In the past two weeks our family got better acquainted with two of history’s grandest ocean liners. The previous weekend we visited a traveling exhibit in Buena Park, CA entitled Titanic, the Artifact Exhibition. It started by handing out boarding passes of passengers who boarded the ship on April 10, 1912. From these passes our family learned about three people in detail: who they were, why they were traveling, and a few other interesting facts. At the end of the exhibit we learned “our faith”: were we among the lucky ones who survived the accident, or was April 14, 1912 the last day of our life. (In case you are curious: only one of us survived.) Throughout the exhibit we marveled over 200 artifacts that were recovered from the bottom of the ocean, and we even touched part of the ship. We really enjoyed this exhibit.
We enjoyed it so much, that the following weekend we decided to visit an actual ocean liner, which happened to be the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA. This over 1,000 ft (300m) long ship sailed the North Atlantic Ocean between 1936 and 1967. During this time she carried over 2,000,000 passengers between England and New York as well as mail (being a Royal Mail Ship or RMS). The Queen Mary became a soldier transporting ship during World War II, once carrying 16,082 American soldiers from New York to Great Britain. After the war she was refitted for passenger service again, and sailed over the Atlantic Ocean until 1967. Her last trip brought her to Long Beach, California, where she became a hotel and a museum.
After this brief historical introduction, let’s get to some images from our recent visit of the ship. First, we walked around in the Engine Room:
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Our next stop was a Ghosts and Legends tour. During this 30-40 minute tour/show we entered the lower parts of the ship, where we heard some ghost stories about the ship. We really enjoyed this show, the actors/tour guides were great. The best part of it was visiting the boiler room. We were standing on the bottom of the ship in this extremely large room that used to hold the boilers. It was a pretty amazing place. Unfortunately, during the tour no photography is allowed.
After this program we continued out tour of the ship. First, we walked by the shops in the Main Hall, then we visited the deck in front of the bridge, and upon returning to the inside of the ship we walked through a corridor which takes you to the hotel rooms.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Finally, we walked from the front of the ship to the back on the Promenade Deck. We took a look at the funnels (which are replicas), admired the size of a cruise ship (Carnival Miracle), and I just had to take a few pictures of the resting Cormorants.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
And now it was time to say good bye to this beautiful, full of history location. One more image of the side of the ship that also shows the life boats – which are replicas of the original ones.
I hope I made some of you interested in checking out either the Titanic Exhibit or the Queen Mary. Here is some info to these attractions:
Premier Exhibitions
Queen Mary
