The Ghosts and Legends tour has been a fixture aboard the Queen Mary since the year 2000. After 16 years, it was decided a makeover of the tour was direly needed. I remember the original tour. It was fun, a bit cheesy, but certainly not frightening. To say that the tour was simply revamped would be a grave injustice. Over the course of a year, careful thought, planning, and over 3 million dollars were invested to truly reincarnate and reinvent the tour.
Hollywood Grade Special Effects Added to the Ghosts and Legends Tour
This is not the tour you may remember from the past. Hollywood grade special effects and sounds were added to make the experience truly frightening. Holographic ghosts float overhead. Fountains spill water like the ship was sinking and all of this is choreographed to a soundtrack straight out of a horror movie. The tour group was provided with flashlights to guide their way into the dark corners of the ship. You may not want to fully rely on them for illumination.
Real Ghosts of the Queen Mary Included
In addition to the ambiance, the ship’s history was integrated into the script. The Queen Mary consistently rates as one of the top 10 most haunted places in the United States. Over 200 souls were lost on or as a result of the Queen Mary. In fact, three, in particular, are, now permanent ghosts and haunt the new attraction, assuming you are unlucky enough to see them. They include Jackie, a young girl who drowned in the Queen Mary’s pool, an infamous crewman who was crushed by door #13 in the engine room, and the Lady in White who is known to haunt the Observation Bar to this date. These are some of the vignettes also found on Dark Harbor, which runs during Halloween.
Nothing Can Recreate the Authentic Queen Mary
The most terrifying part of the tour is that it leads through some of the scariest and most decrepit areas of the ship itself. No amount of Hollywood magic or money could reproduce the unique atmosphere of Queen Mary’s boiler room. During the tour, I heard others stating how impressed they were with the design of the boiler room, not realizing that it was untouched, at least not by human hands. The musty smell will stay with you long after the tour ends. The boiler room is certainly one of the scariest places you may ever visit.
Details of the Ghosts and Legends Tour
If you have a fear of dark dank places, this may not be the tour for you. If, on the other hand, you are looking for an immersive experience aboard an authentically haunted ship, I would highly recommend giving the tour another look. The renovation added a flash and wow factor that doesn’t detract from the authenticity of the surroundings. There may be other ghost tours, but none can replicate the history that is all around you when touring on the Queen Mary.
Related Post: Ghost Touring in Haunted San Diego
TICKET INFORMATION:
Location – Long Beach Harbor, California
Hours: Regular Hours MON – SUN 1PM – 8PM, (Tours are approximately 30 minutes)
Pricing: $10 Per Person (ADD-ON) Purchase a Queen Mary Passport to add the Ghost and Legends Tour.
Parking: $18/day, $20/overnight, $22/valet parking
Spencer Smith
Spencer works as a senior software engineer by day. He is a self proclaimed adrenaline junkie. Serving as the president of a local caving group, he enjoys exploring caves, rappelling down waterfalls, cliff jumping and generally anything that involves adventure and danger. He loves to travel but appreciates the beauty of Southern California (and his wife) above all else.
Christina Smith
Spencer’s better half (most of the time) serves as a Guest Ambassador at the Safari Park in San Diego. She also enjoys caving, canyoneering, hiking, and adventure. She is an avid horror movie fan and frequents horror movie festivals. She is an animal lover and is active in protecting all endangered species (especially the lemurs in Madagascar).
Disclaimer: Although our experience was complimentary, the views and opinions expressed are entirely our own.
Ooh boy, this would freak me OUT!! LOL, even though I know it’s not real, I see sleepless nights ahead. Thanks so much for sharing your experience 🙂
It all depends on if you believe or not. There was some bad mojo that went down in the boiler room.
Oh wow, I would love to do this! Always like to check out ghost tours when I travel- it’s also a great way to learn more about the areas’s history, and hear incredible stories about the past.
And the Queen Mary is chocked full of ghosts and history.
Ohh man! ghosts tour already sounds pretty scary to me.. although you’ve mentioned that it’s not, the pictures speak otherwise to me.. I definitely won’t go alone in there & also love how you’ve written the costs of everything.. Well parking is expensive than the entrance.. weird!
