Happy Halloween: Return to the Haunted Queen Mary

Back in 2009, I posted this account of our very creepy visit to the Queen Mary, sometimes referred to as the most haunted hotel in the world, as part of our 13 Days of Halloween Celebration that year. I thought it might be fun to revisit the goings-on of that ordeal, and include an update about the legendary ship herself.

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Several years ago I went to a training event in Long Beach, California and was housed aboard the former luxury cruise ship The Queen Mary, now a floating hotel. This ship has a history of hauntings including phantom swimmers and wet footprints beside a long-drained swimming pool, a ghostly woman who roams the ship, the sounds of screams and scraping metal, and the occasional sighting of a man who was once crushed by a watertight door. 

 Now I've got a little tale of my own to add to the mythos. 

  First, let me tell you a bit about the ship.

Most people are surprised to learn that the Queen Mary is much larger than the Titanic! She's so big that when you look down her corridors, you can see how the deck is curved downward from bow to midship and back up again to the stern. 

She has several restaurants and bars onboard, and hosts a massive Sunday Brunch in the grand ballroom that I believe is touted as the single largest room ever built inside a ship. (Been there, in the dark and creepiness, and trust me, it’s huge!) 

There's also a small shopping mall, a large museum below decks, and a "Ghost Ship" tour that takes groups to some of the haunted locations and recreates spectral visits with special effects. 

The ship even hosts one of the largest Halloween bashes of ghost tours, mazes and all night parties in Long Beach called The Shipwreck--15 Nights of Terror. 

So...did we have anything creepy happen while on the ship?  Actually....yes!

While exploring the decks one evening, David and I got onto one of the many elevators and pressed the button for one of the upper decks. The door closed but instead of going up, the elevator went down. :O 

David tried pushing buttons to stop it, but it continued to carry us down, down, down, deck after deck. When the doors finally opened, we were seriously spooked, and in an unfamiliar place--a very dark, cavernous room. We stepped off, looked around, stumbled through the black toward a light. There were large glass cases with memorabilia, nautical pictures on the wall. Our wayward elevator had carried us down into the belly of the ship, and we were in the museum! 

Except the museum had closed hours before. We were the only living souls there (though I can't say we were the only souls). 

We wandered around looking for a guard, an exit, an escape…anything! The exits were all gated or locked. We yelled. No response. Tried to tap a code on the bulkhead. Nothing. At last we had to admit the obvious...there was no way out except back up the dysfunctional (?) elevator. But neither of us were keen to get back on. What if we got marooned inside the obviously possessed contraption?   

We eventually found to courage to step back aboard and held our breaths as it carried us to the upper decks. We found our way to our cabin with no more interference from mischievous spirits, but our fellow conference attendees were so intrigued by our story of the runaway elevator that they scheduled an impromptu—and self-guided—ghost tour of the Queen Mary to be held after dark the next night.

The famous and eerie haunted swimming pool.

Trust me, there is nothing like wandering around a really vast, reportedly haunted vessel in the pitch black (especially in places we really weren’t supposed to be, according to the cordial security guard who was quite amused by the merry band of camera-toting spirit seekers he confronted). 

We scouted decks, corridors, massive halls and deserted staff areas for hours in search of…something. Something we were sure was going to be around the next turn in the hall or empty room. 

But nothing ever…materialized. 

 Still, I can honestly say that—aside from one possessed elevator—I think we did come away with a gentle contact from the spirit world. 

On our last night there, I was startled from sleep by the sound of my suitcase buckles rattling and shopping bags rustling in the next room. I woke David, my heart pounding, and we both prepared ourselves to confront a burglar…but when we went to the room and turned on the lights, there was no one there. Our cabin door was still locked from the inside and nothing had been taken. It seemed our mysterious visitor who had been rustling about in my suitcase had exited right through the closed door. Or maybe the walls. 

And that, in a nutshell, is the slightly creepy tale of my stay on The Queen Mary.

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After conjuring up this tale, I decided to check back in with the haunted ship some 18 years later. I was saddened to learn that in the years since we visited, the ship has fallen into disrepair and was even declared in danger of capsizing! 

