The Queen Mary | Wikimedia Commons
The Queen Mary arrived in Long Beach, California, on December 9, 1967, after the city agreed to pay $3.45 million for the retired ocean liner. Long Beach won the bid and gave the 1,000-foot ship a permanent home on its waterfront. From ocean liner to hotel The conversion took several years, and the Queen Mary was moved to Pier J in February 1971. The ship’s hotel followed in 1974 and the first 150 hotel rooms opened on March 1, which gave visitors the option of staying aboard the former ocean liner rather than just touring it. The Queen Mary’s ownership and management changed several times after its conversion, and Long Beach’s city government eventually gained control of the ship once again in 2021 after decades of private management. The city described the Queen Mary as a major part of the Long Beach waterfront and said that an economic impact study had attributed more than 1,300 jobs and nearly $94 million in annual economic output to the ship when it was operating. The Queen Mary is still permanently docked in Long Beach in 2026; the ship that made its final passenger-service journey in 1967 now operates as a hotel and tourist attraction, without making another ocean crossing.
At that point, the city said it was preparing further preservation work and a new operating arrangement for the hotel and visitor facilities. Cunard had put the ship up for sale as the era of long-distance passenger travel by ocean liner was coming to an end, with people starting to move towards commercial air travel. The vessel was no longer intended to operate as a passenger liner, but its cabins, dining rooms, lounges and other areas remained part of the planned attraction. The ship was moved to its permanent berth at Long Beach, where work continued to prepare the former ocean liner for visitors and hotel operations. Weekend tours began that May, and a section of the Museum of the Sea opened later that year. Repairs continued after the city resumed control, and the ship later returned to visitor operations, with hotel rooms, tours, dining and events among the facilities that were available aboard the vessel.
The Queen Mary’s official history says the vessel carried about 2.2 million passengers during peacetime service and 810,000 military personnel during World War II, while in Long Beach, the ship has received an estimated 50 million visitors. Dining rooms, lounges, cabins and other passenger areas were retained and adapted for hotel, restaurant and event use.
