.
Food and snacks -  $ 75
Tours  -   $ 47
grand total -   $ 277

That's a bit more than we usually spend but it was a really great, full 24 hours of fun.  And even a bit of historic education.  This one night on the top of the list for all time favorites or any trip we made.

Remarkable photos
from the past are
all over the ship.

Can you imagine how
impressive she was
back in her early
days?


What about visiting today?
Well, last month my daughter and grand daughter went for a visit.  Of course the room rates are up.  The best barging price I could find for the room we had before was almost $200.   They don't have the same family packages.  The tours rates are about double, or a bit more, and there are new and different tours.   Most of the 'modern factor' has changed.  But the remarkable feeling you get from sharing space with the past can never be changed. 

This will always be a worthy vacation.