Apparently, after her forced closure due to the catastrophic pandemic shutdowns in 2020, regular maintenance and repair work for the already aging vessel suffered or ceased and her problems began to compound. She's leaking, for one. And her lifeboats were causing stress to her structure. They've since all been removed and stored in a nearby warehouse. At one point, there was even talk that the Queen Mary should just be sunk!

In February of 2022, $5 million was set aside to try to address some of her repair needs, however by some estimates she may need as much as $23 million for immediate repairs, and a total of $289 million for complete renovation and upgrades before she could be re-opened. 

With the state of California in dire straights, it's difficult to know how much will be available to dedicate to the grand old girl to get her back ship-shape. 

Hopefully this majestic and historic vessel won't end up going to her watery grave. 

Have a wonderful Halloween...and a great week. 

WEEKEND UPDATE, 2020 STYLE

As if this year from Hell hasn’t brought enough trouble, our family is dealing with an urgent health emergency this week concerning a beloved elder. So, today’s post will offer no extensive discourse on the state of the world, or science, or fiction, or anything much else. But there is a lot going on this weekend, for which I can provide these brief reminders.

It’s Halloween! Celebrate however you can, but safely! (Because the scariest thing out there right now is the huge uptick in coronavirus cases.) I plan to park myself on the couch with some popcorn and an adult beverage and watch some scary movies. Check out my review of some perennial favorite creature features on my podcast website My Moviehouse My Rules.com.

There’s a full moon! Yes, on Halloween night. This is a so-called “blue moon,” (meaning it’s the second full moon this month) also a “hunter’s moon,” giving night hunters light to stalk by. Conclusion: don’t be out in the woods to make yourself prey for some furry, big-toothed creature.

Good news, we gain an hour on Saturday night! Set your clocks BACK on Saturday night (actually, Sunday morning at 2:00 a.m.) to gain an extra hour for the loss of Daylight Savings Time. Those of you with animals and/or young kids at home have nothing to celebrate in this, of course, because those creatures do not understand time changes AT ALL! They will still demand to be fed at the regular time, which will appear to be an hour earlier by your new clock. *sigh*

Finally, early voters, get it done! This weekend (either today in some cases, or Saturday) is the LAST CHANCE for citizens in many states to vote early and avoid long lines at the polls on Election Day. So, voters in Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia, if you haven’t done so already, don your mask, get thee to your local early voting place, and do your duty! Don’t bother mailing an absentee ballot at this point, it’s too late! Drop it off at a designated drop box or your local board of elections office to make sure your vote counts!

Cheers, Donna

HAPPY (DAY AFTER) HALLOWEEN!

As I write this it's Halloween day, so I'll take the opportunity to wish you a fruitful Samhain. If you live in Mexico (or maybe New Mexico, lol), I can wish you a Feliz Dia de los Muertos, which is celebrated today, In any case, blog topics are scarce this week, so the pics will have to do.

Happy day after Halloween.

 

 

Or, if you prefer, Feliz Dia de los Muertos.

Back in the day, Halloween used to be one of my favorite holidays. I used to love dressing up and taking on an alter-ego for the night. These days, I'm happy to grab a seat in the outdoor area of the local brewpub  and watch the families parade by in costume on Main Street for the Marshall Safe Halloween festivities. Much tamer, but visually quite entertaining. Folks in my little mountain town can be pretty creative!

However you choose to celebrate, I hope you have/had a good time communing with the spirits!

Cheers, Donna

 

The Top Five Things That Scare Me

Since Monday happened to fall on Halloween this week, I'm the lucky blogger who gets to do a Halloween post.

Happy Halloween!

And BOO!

What Scares Me

This particular holiday revolves around scary things. Ghosts, goblins, monsters, vampires, witches, headless horsemen, jabberwockies, things that go bump in the night...and all things trendy and popular and not so scary, too, of course. But for this blog, I wanted to talk a little about the things that scare me. Trust me, it's not the usual suspects.

So here we go.

