Last night Janey and I (with another couple) traveled down to Long Beach. Our destination… The RMS Queen Mary. Our tickets, however, read “Shipwreck”. Each year in October the grounds surrounding this beautiful ship are turned into a wasteland of plywood and churro carts to entertain an odd mix of couple and hyper teens for the Halloween holiday.
We really thought this was going to be freaky. Not too long ago Janey and I visited my parents who were actually staying at the Queen Mary. We walked the decks and read all the information posted on this ‘Self Guided Tour’. It was really fascinating. This ship has the most amazing history, and along with that comes all kinds of creepy stories relating the true events from the ships past. There is even an official tour on the ship called ‘Ghosts and Legends’ that delves into some of these stories while visiting some of the supposedly haunted sites on the ship. 
We thought that Shipwreck would be a lot like that with added effects and stuff. But we were quite disappointed. They took this wonderful canvas and completely wasted it. …. let me just walk you through it.
Upon arrival we parked and walked toward the ship where a mass of people was standing around. Seeing the security guard checking for tickets let us know this was the spot to start our journey. This was actually just the beginning of the line to actually get in. We waited in this line until we got up to the security checkpoint. this is where I need to take a little tangent
When we were getting ready to leave Janey asked if I brought the camera… I didn’t. I wasn’t really planning on it. But it did sound like a good idea to bring it along. We don’t have a lot of pictures of the stuff we do. So I threw it over my shoulder. When we got up the security checkpoint the guard asked me to open my bag. He said “no cameras” and looked at me. I was waiting for him to direct me somewhere, but instead he just looked at me. I said “should I take it back to my car” and he nodded still looking at me. I had a line of about a billion people behind me and there was no way to get out. Finally I just turned around and pushed past the folks waiting in line and ran back to the car. OK now the story can get back on track.
After being swabbed by those metal detector wants and being stamped on the hand with some of that black light ink we were directed into a courtyard of sorts. It was a small lawn that sits in front of a few of the tourist shops on the shore next to the ship. A few more steps into the area revealed some rope and stantion setups leading into a small doorway in a plywood wall. there were about 100 people out front in a line waiting to get in. We hopped in that line for our first frightful experience.
The line moved very quickly and we were up to the door in no time at all. Once inside it was clear why it moved so fast. The first 5 turns we didn’t see a thing. it was just black walls with fake spider webs. not such a great first impression. Anyway we kept moving through the maze and it was just like every spook alley in america. This one just happened to be sitting on the land next to a majorly famous ship. So needless to say I wasn’t really impressed so far.
After that we ventured across a small paved parking lot looking area that had more ropes up in the form of a line. This time though it was completely empty. We walked through the ropes to find out that it was actually another attraction and it was open (with no one there it looked like it was something that was closed). It actually let us into a GIANT dome that used to house the Spruce Goose. This maze was much cooler then the first. I was supposed to be themed as kind of a pirate ghost land and it had the added bonus of being in 3-D. When they first handed the glasses to us I was wondering just how it was going to work, but upon entering it was really cool.
They used different colors of neon paints lit with a black light and it really seemed to jump off the walls. I was really amazed at how well it worked. Most of the scenes really seemed to have a lot of depth. Thats really where the coolness stopped though. it was a normal maze with masked high school kids running around and popping out of little holes in the walls.
I figured these standard mazes were just the ones out on the ground. And once we got on board the ship it would be a lot cooler.
What I found was that they took this beautiful ship with all it’s creepy boiler rooms and such and cheapened it with plywood and heavy metal music. Everywhere we turned there was eardrum popping Heavy metal that was apparently supposed to be scary….
Ahhh well, I guess I don’t have much else to say about it. I just think it could have been so much more. They have this wonderful venue and they are totally cheapening it. Maybe I’m just spoiled by Disney. We don’t just throw things up… we pay attention to the details and tell a story. At any rate… if you’re thinking about it… skip shipwreck and go see the Queen Mary any time the rest of the year.