Permanently docked off the coast of Long Beach, CA, the 365-room Queen Mary Hotel was a famous luxury ocean liner in the 1930s. During World War II, she was painted camouflage gray and drafted into Allied service as a troop transport. Sailing at immense speed in a zigzag pattern, "the Grey Ghost," as she was nicknamed, had an uncanny ability to evade Hitler's U-boats. But tragedy struck in 1942 when her escort ship went off course and caused the Queen Mary to slice through it, sending more than 300 sailors to a watery grave.
No doubt this catastrophe, and countless others that took place here, explain why the Queen Mary is the grande dame of haunted hotels. There are at least 600 active spirits on board, according to psychic-in-residence Peter James (whom you might remember from his appearances on the Sci-Fi Channel series Sightings). "A ghost is the result of someone dying tragically or in an untimely way," explains James, who regularly leads ghost tours aboard the Queen Mary that attempt to contact spirits. "Most ghosts are friendly, but they're very territorial," he adds. "They'll remain where they die or go to a place that's familiar or comfortable."
Spooks who evidently find the Queen Mary comfortable include "the woman in white," frequently seen dancing alone in what used to be the first-class lounge, and various swimmers -- clad in Depression-era bathing suits -- who leave watery footprints where the first-class swimming pool once was. But the best known is probably "the crushed crewman," a young engineer who was pressed to death in 1966 during a routine watertight door drill. People who pass through the door that killed him have complained of tightness in the chest or felt something brush past them that left a mysterious grease streak on their faces.
If attendees are especially eager to make contact with apparitions on the ship (which offers over 80,000 square feet of meeting space), is there a way to prep for a spiritual encounter? Not according to James. "You don't need to be psychic, or do anything special," he notes. "You can be having dinner and suddenly a ghost will appear. In fact, to this day, guests run out of their rooms in the middle of the night because a ghost suddenly walked through the wall." If you're skeptical, just remember that James isn't called "the Ghost Guy" for nothing.
Remember the Alamo ... or Else
When you think of tragic or untimely deaths, the 1836 slaughter that took place at the Alamo mission in San Antonio, TX, certainly comes to mind. Over 180 Texas revolutionaries, including Davy Crockett, died during a 10-day standoff with the Mexican army. Maybe that's why the Menger Hotel, located just across the street from the site of the bloody battle, has been inhabited by so many restless spirits over the years . . . even though it didn't open until 23 years later.
The oldest continually operating hotel west of the Mississippi, the 316-room Menger's most familiar apparition is one Sallie White, a chambermaid murdered by her husband and buried at the hotel's expense. There's also Captain Richard King, former Menger resident who died on site and whose body was laid out for viewing in what is now the King Suite.
"The hotel once had to move a couple from the King Suite at four o'clock in the morning after the wife reported seeing ghostly faces floating in the air and feeling an unknown hand caress her shoulder," says Ernesto Malacara, director of public relations for the Menger (which also features meeting space for up to 500 theater style). "I also have a letter from an IBM executive who saw Sallie White," he adds. "In the twenty-six years I've worked here, hundreds of people have told me similar stories. That many people could not be lying." Attendees can hear a smattering of these stories in a talk on hotel history that Malacara offers, with advanced reservations, for groups of 30 to 300 people.
Home to at least 32 apparitions, the Menger's most recent sighting took place in early August, when a banquet worker visiting the catering office after hours heard, then saw, a pair of mysterious boots in the doorway, and was so spooked by the experience he later refused to talk about it. Oddly enough for the Lone Star State, they weren't cowboy boots, but military boots. Perhaps they were a warning from the Great Beyond that you should never, ever, forget the Alamo.
The Phantom Princess
Hotels in Hollywood may have their movie-star ghosts, but the Mount Washington Hotel and Resort in Bretton Woods, NH, is haunted by real royalty: Princess Carolyn Foster Stickney Lucinge, widow of original owner Joseph Stickney, a coal-mining magnate who in 1902 built what was then the country's grandest hotel. Tragically, he fell ill suddenly and died the next year. Carolyn eventually found comfort with Prince Lucinge, member of a French royal family, whom she wed in 1913. Though the title was largely symbolic thanks to the French Revolution, by virtue of this marriage Carolyn became Princess Carolyn, and was known ever after as "the Princess."
Sadly, her new title was not to change her luck. Three years later, the Prince died at Verdun, one of the bloodiest battles of World War I, and the twice-widowed Princess was left to run the hotel by herself. Today, says Bonnie MacPherson, Mount Washington's director of public relations, visitors and staffers have glimpsed the Princess in the hallways and "anytime things go bump in the night or something gets misplaced, she's held responsible." Most eerily, guests who stay in the room housing the Princess' original hand-carved canopy bed (which she traveled with wherever she went), report waking in the middle of the night to see a wraithlike woman on the edge of the bed, brushing her hair. The hotel can arrange spooky tours -- by daylight or atmospheric candlelight -- for groups of up to 30.
Despite such stories, the Princess is more guardian angel than scary spook, says MacPherson: "She spent some of the best days of her life here. She's overseeing the hotel's renaissance" -- once seasonal, the property was renovated extensively in 1999 and is now open all year -- "and I think she's pretty happy with it."