Queen Mary Long Beach

The Queen Mary

The Queen Mary, located in Long Beach, is now used as a hotel with many restaurants, and a museum with much history.   It is a huge cruise ship that has been restored and made into a hotel and preserved to show different parts of the ship for a museum that many people come from all over to see.
It was originally launched in 1934 to be used as a troopship.   It housed and transported troops during the war, and transported famous people such as Winston Churchill and Queen Elizabeth, before becoming a cruise line in 1963.   After becoming a cruise ship, many more famous people traveled on the ship.   In fact, this is the first thing I noticed as we walked into the entrance of the museum-like part of the ship.   The walls were basically murals of photographs of people that had been on board the ship.   Also along the wall was a timeline for the ship, ranging from the mid-1920's to the late 1990's.   I enjoyed looking at the timelines and seeing the many people that have been present on the ship at one time or another.
Next, I went down into the lower deck, where I saw all of the pipes, and gauges, and gears, and everything that at one time made the ship run.   Here I saw the control room, and pressure gauges, and turbine exhausts.   It was kind of weird walking around down there, as I'd never seen anything like that before.   There were huge turning gears, and other things of this sort that I really didn't know anything about.
After the control room, and all of that, I next went into a room with a small theatre showing a movie, and examples of steering wheels and propellers.   The next part of the ship I visited was probably my favorite.   It had all different mock rooms side by side, with examples of first, second, and third class rooms.   It was interesting to see the differences in size and quality in each room.   For example, the first class rooms had a large bed, and a sitting area, with a mirror and decorations like flowers and nicely carved furniture;...