The Top Five Things That Scare Me.


Number Five
Sinkholes. Yes, sinkholes. Those big gaping holes that open up in the ground and swallow houses and cars and sometimes people. Think about it. Sinkholes are random and terrible and can't normally be anticipated. They're one of the sneak attacks nature can throw at us. If it's a tornado or a hurricane, you can evacuate or take shelter. Same with most storms. Flooding you can usually see coming, too. Earthquakes aren't common enough in my part of the country to be a concern, but for the millions of people (maybe billions) who live in an FEZ (Frequent Earthquake Zone...I made that up), they can be traumatizing. Of course, Earthquakes tend to be on known fault lines so you always have the option of not moving into a FEZ, or moving away. But sinkholes? They start out deep in the Earth and can rarely be predicted or anticipated, although we are getting a lot more sophisticated about knowing where they have a high risk of potentially forming like Florida and Louisiana, for starters. There's a monster sinkhole in Bayou Corne that recently started swallowing trees whole!

And they can pop up anywhere, even in Siberia. So I confess, I have a deep fear of huge, gaping holes opening in the ground beneath my feet and swallowing me. Call me paranoid.


Number Four
Killer bees. I live in the American Southwest. And one of my neighbors has a huge network of bee hives. Killer bees have migrated into the southern USA from South America over the last few decades and they were given that name for a reason. They form aggressive, angry swarms.

 'Nuff said. That alone could give me nightmares for a week.


Number Three
Rattlesnakes getting into my house. No, I haven't had that happen yet, but I did have one get into my garage last summer. I blogged about it as a guest with author Carysa Locke, here. It actually turned into some pretty nifty research for Pets in Space. I've encountered the random venomous snake or two on the ranch, and although that's unnerving it's not terrifying. But the thought of a pit viper invading my personal space and slithering around...now that's a horrific thought! And it does happen. Check it out.

Number Two
Sharks. Yes, I know. I live in the desert. Why should sharks scare me? Well, probably because I live in the desert, and movies like The Shallows, and Jaws, and Open Water always have sharks showing up that eat people who go in the water. I have no desire to swim in the ocean. Okay, I did swim in the ocean once, in about 20 feet of water off a catamaran in the Caribbean. But honestly, I was looking for sharks the entire time. What's fun about that?

Fortunately for me, Landsharks are only the stuff of comedy skits. Or are they?

...and the NUMBER ONE thing that scares me?
One of my manuscripts. No, I'm not being silly. I have a manuscript that I've had to let lie for several years now because the research absolutely terrified me. Why? Well, let's put it this way. My story is about the power of the mind, and has a few scenes where something really horrible and dark and menacing happens. While surfing the internet for information one day, I discovered there are documented cases of what I had created fictionally actually happening. Yikes! That's frightening. It gives me goose bumps just thinking about it.

Now granted, the accounts may also be a work of fiction, but if they are even partially true...Well, it's just really hard to go there without becoming terrified out of my mind. It's one of the same reasons I don't watch television shows about the paranormal. I don't want to know about these things! My imagination is active enough all on its own, thank you very much.

Especially when I'm home alone, and it's dark, and I start hearing noises...

Okay, that did it. I'm going to end right here and go look at funny cat videos on Facebook now!

For Trick or Treats, leave a comment and tell me what scares you. [Insert scary sound effects here.]

~~~~~~~~~~   From Laurie  ~~~~~~~~~~

ALIENS INVADE IN SEARCH OF . . . CANDY!

So, whaddaya think of my Halloween costume?  LOL!  Not really, just some pixel magic performed by my wonderful photographer Joe Parker and his brilliant (and slightly twisted!) assistant Jessi Fitgerald.  I'd give a lot to be able to be out on the town in full Andorian regalia tonight, though.  I think I look pretty good in blue!

What about you all?  Send us a pic of you--or your offspring or your pet--in your Halloween best.  Maybe we'll even nail the most impressive effort up over the bar here at Spacefreighters Lounge to scare off Molduvian slimedogs.  We've had a lot of those lately.

Happy Halloween!
Donna