Editing RMS Queen Mary (section)

===Opening as a tourist destination===
[[File:Hotel Queen Mary, Long Beach 01.jpg|thumb|Ship as a hotel, with permanent boarding gangways in 2009]]
On 8 May 1971, ''Queen Mary'' opened her doors to tourists. Initially, only portions of the ship were open to the public as Specialty Restaurants had yet to open its dining venues and [[Pacific Southwest Airlines|PSA]] had not completed work converting the ship's original First Class staterooms into the hotel. As a result, the ship was open only on weekends. On 11 December 1971, [[Jacques Cousteau]]'s Museum of the Sea opened, with a quarter of the planned exhibits completed. Within the decade, Cousteau's museum closed due to low ticket sales and the deaths of many of the fish that were housed in the museum. On 2 November 1972, the PSA Hotel Queen Mary opened its initial 150 guest rooms. Two years later, with all 400 rooms finished, PSA brought in [[Hyatt Hotels]] to manage the hotel, which operated from 1974 to 1980 as the Queen Mary Hyatt Hotel.<ref>
{{cite news
|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19750112&id=JrEqAAAAIBAJ&pg=7148,4713999
|title=Queen Mary now Hyatt House
|newspaper=[[Sarasota Herald-Tribune]]
|date=12 January 1975
|first=Andrew H
|last=Malcolm
|agency=[[New York Times News Service]]
|access-date=29 December 2012
}}</ref>

By 1980, it had become apparent that the existing system was not working.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19760411&id=eHMjAAAAIBAJ&pg=6793,4464045|title=Queen Mary Ocean Liner Becomes an Albatross|newspaper=[[Sarasota Herald-Tribune]]|date=11 April 1976|first=Holger|last=Jensen|access-date=29 December 2012}}</ref> The ship was losing millions each year for the city because the hotel, restaurants and museum were run by three separate concessionaires, while the city owned the vessel and operated guided tours. It was decided that a single operator with more experience in attractions was needed.<ref name="auto">{{cite web |url=http://www.queenmary.com/our-story/timeline.php |title=Queen Mary'S Timeline |publisher=Queenmary.com |access-date=12 December 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121227080907/http://www.queenmary.com/our-story/timeline.php |archive-date=27 December 2012 }}</ref>

[[File:Queen Mary Panoramic Sunset.jpg|thumb|right|Sun setting behind the ''Queen Mary'' in Long Beach in 2016]]

[[Jack Wrather]], a local millionaire, had fallen in love with the ship because he and his wife, [[Bonita Granville]], had fond memories of sailing on it numerous times. Wrather signed a 66-year lease with the city of Long Beach to operate the entire property. He oversaw the display of the ''[[Hughes H-4 Hercules|H-4 Hercules]]'', nicknamed the ''Spruce Goose'', on long-term loan. The immense plane, which had been sitting in a [[hangar]] in Long Beach for decades unseen by the public, was installed in a huge [[geodesic dome]] adjacent to the liner in 1983, attracting increased attendance.<ref name="auto"/>

Wrather Port Properties operated the entire attraction after his death in 1984 until 1988, when his holdings were bought by the [[Walt Disney Company]]. Wrather had built the [[Disneyland Hotel (California)|Disneyland Hotel]] in 1955, when [[Walt Disney]] had insufficient funds to construct the hotel himself. Disney had been trying to buy the hotel for 30 years. When they finally succeeded, they also acquired ''Queen Mary.'' This was never marketed as a Disney property. Through the late 1980s and early 1990s, ''Queen Mary'' struggled financially. Disney pinned their hopes for turning the attraction around on [[Port Disney]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.theneverlandfiles.com/tnf/disneyland/portdisney.php |title=Port Disney |publisher=The Neverland Files |access-date=12 December 2012 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120708093024/http://www.theneverlandfiles.com/tnf/disneyland/portdisney.php |archive-date=8 July 2012 }}</ref> a huge planned resort on the adjacent docks. It was to include an attraction known as [[DisneySea (California)|''DisneySea'']], a theme park celebrating the world's oceans. The plans eventually fell through; in 1992 Disney gave up the lease on the ship to focus on building what would become [[Disney California Adventure Park]]. The DisneySea concept was recycled a decade later in Japan as [[Tokyo DisneySea]], with a recreated ocean liner resembling ''Queen Mary'' named the [[SS Columbia (Tokyo DisneySea)|SS ''Columbia'']] as the centrepiece of the American Waterfront area.