The entrance is an add on the general admission to Queen Mary, which is called the Queen Mary Passport. That being said, parking is pretty expensive in Long Beach. They do have a free harbor bus that runs between the attractions so you only have to park once. We like to package parking into our hotel stay and then take buses / uber / hotel shuttles depending on where we end up. Generally, we stay at Hotel Maya due to Hilton brand loyalty, which shuttle service to the area. Our,m Spencer and Cristina, stay on the Queen Mary to complete the experience.
I didn’t realise that the Queen Mary conducted tours. I’ve heard the rumours about ghosts in the past. This looks like it was well revamped. You’re quite right, the boiler room really looks like the most frightening place. It’s always good to see a tour grounded in authenticity as well as a dash of artificial scaring. My daughter would be very interested.
I had to do a double take at this article, as I’m familiar with the Queen Mary 2 (Cunard’s current round the world liner); and didn’t think she’d been retired yet! But no, it is her older sibling, the first Queen Mary. I’m a bit of a scaredy cat, so I don’t usually go on ghost tours, but the stories of the Queen Mary, especially the individual ghosts – Jackie, the Lady in White and the crewman, make this tour more appealing. Incidentally, did you know that the Queen Mary was build on the Clyde River in Glasgow, Scotland? Just up the road from me 😉
During Dark Harbor (the Halloween horror special event on the Queen Mary), on the the vignettes was about the ship being built in Scotland. There is a lot of history on this ship.
I am not sure I would go to a ghost tour but this looks like very detailed with history references and technology production value. I went to a couple of haunted houses in the country, Japan and Thailand finally confirmed it’s too much for me 😂😂😂 @ knycx.journeying
This looks a great tour and shame we didn’t know about it last year when we were in LA. The boiler room does look really creepy.
Don’t be too hard on yourself, the million dollar revamp just opened this month. It wasn’t open when you went to LA last. Now, when you come back you have to check it out.
I should not have read this well past midnight, haha. It sounds like an awesome tour, even though ghosts sound truly frightening. Or maybe I’ve just watched too many horror movies! 😀
It’s ok to be a little frightened with the special effects. The do a great job.
I’d love to go on such a tour! Last year I visited supposedly haunted castle and was a bit disappointed it wasn’ scary at all 😀 I like good ghost stories, and I like the tours – something for me, definitely as I’ve never been on a ghost tour.
You have to try a ghost tour sometime. The Hollywood grade special effects makes this one special .
We love a good ghost story and tour and this looks like no except. Real life tragedy is always sad but these days its seemingly always turned into something for tourists, We attended a ghosts and legends tour in Rome Italy one evening it was amazing
I imagine Rome has a lot of ghosts and history. What was your favorite story?
Oh wow, it sounds like they’ve really out done themselves in refreshing this tour. We visited the Queen Mary (the ship in Long Beach right?) but walked around during the day, and didn’t know about the ghost tour at the time. With holograms and special effects it sounds like they’ve pulled out all the stops! I can’t even imagine how scary the boiler room would be at night!
Yup, Long Beach… Last year, we did Haunted Harbor and toured the boiler room as part of the costumed Haunted Harbor horror mazes. It was pretty intense. This year, during haunted harbor, they didn’t have that maze anymore. It turns out they were doing the tour refresh. The revamp of Haunted Harbor was two years ago and the refresh on Ghosts and Legends is this year. They are really going all out. (and yes, the boiler room is scary at night, but it’s so deep in the ship you really can’t tell day from night down there.
Oh my gosh, I’m such a chicken that even the cheesy one would’ve terrified me. I hate and love being scared, so I would still give this a go, I guess. I just could never sleep in a place like this! I’d die! Haha. Especially since this is a top 10 most haunted place in the US! The price is actually really reasonable, I think.
Spencer and Christina make a point of always sleeping on the ship. Of course, they like horror movies.
The price is an add on to the entry price for the ship.
I’ve always heard good things about the Queen Mary ghost tour, and now it sounds like it’s even better with the holograms and special effects. I was never much in to those ship tours where you just walk through and look at all the little rooms, but this tour sounds like it would be a super interesting way to discover a ship.
There is a lot of history on the Queen Mary, I think any tour they run would be good, but the extras they put into the tour makes it entertaining for all.
wow! I would never be able to go there. But good to see you guys enjoyed it! Happy travels
The boiler room is terrifying. You just feel that the place is off and probably haunted, even without any special effects or story telling.
OMG I wouldn’t have the courage to join a ghost tour. I would be screaming the whole time. It was quite a unique one though!
It would be so cute watching you two go through. I think I would pay good money to see that.