RMS Queen Mary first sailed across the North Atlantic on May 27, 1936. At the time she was one of the largest ocean liners.Now she lives in "retirement" as a tourist attraction in Long Beach, California (USA) where I took this photo yesterday.
RMS Queen Mary first sailed across the North Atlantic on May 27, 1936. At the time she was one of the largest ocean liners.
And a hotel apparently. I've attended a conference once which happened entirely on board. Interesting experience....
ReplyDeleteBad - they have ghost hunting tours there as well. Yet another piece of history abused for supernatural nonsense.
In October, 1967 I sailed to Britain aboard the S. S. United States. I was going to Edinburgh as a postdoc for one year, supported by the NIH. Consequently I had to take a U.S. carrier, otherwise I would have crossed the Atlantic on the France, which I heard had better food. Airlines were still more expensive than the ship and the steamships were keeping prices low to desperately try to compete. This was unsuccessful and the transatlantic passenger liners were being withdrawn from service. The Queen Mary had already been taken out of service by Cunard.
ReplyDeleteWe sailed out of New York an hour or so behind the Queen Elizabeth. As night fell, you could see it a few miles ahead of us, all lit up. We were the faster ship, but were also to stop at Le Havre before reaching Southampton. On our way into Southampton five days later, the Queen Elizabeth turned out to be going in just ahead of us. So I saw the three liners in the same harbor at the same time. Cunard used to keep the two Queens from ever being in the same place at the same time, to keep them from colliding with each other, in which case there would be no one else to sue. That day was apparently the first time that the three ships had been in the same harbor.
The Queen Elizabeth looked rather boxy, the United States somewhat boring. But I have to say that the Queen Mary was an absolutely beautiful ship. For all the seasickness and boredom I'm now glad I took that journey by ship, as only a couple of years later you couldn't do that.