The RMS Queen Mary left Southampton, England, on May 27, 1936, for her maiden voyage to New York. The liner had cost a total of about £3.5 million to build, or roughly $17.5 million at the time, per The Sunday Post.
That August, the ship won the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing, at just over 30 knots, according to Mental Floss. During World War II, she was painted gray and carried up to 15,000 soldiers at a time.
The Queen Mary docked in Long Beach, California, on Dec. 9, 1967, after her final cruise, to become a floating hotel. The city bought her for nearly $3.5 million without fully considering her condition, Brian Chavez of the Historical Society of Long Beach told LAist. Long Beach planned to spend $8 million to $9 million on the ship but paid nearly $40 million in repairs in the first year.
The conversion took a few years. The ship opened to visitors in 1971, and the first 150 hotel rooms followed in 1974, per the ship’s official timeline. Wrather Port Properties signed a 66-year lease in 1980, and Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose flying boat went on display in a dome next to the ship in 1983.
Disney took over the lease when it bought Wrather in 1988, then gave it up in 1992 after a survey found at least $27 million in needed repairs, according to MousePlanet. Joseph Prevratil of the RMS Foundation signed a lease in 1993.
Garrison Investment Group took over the master lease in 2009 and reported spending more than $13 million on preservation, renovation and capital improvements, the city of Long Beach said. In 2016, Urban Commons, a Los Angeles real estate firm, signed a 66-year lease to run the ship, per the Long Beach Business Journal.
That year, the city issued $23 million in bonds for emergency repairs, but the money ran out. A 2015 marine survey projected up to $289 million in urgent work.
In 2019, Urban Commons created Eagle Hospitality Trust, which listed on the Singapore exchange. On Jan. 18, 2021, the trust and more than two dozen U.S. hotel properties, including the Queen Mary’s operator, filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware. The group reported more than $500 million in total debt, the Long Beach Post reported. That figure covers all of the properties, not just the ship.
No qualified bidders showed up when the ship’s lease went to auction, so Urban Commons gave it up. A judge approved Long Beach taking legal control on July 7, 2021, giving the city complete control for the first time in more than 40 years, the Post reported.
The ship has since reopened for tours, events and hotel stays. Its operators said it grossed nearly $2.25 million in profit for 2023, per LAist. Brandon Richardson of the Long Beach Business Journal said the city still closed that fiscal year “losing just over $7 million dollars in Queen Mary operations.”
Not every old ship gets a second career as a hotel. In 2006, the Navy sank the USS Oriskany off Pensacola, Florida, and it became the largest ship ever turned into an artificial reef.
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