Thursday, September 1, 2011

birthday weekend get away part I

Jason and I took off for a quick little get away to California ( actually my birthday fell on the same weekend as a tournament, go figure...I kind of invited myself right along. Can we say guilt trip?? ) Besides the tournament we visited the beach, cold stone ice cream..my favorite and the The Queen Mary,which I had never heard of until I was google-ing things to do in California. Sp we purchased tour tickets. It was really neat. We were able to wonder and we also took a tour and a ghost tour. Super fun and super touristy too!
A huge, I mean huge gear down in the engine room.



This is one of two pools that were on board the ship, it also took part in the ghost tour, they made the lighting look as if there was water that appeared. cool and creepy. What was interesting as well is that the first class passengers had access to the pool but the 2nd and 3rd class passengers could only swim in it for an hour each day and after that, they would drain the water because I guess there is no way that the first class passengers were going to swim in the same water.
This was our tour guide, I cant remember his name, he was friendly and knew everything. He was great but we had to laugh when we went to sign up for our ghost tour I had them make sure we could get there in time because the tours were so close together so those gentlemen called down to see who our guide would be and they chuckled and put us down for a later time so we wouldn't miss it. They knew that we would be longer.Beautiful tile work in the ball room.The huge chain to lower the anchorThis was a neat and creepy hall way, it went from front to back and was built to sway with the waves. The hall seemed to go on forever!
The life boatsThe beautiful scenery
This was the area at the front of the ship which of course reminded me of Titanic. On the back of the ship they had platforms that you could get married on. There were several people there getting ready for a wedding or discussing weddings.This picture doesn't do it justice but it was to show passengers the route for the days. It was the fastest ship to travel from New York to England and back. Amazing, especially back then.A cute little replica
The inside lay out, this was stretched along a long wall. I wish I would have stood next to the anchor, it was HUGE!Part of the little deck next to the restaurant we ate at.This is more decorative wall, then the stair case down both sides that went from top to bottom. Had I known that you could actually reserve a room on board and stay I so would of for one night. I am afraid that this may be my only ship experience!More engine parts.This was a fighter gun. For some time they turned the ship in to a dilatory ship and hosted several officers as well as passengers. It had carried 800,000 troops over a period of time and traveled over 600,000 miles. Some in fact slept in the bottom of the pool.


There was so much history. I enjoyed it. Once we finished our tours we paid for lunch and enjoyed the view of the ocean while eating.