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Broadcasting from the EnsuremyTrip.com studios in Jacksonville, Florida. This is Cruise Radio. Hey, what's up? My name is Doug Parker. Thank you so much for checking out this episode of Cruise Radio. We've got a lot of listener emails, too, by the way, some first-time listeners. So if you're a first-time listener, thank you so much for checking out the program. and we have a lot of back episodes for you to listen to. So thank you, again, for being here. On this show, we'll tackle a listener question about things to do in Gavleston, Texas, pre, and post-cruise. Nancy Strutter with the Family Travel Network will be joining us a little later on in the program to tackle that. Stuart Sheeron,

the cruise guy, is away this week, so we're going to jump right to our first interview. He is

a Queen Mary historian. Of course, Queen Mary is the floating ship. Of course it is. It's a hotel,

a restaurant, and a bar. You can take tours of it. It was launched in the 30s, and it has a lot

of ties to World War II. It was basically like it helped the evolution of it. It was launched in the 30s, and it has a lot of ties to World War II.

It was basically like it helped the evolution of cruising, so really excited to get to our first

guest. We'll waste no time to welcome Barry Vaughan to the program. Hi, Barry. Doug, it is

incredible to be on your show again. So, Barry, give us a little background on the Queen Mary

and all the details around it.

Well, the Queen Mary was retired in 1967, 1968, right in there.

And the City of Long Beach purchased the Queen Mary for a little over $3 million.

And she was at the end of her career, and the reason why she was taken out of service

was because she was just too costly to run and operate, also because the passengers

no longer filled her cabins in her state rooms.

Rather, they decided to fly across the Atlantic.

So it really was the jet aircraft that shot down the Queen Mary as far as her usability.

Well, when you say it was like the jet across the ocean, was this thing making like really good speed from Europe to the U.S.?

Well, it really didn't matter how fast Queen Mary was. I mean, she could do about 30 knots. Wow, that's fast for a cruise ship. It is. Yeah. Well, see, the Queen Mary is not a cruise ship. That's true. A liner. She was a thoroughbred ocean liner, a ship of state. Very, very luxurious. She had three different classes on board.

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