Queen Mary

The Queen has seen better days. A makeover has been long overdue for the venerable Queen Mary, the retired cruise ship turned tourist attraction and hotel docked in Long Beach Harbor since 1967. But repairs to the city-owned ship have been delayed because of financial crisis and organizational wrangling. Long Beach officials now believe the ship is getting its long-overdue upgrades under a new management company that also operates hotels and restaurants in Yellowstone and Grand Canyon national parks and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Combing through the artifacts of Long Beach State basketball, which plays home games in "The Pyramid," is quite an archaeological dig. What an eclectic mishmash of characters, hoop dreams and hiccups. The school nickname is the 49ers, but could easily be "The Asterisks," or "The Elevators. " "It's been up and down," Glenn McDonald, a founding forward from the 1970s, said of the program. You can guess Sutter's Mill for the nickname inspiration and be off by only a century.

Cruising can be a bargain, and one of the classic journeys is a transatlantic crossing. It's not a trip for everyone, though. You're at sea the whole week, and the North Atlantic can be stormy. (Dramamine, anyone?). But for Anglophiles who crave afternoon tea, formal dancing in the Queens Room and top-flight lecture programs, a crossing on Cunard Line 's Queen Mary 2 can be just the ticket - and very affordable, thanks to this offer. The deal: Cunard's “ Feel Famous Sale ”  advertises savings up to $1,600 per stateroom for transatlantic crossings and European voyages.

Cruising can be a bargain, and one of the classic journeys is a transatlantic crossing. It's not a trip for everyone, though. You're at sea the whole week, and the North Atlantic can be stormy. (Dramamine, anyone?). But for Anglophiles who crave afternoon tea, formal dancing in the Queens Room and top-flight lecture programs, a crossing on Cunard Line 's Queen Mary 2 can be just the ticket - and very affordable, thanks to this offer. The deal: Cunard's “ Feel Famous Sale ”  advertises savings up to $1,600 per stateroom for transatlantic crossings and European voyages.

The aging elegance of the Long Beach-moored Queen Mary ocean liner and hotel provides a perfect backdrop for the fog-shrouded nautical nightmare theme that unifies the Dark Harbor haunted event. I caught Dark Harbor over the weekend after a bit of buzz touting the rebooted Halloween event as much improved over languishing past offerings. Dark Harbor will continue from 7 p.m. until midnight Thursday to Sunday (Oct. 21 to 24) and 27 to 31. Dark Harbor compares well to Halloween theme-park events at Knott's Berry Farm and Universal Studios Hollywood , albeit on a smaller scale.

The Queen Mary is a British national treasure and belongs in British waters as a maritime museum for British schoolchildren to visit. We Americans do not have a moral right to this great ship of history. The sooner Long Beach is paid off and the Queen Mary is returned to England in shipshape condition, the better our conscience will be. LILLIAN SPENCER Los Angeles

Queen Mary, meet Queen Victoria . That's pretty much how the introduction would go if these two Cunard ships -- one docked in Long Beach, one on its way to the Panama Canal -- could speak. Instead, the ships  will exchange a whistle salute amid fireworks when they "meet"  Thursday in Long Beach Harbor. Admission to the Queen Mary, usually $24.95 plus tax for adults, will be free to mark what Cunard calls a "royal rendezvous. " Queen Victoria is expected to sail into Long Beach Harbor between 5:30 and 6:15 p.m. and rendezvous with its sister ship between 6:15 and 6:45 p.m. The ship opens to visitors for free at 10 a.m.; guided tours and dining, however, are not free.

When the Queen Mary 2 luxury liner starts off on a round-the-world trip from New York in January, not everyone will be going to sea for the 103-day tour. Cunard Line is offering an amazing fare on the first leg of the trip, a 23-day voyage to South Africa , which starts under $2,000 per person. The deal: This is one of those cruise deals with zero flexibility; the ship leaves Jan. 13 from New York and arrives in Cape Town on Feb. 4. Stops along the way include Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Barbados in the Caribbean; two stops in Brazil, Salvador de Bahia and Rio de Janeiro ; and Montevideo, Uruguay.

Food fit for a queen? Apparently not always on Cunard Line's Queen Mary 2 ocean liner, which received a failing grade this month from federal sanitation inspectors. Cunard, blaming the rare slip-up mainly on a single area of the ship , said last week that it had fixed the problems. Among issues that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in a June 10 inspection of the ship were potentially hazardous foods stored at the wrong temperatures, a blocked hand-washing sink, inadequate record-keeping and a human hair found inside a lid in an ice machine.

