[Review] The Queen Mary Sails into Dark Waters

For eleven months out of the year the historic Queen Mary rests peacefully on the Long Beach harbor.  The ship, once a majestic liner, is now a floating museum and hotel where guests can come and marvel at it’s glory and appreciate its long history.  However, during one month of the year the ship turns cold and the past comes to life in horrific ways.

It’s Halloween season and that can mean only one thing: the Dark Harbor is back.  We took a trip down to the legendary Queen Mary and got to see just how this beautiful naval icon transforms into a horrific Halloween experience. Journey down below to see our review of this annual Halloween event and check out a few pictures that I took along the way.

In years past I’ve said that the Dark Harbor was by far one of the scariest Halloween events in California and this year proves to be no different.  The Queen Mary has some extremely unique qualities that no other Halloween event has in Southern California.  For one, many believe that the ship is actually haunted.  If you count yourself as a believer than the idea of going through the Queen Mary at night should give you pause.  Then add dedicated scareactors who want to terrify you at every corner to the mix and you’ve got a recipe for frights.

Another interesting factor about the Queen Mary is that, since the ship is a historical site, they don’t have to follow a lot of the rules and regulations that constrain other haunted attractions.  This means you can have floors that shift, walls that squeeze you, and ball pits.  Yeah, ball pits.  The Queen Mary has an assortment of tricks up it’s sleeve to keep you on your toes.

That being said, the Queen Mary does have some issues that may keep you from wanting to make a return trip this year.  The biggest issue being that there is only one new maze this year: The Intrepid.  If you’ve been to previous years you’ll recognize the rest of the mazes on tap and not a whole lot has changed about them.  Still, if you thought those mazes were really good the first time you went through them then I can say that they’re still pretty damn good.

However, the newest maze does feel a bit lackluster and the new icon for 2016, the Iron Master, is a bit silly with his over the top look and comical Scottish accent. The maze itself is supposed to take you to where it all began and show you the dark creation of the Queen Mary and the mastermind behind it.  None of this really comes through in the maze though and it all just feels like disjointed scenes that don’t have any memorable themes to them. Even now I struggle to think of a scare or scene that really stood out to me.  It’s not a bad maze,  you’ll still get a few good scares of it, but it just doesn’t have the weight that some of the older mazes had.

For instance, my favorite maze is still “Circus: Big Top Terror.”  One of the few mazes at any event to actually give me a great deal of anxiety.  Imagine being stuck in a hall of mirrors with creepy clowns screwing with you and sending you walking down dead ends and being stuck on twisted turns and pathways.  It was absolutely mind-boggling and it legitimately was terrifying to not know how to get out of there.

Then there’s mazes like “B340” which take high concepts, like losing your mind, and convey those feelings in the form of twisted mazes with insane structures.  There’s lot of great design and thought put into this maze and it allows for a lot of unexpected scares and twisted imagery that keeps you on edge.

“Soulmate” is all about unrequited love and uses a lot of amazingly talented scareactors to act and converse with you in interesting and fun ways.  This one probably has the most heart because of how interactive a lot of the actors have to be throughout it.  Even though it’s the scariest, it’s probably the most endearing maze of the event.

Meanwhile “Deadrise” and “Lullaby” are your more standard mazes.  One deals with creepy undead children and the other has zombie-like seaman.  They’re both solid attractions that don’t challenge traditional mazes, but provide a good amount of scares and thrills in their own right.

Along with the mazes Queen Mary offers up a lot of spectacle that you can sit back and enjoy.  Performers, like Twirly the Clown, wander the park and entertain the masses while they wait in line or simply sit down for a breather.  Then there’s things like the sideshow and paintball  sections that you can pay a little bit extra to get into and check out.  There’s something for everyone at the Queen Mary and with the cheapest admission and smaller crowds it’s still probably the best value to be had in Southern California.  Check it out before the season ends.

More Twirly. I kept seeing her throughout the night. I don’t know who she is, but she was one of my favorite parts of the event.

Day turns to night as the chaos of the Queen Mary unfolds.

The three icons of the Dark Harbor in one place. Here we have the Captain, the Ringmaster, and the Iron Master

Press and talent gather at the gates waiting to get into the Queen Mary and escape the $12 vodka Red Bulls