We were finally going on a Panama Canal cruise. We chose the full transit on a PanaMax ship to experience the old locks. Based on good scheduling for us, we did west to east, though this meant losing time to get from Pacific Time to Eastern Time. Though we lost one less hour because the US ended daylight savings time during our trip. I chose the Island Princess because it had the most promenade, though they did remove the back of the promenade at the aft to add balconies during a dry dock. Sister, Coral Princess, did not suffer this same fate, so I recommend it instead if you have the choice.
The itinerary from the Princess Patter since it changed a couple of times after we booked, for formal night detail, and time change detail. Though they moved the 1-Hr Back at the end to the last night -- get people awake and off the ship quickly.
We stayed one night before the cruise in Long Beach on the historic, hotel-ship Queen Mary. I was very excited! We had a direct flight on American to LAX. We took a Lyft from home to the airport and back since this was a long trip to pay for parking at the airport. Unfortunately, we were traveling to the airport in rush hour both times, so they were both expensive. Both our drivers could not speak English, which I think should not be allowed for safety and navigation concerns. On our way home, the under construction highway had changed, my husband was trying to communicate to exit, but he did not understand and missed it, leaving us to go a ways to turn across in stopped rush hour traffic when we could have been home. Then I thought he was going to hit a barrack when my husband was trying to get him to exit after the turn around to not have to turn around again. Aqui! Lyft needs to fix this, or we need to pay more for Uber.
My normal from the plane picture. According to google photos this was taken over Homestead Meadows North, TX. This is very close to El Paso and Mexico. When taking it, I assumed it was New Mexico or Arizona. The flight left on time and was good (uneventful). I started the movie, You're Cordially Invited, and was going to finish it on the way home, but it was gone from the options by our flight home :(.
At LAX, we caught the shuttle from the airport to the LA public transportation hub. We bought the transport TAP card (doh, we already had two at home from our 2023 trip) and a trip to Long Beach on the train. No scary fight in our train car like in 2023 thankfully. We had one train change and got off by Von's for cruise necessities, snack that night, and breakfast. The Queen Mary restaurants looked very pricy. We found a close restaurant for a lunch-dinner. We were first going to do Taco Tuesday at Leo's Mexican Grill. But when we arrived they had closed at 3pm, and it was now 3:15pm. So, we walked to the Dog Haus and had some fancy sausages. We missed the restroom here because someone came in the side door while we were eating, went into the only restroom, and did not leave. We caught an Uber to Queen Mary. Queen Mary had their Halloween event setup in front, so she dropped us off outside of that. She had to grab a ticket outside the gate, but it said free for up to 10 minutes inside the gate.
Hello, Queen Mary! She is looking more shiny now; they were still working on her when we saw her in 2023. The hotel entrance was the second covered area in the picture. They checked us off the list and let us enter for check in. We checked in, dropped our stuff in the room, and started exploring the exhibits. They closed at 5:30pm and reopened the next morning at 10am. Though not all displayed closed, some were visible from the normal hallways. At check in, they told us that the rooms did not have an A/C control. We used the provided blanket in the closet, but it was still cold. I was disappointed that the rooms did not look more like ship cabins today but looked more like a hotel room. However, the hallways were very stately with wood paneling. It was very roomy. They also noted thin walls on the rooms because when the ship's engines were running that provided white noise, and now we don't have that. They provided earplugs. It was not bad. Travis could hear my phone conversation form outside the room, but I did not hear others while we were in the room. We got an inside room for the king size bed instead of two twins. I booked the room with the 2024 Black Friday sale. I did not get a picture of the bathroom, but here is the room. The bathroom was spacious with a good sized shower, though no shelves to put stuff. They provided bar soap and body wash. A postcard that they gave us with the room.
A look at the outside.
Now on to the museums to see what we can see today. If you want to read about the displays before coming, they have information here. The City of Long Beach did a wonderful job of, not only restoring the Queen Mary for hotel stays, but also a wonderful job with the displays. They also offer tours and even a ghost tour. Here is the map that they gave us at check in.
We first went to the engine room. It was massive -- over multiple rooms and decks. It is a steam engine; today, cruise ships commonly use diesel-electric propulsion. I have not toured a modern cruise engine room to know, but I imagine that this steam engine is larger. I did not get very good pictures because it was dark, but full, multiple parts of many engine rooms were on display.
We then found the Lego Queen Mary; that is one big Lego set -- look at the facts (but now that I read it again, it is very qualified). Very cool; no, we did not find the cat.
The print room for printing the list of daily activities. Then the display went outside the ship to see the propellers. Next, we learned about Queen Mary's (and other Queens) help during WWII. She transported many soldiers to the battle zone. Here is Winston Churchill's planning and meeting room; he also had a cabin on the ship. The soldier's bunks and self-supplied mesh kit. The guns on the bow.
We continued our ship exploration the next day.The promenade. I liked this view out of a Queen Mary porthole of the Carnival dome cruise ship terminal with cool trees in front. Us with one of the funnels. This also shows the tennis court. An unrestored lifeboat.
We then found the bridge. This area had a gentleman, dressed the part, answering questions. We took the opportunity to ask him some questions.
I like that you can see the California mountains behind Long Beach. The pub and the kids' club.
The current gym with displays of how the gym looked and some equipment from when Queen Mary launched in 1934.
The ship model display with cross sections of a Queen and the Titanic. These were very detailed with descriptions labeling what each room was and what class it was (first, second, or third).
More around the ship pictures. An empty lifeboat holder, a man working very high up the mast, and the Halloween event. We did not go to this; the tickets were about $46 each. We looked at it at night; it had strobe lights and fire shooting up. There were a haunted house and rides.
Lastly, fire safety. This was a very fancy system. The Lux system was used to extinguish fires piped to the different decks/rooms, and the Richaudio system drew air samples from different rooms across the ship regularly and ran two tests for the presence of smoke.
There was more to see, but we were running low on time since check out was at 11am. We went back to the room to finish packing -- trying again to get everything zipped into our suitcases again. We only brought a backpack and roll-aboard each to not pay for checked luggage with the plan to do laundry on the Island Princess. We checked out and got an Uber to a convenient store, Bon Ton Grocery, which was close to the port. We were at terminal 93 at San Pedro. Princess allows you to bring a 12 pack soda onboard (and a bottle of wine) per adult. I asked on Google Maps before the cruise if the grocery/convenient store carried a 12 pack of soda; I did not get an answer. They do not and had no prices on items; we did not get to enjoy sodas on our eight sea days.
We enjoyed Queen Mary.