There's the mime with the French accent, the Peruvian fashion designer and the Swiss sculptor. Their origins vary as much as their crafts but this weekend they, and dozens of other artists from across the globe, have gathered aboard the Queen Mary for something of a local world's fair. The goal: launch a project where artists of many cultures travel together in one ship taking their work and their ideas to docks across the world. The Queen Mary — a vessel that's long been stationary in Long Beach — won't be that ship, but the multinational nonprofit behind the project, Arts Olympus, is using the historic local site as its launch pad through today.

The Jewlicious Festival When : 3 p.m. Fri. to 4 p.m. Sun. Where : The Queen Mary, 1126 Queens Highway, Long Beach Price : $20-$600 for weekend VIP packages. Single-day tickets also available. Info : (310) 277-5544, jewliciousfestival.com

When the word "festival" is said among today's youth, one's mind often wanders to music-tilted events such as Coachella, Bonnaroo, SXSW or Lollapalooza. Throw the word "Jewish" in front of that notion, and the images can get scrambled into something less familiar, like a temple's cantor leading youth services with a rendition of "Pharaoh Pharaoh" set to the tune of Richard Berry's "Louie Louie. " However, Rabbi Yonah Bookstein, co-founder and director of the eighth annual Jewlicious Festival, has something more contemporary in mind for his eclectic gathering, which kicks off Friday at the Queen Mary in Long Beach.

EVENTS Call of Duty XP For this celebration of the military-themed Call of Duty video game franchise, a nondescript hangar has been transformed into a gamer's paradise, complete with previews of Modern Warfare 3, a $1-million tournament, live paintball in a replica level and performances by the Dropkick Murphys (Friday) and Kanye West (Saturday). Must be 18 or older to enlist. 5600 Campus Center Drive, L.A. 10 a.m.-10 p.m. $150 (includes Friday and Saturday). (201) 383-4222. http://www.callofduty.com/xp.

EVENTS Travel back in time without leaving Long Beach aboard the RMS Queen Mary for the seventh annual Queen Mary Art Deco Festival — a weekend-long "cruise" celebrating Art Deco style and design. Attend lectures and tours, shop the Art Deco Bazaar and mingle with other Deco devotees at the Welcome Cocktail Party, Bon Voyage Pajama Party, Sunday Tea Dance and Grand Art Deco Ball — which includes a four-course meal in the Grand Salon. It's all for a good cause — proceeds go toward restoration of Art Deco design elements on the historic ocean liner.

Reggae rock comes to Santa Catalina Island with a Friday night beach concert by Dirty Heads. Tickets cost $30 each, but you can score a free ticket if you buy a round-trip boat package for $70.  -- The deal: The Dirty Heads in Concert package includes same-day, round-trip boat fare between Long Beach and Avalon. Simpkin Project and HB Surround Sound open the concert from 6 to 10 p.m. at the Descanso Beach Club, an easy walk from the boat dock. Concertgoers travel on a Catalina Classic Cruises chartered boat from the terminal at the Queen Mary parking lot, 1046 Queens Highway, Long Beach.

Did somebody order fish and ships? The harbor area of southwest Los Angeles County -- the closest thing we have to a blue-collar coast -- is where cruise ships call, where global cargo is loaded and unloaded, where ton upon ton of maritime machinery hums and looms. It's where the Queen Mary passes its awkward retirement. Just north, the Pacific pounds the bluffs and pebbles of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, and 22 miles off the mainland, the island of Santa Catalina primps and sparkles for weekend admirers.

Richard S. Stevens, who had leadership roles with the Disneyland Hotel, Queen Mary and Balboa Bay Club during a wide-ranging business career, has died. He was 80. Stevens died Oct. 14 in his sleep at his Newport Beach home, said his wife, Joan. He worked more than 20 years for Wrather Corp. As president of Wrather Hotels, which included the Disneyland Hotel, he developed a plan for the company to lease the Queen Mary in Long Beach as a tourist attraction and display with it the Spruce Goose seaplane built by Howard Hughes.

Food fit for a queen? Apparently not always on Cunard Line's Queen Mary 2 ocean liner, which received a failing grade this month from federal sanitation inspectors. Cunard, blaming the rare slip-up mainly on a single area of the ship , said last week that it had fixed the problems. Among issues that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in a June 10 inspection of the ship were potentially hazardous foods stored at the wrong temperatures, a blocked hand-washing sink, inadequate record-keeping and a human hair found inside a lid in an ice machine.