By The tour guide’s voice echoed through the darkness of the ship’s steel corridors, “We are in the heart of the Queen Mary now.”
The 12 guests at Dark Harbor’s private tour titled Encounters entered the small, dimly lit engine room of the old luxury liner at the Queen Mary.
The smell of engine grease hung in the air as the group squeezed together onto a small-steel catwalk.
“Long ago one of the crew died as he tried to escape a fire in this engine room,” the tour guide said. “People have said that they’ve heard banging on the pipes around the area where he died.”
A few feet ahead of the group, the path disappeared into the shadows of steel pipes. Attendees screamed in horror as hands reached for them from the darkness.
Encounters is one of the four new haunting experiences at Dark Harbor, the biggest Halloween event in Long Beach.
This year Dark Harbor introduced four new attractions — Voodoo Village, Soulmate, B340 and Encounters.
Guests could slosh through the swamps of the Deep South in Voodoo Village, waltz in the ship’s ballroom with the pale Graceful Gale in Soulmate, delve into the bowels of The Queen Mary in Encounters or look for the murdered spirits of past passengers in the notorious the B340 room.
On the way out of the mazes, Long Beach resident Heather Pearl said that the experience was full of surprises around every corner.
“Those guys used those blind corners to their advantage very well,” Pearl said.
Some of the classic mazes made a return to the event as well.
Circus returned as a fun house from hell, and Submerged reemerged with a simulation of a sinking Queen Mary.
“I think they went all out with the decorations and everything,” Pham said. “It’s very realistic.”
Nowhere did the detail show more than with the costumes and the stories of featured monsters like The Voodoo Priestess — the newest member of the ship’s undead crew.
Dark Harbor guest Kiki Dickson was thrilled after experiencing the mazes.
“I was so scared,” Dickson said. “I’ve never been so sweaty in my life.”
On select dates from Oct. 2 through Nov. 2, Dark Harbor will bring the haunted history of the Queen Mary with freak shows, glass walkers, fire dancers and, of course, monsters.
Tickets for Dark Harbor start at $20 online. More information can be found at the Queen Mary’s website.
