Cindy’s Column 12/1/2007
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The Queen Mary – Visited and Reviewed
Well, we arrived at the Queen Mary (www.QueenMary.com ) at about 4 p.m. on a Saturday Afternoon. Mom does not like ghosts or boats so Dad and I decided to make a short weekend of it.
As I was walking up the gangplank, I was wondering if there would be many people there. After all, who else would want to go to a boat-ghost-hotel?
Boy, was I surprised. There were about a hundred people waiting in line in the lobby.
So we stood in line about 30 minutes and got our keys to our special “haunted room.” (They’ll give you one upon request.) The desk clerk said the last time he gave out this room the people left real quick because the porthole opened by itself.
My first impression was that I liked it. I felt like I was in the past. Like I was on the Titantic or something. (I loved that movie!) I liked the overall style of it.
It was not real scary, though, just a little - maybe. I guess I knew it was supposed to be haunted so that scared me a little, but it was nothing like the Korakia. (see 11/1/07 column.)
But shortly after we settled in I sat on the toilet seat to tie my shoe string and it moved while I sitting on it….That was weird.
My Dad tried to set up his internet and guess what? It did not work….as usual.
So after a few minutes of settling in, dad took his computer and we went out to the lobby so he could use the wireless there. I looked at some brochures while he did his thing, then we took a walk around the boat before dinner.
We had reservations to go to a special dinner with a “ghost” tour afterwards, called “Dining With the Spirits” (http://www.queenmary.com/index.php?page=ghosttour )with this lady named Erika Frost (http://www.erikafrost.net/ef/ .) My Dad thought she was very pretty. (Yeah, mom, he did.) I liked her. She seemed very honest and sincere. She didn’t have any predetermined ideas that she forced on other people.
During dinner Erika told us a little bit about the tour and what to expect. She said it was always different, but weird things had happened. A few times the whole group was sent running. Frequently people felt like they were touched, or felt a presence near them. One lady had a hand print on her neck that everyone could see after an encounter. And very often cameras and other electronic devices did not work.
After Erika finished talking we got our main course. I have to say the food at the Sir Winston Restaurant (http://www.queenmary.com/index.php?page=sirwinstons ) pretty much sucked. Neither one of us finished it. It was not because we were full.
But we were really here for the ghost tour so who cared. After dinner we all got together in front of the restaurant. There were about twenty people who went on the tour.
We walked down a lot of stairs and entered through a door marked “employees only” into the bowels of the ship.
It was not real scary with the whole group of people and all, but if Dad and I had been alone, I’m sure it would have been extremely creepy and scary. Dad had been here once before, and he had gone on a self-guided tour down in the engine room section and he said he felt some real creepy things. So we were looking forward to doing something like that on Sunday.
Anyway, Erika stopped at this one spot and told us about a “friendly” sort of a ghost named John who died playing chicken with one of the doors in the engine room. I didn’t feel much, but there were some people who were creeped out. Then she brought out the dousing rods and asked for a volunteer.
Dousing rods are supposed to pick up energy and things like that. So a volunteer would hold them and she would ask the ghost questions and ask him to move the dousing rods apart or together or to point out where he (the ghost) was at.
Well the dousing rods were sure very active, moving all over the place in response to her questions. Then another person held them, and they did the same thing. We did not know what to make of this. You know, whether the people were moving them subconsciously or what. Dad suggested that one of us volunteer the next time she asked to see if it was real.
We went into another creepy area where Erika no longer wanted to go, so the other guides took us while she waited. Again it was creepy but not that creepy with twenty people milling around you. There were supposed to be ghosts here named Sarah and Henry.
However, on the way to the next area we were walking down stairs and both dad and I got this real weird feeling from this one floor that we didn’t stop on. We both got it at the same time. We asked what the area was used for and she said it was one of the areas they held prisoners of war in when the Queen Mary was used as the “Grey Ghost” during the war to transport troops and prisoners.
We went to this other area where they threw the bodies of the prisoners after they died or something. It was a little bit creepy, but I didn’t perceive anything.
We went to several other areas and concluded our tour around the pool area which is supposed to be famous for paranormal activity. I was off wandering around looking at things when Erika asked for another volunteer to hold the dousing rods.
Dad was standing right next to her (I think it was only because he wanted to hold the rods mom) and volunteered. She picked him. She asked some questions of this young female ghost named Jackie, and the ghost supposedly made the rods move away and together just as before and then she asked for the ghost to make them point to where she was and the rods both moved in unison slightly to my dad’s left.
Afterwards, I asked my Dad what it felt like. He said it was definitely weird. He said that there was like a vibrating energy kind of encompassing his whole body. Then he said he could feel the rods sort of wiggling and moving in his hands the whole time. He said he was holding them very loosely and did not influence them at all. And definitely couldn’t have made them go together and apart and then act in unison. He was definitely impressed. In fact, he wants to buy some now. He said he never experienced anything like it in his life. He said it felt like they were almost alive.
