Go Niche

A CROSSING on Cunard's luxury Queen Mary II,the largest ocean liner ever built, might be a little beyond your financial reach but, if you happen to find yourself already Stateside, you can at least spend a night on its precursor.

The original Queen Mary, which plied the Atlantic from 1936 to the late 1960s, is now permanently moored at Long Beach, California, reborn as a beautiful, art deco hotel.

Rates start at $129 (€94) a night and, all this month, the ship is playing host to Dark Harbor, its annual Halloween fright-fest.

But while management might deck out the rest of the ship in plastic pumpkins and fake blood, cabin B340 will stay just as it is – empty.

The floor here is always bare because, the story goes, despite repeated attempts to fix it up, the carpet is inevitably ripped up and left stacked against the wall – and the bed stripped – even when the room is locked.

Passengers have also reported hearing inexplicable screams. This, it is suggested, could be an eerie echo of an event with an Irish connection.

In October 1942, while playing its part in the second World War, the Queen Marywas carrying 20,000 US troops to England when, zig zagging as it went for safety, it ploughed straight through its escort ship, the HMS Curacoa, splitting it clean in half.

An estimated 338 sailors on the stricken ship lost their lives while the 26 that survived by clinging to the wreckage had to endure the added horror of seeing the Queen Maryheading off into the distance as if nothing had happened, too nervous of the threat posed by U-boats to help with the rescue operations. The incident happened 60km off Donegal.

queenmary.com