She then took us into the dressing room and we all stood there in dark stalls for a while. She told us about the shadow people who have been caught on film and stuff. They are just shadows that people see moving around in the pool and this area. My Dad said he saw a shadow figure at one point (other people said they saw it too) but I didn’t.
So then we concluded our tour. We talked to Erika for a while. And we heard one lady say that her camera didn’t work in that one area, but as soon as she came out, it started to work again. Then this guy showed Erika a picture with a mysterious globe in it. And she said it was interesting and he should submit it to the Paranormal Institute for analysis.
Afterwards we checked out the music in the lounge, looked at a few shops, then went to our room to see if we could experience any more paranormal events.
We set up our camera and took pictures in the dark and stuff, but overall it wasn’t very scary. We looked at the portholes. If that guy’s story was true, I know why those people left. The porthole was very heavy and extremely hard to move. There is no way it could move on its own. You have to pull very hard to open it. I couldn’t even open it pulling with one hand. My dad had to do it.
Well nothing freaky happened that night in the room. At least I didn’t think so then. But I did discover something freaky a few days later at home. While in the room that night I debriefed my self by talking into a tape recorder about what happened on the tour. I did it in our room that night.
A few days later at home when I was listening to the tape to type this column. On the part when I was talking about the tour, the tape starting slowly speeding up going faster and faster until I couldn’t even understand what I was saying. This happened when I had recorded the information – not when I was playing it back.
I don’t even have a fast speed on my tape. When batteries are weak tape recorders slow down – they do not speed up. (I had fresh batteries anyway.) My Dad and I listened to it several times. It was really very odd. So maybe there was something in that room that night.
I don’t know. But this was definitely weird.
Any way, the next morning we decided to do the Queen Mary Buffet for brunch, and do our own little self-guided tour of the Queen Mary and perhaps bump into some real ghosts.
The buffet was mediocre again. Definitely not worth what we had to pay for it. There was lots of food and lots of people though. I liked the pasta but not much else. My Dad didn’t like his food much either.
So then we went on our self guided tour. We started in an area where they gave the history of the Queen Mary. Quite an impressive history and played a big part in World War Two. The Queen Mary is even bigger that the Titantic, which I didn’t know until I took the tour.
We were very disappointed, however, the engine room portion of the self-guided tour
was closed. This is where my Dad had had a freaky experience years ago and we were so looking forward to going there. So we sort of just went on the regular tour things.
We saw the wedding chapel, and the isolation ward. We went to the captains quarters where they entertained guests. We went to the sun deck, saw the lifeboats, and walked all around. There was an art exhibit featuring women’s pictures that we went to. That was cool. There was a promenade deck with a bunch of stores. Actually there was some cool stores there and I bought a few items for myself. One was called the Queen Mary Courtier. The had cute clothes and other items. That’s where I bought some stuff.
All and all everything was sort of alright. But there was nothing like wooooooaaahhhh about it.
We continued walking around and I went to the bow of the ship and reenacted the scene from the Titantic – “I am King of the World.” ….but I guess that should be “Queen”…..
Coming back from the bow we were almost done and a little bored and disappointed when my Dad saw this little room that said “Immortal Chaplains Sanctuary.” Didn’t look interesting at all, but out of boredom we decided to go in.
It was just a normal room but to the side there was this little room (maybe 10 by 15) that said “Paranormal Institute” or something like that. We just went in the doorway and it was SO FREAKIN’ SCARY. My Dad I both felt it at the same time. We didn’t even talk. We just looked at each other. I didn’t even want to go in. I turned around and wanted to run away….. But we went in anyway….
I was freaked out and scared and I couldn’t let go of my Dad’s arm. I hung in there though. After about five minutes of inching around, I was still scared, but we decided to take pictures, to see if anything freaky came out on them.
We took a lot of pictures and we didn’t see anything, but wow you could really feel it. There was something in there for sure. It was SOOOOOOO CREEPY. It had such bad vibes.
We ended up staying in there a long time. The creepy feeling never went away. I was holding on to my Dad’s arm most of the time. I took a lot of pictures but nothing came out on them when I looked later on.
But I was REALLY SCARED! That is the scariest place I’ve been for sure. I guess it makes sense because that is where they do paranormal research….. I guess the ghosts or whatever it is, feels at home in there. IT WAS SOOOOOOO SCARY.
That concluded our self-guided tour with a surprise bang. We went back to our room to pack and get ready to leave.
So we left Queen Mary.
I was expecting more out of the Queen Mary in terms of Ghost Hunting. And to be fair we might have gotten more out of it if the Engine Room tour had been open. But in the end that one experience in the Paranormal Institute was the scariest place I’ve been so far.
Now at least I have something new to top.
Until next time….
Cindy