Queen Mary's Chill

The annual "Queen Mary's Chill" event comes with a more elaborate setup and a new theme, but things get a little icy this time around causing a few slips and falls.

While the Queen Mary has debuted some wonderful events such as their yearly Halloween Dark Harbor event, they clearly know how to put on a show. Which is why this year's "Chill" is so surprising. While it looks beautiful at nighttime with draped lights and a Christmas Tree hidden in the center of the festivities, the structure of the event and the availability of what it promised reduces the Christmas cheer.

The difference this year is that the Ice Sculptures that featured so prominently the first year are no longer. Last year's inflatable "ice sculptures" using an Alice in Wonderland theme have been jettisoned as is the use of the enormous dome on the Queen Mary property. Now, all of the action moves to what is known as the World's Largest Ice Park. What that means is there are a number of icy activities to partake in amidst food booths, pop-up bars, and one mini-restaurant.

The Chill Park is themed by country with Switzerland, Germany, and Japan among others taking the stage. This allows for traditional foods to be served and decorations and activities that seem to relate to the countries that are presented. There are Ice Tricycles in Japan (it's fun, but sort of a head-scratching idea), Ice Bumper Cars (a hoot), a skating trail, games, and an Ice Slide. There's a mini-zip line too, but be warned of a long wait to get on it.

Just outside the Ice area is a small Christmas Village that allows guests photo opportunities with Santa, cocoa with Mrs. Claus, and a shop to make your own stockings.

It all sounds fun and festive and for the most part, it is, but the organization of the event was completely off on Opening night.

Things got off to a bit of a rocky start when my guest and I traveled over to Switzerland for what was to be a complimentary cocktail. The overwhelmed bartenders didn't have the ingredients for the specialty drinks, and so made us another drink, which we had to pay for (and were overcharged).

Hours later we went back to the same bar to get our Passport drink and our friendly bartender made the drink I requested, yet did not follow the recipe at all. (Not to mention the rim of the plastic glass was supposed to have a sugar rim, but they didn't have any sugar and were waiting for someone to come back from the store with some.)

We relaxed in blow-up igloos that were a nice reprieve, but later on, we were stopped from entering one section saying the igloos were reserved. For whom, we were never told, even though someone else said we could use them. Once we were done with our drinks, we had to travel through half the park to find a single trash can, which was lacking at food vendors and at the bars.

As I love "The Polar Express," I went looking for the 4DX theatre, which is on the Queen Mary itself. This year, the interactive mini-movie experience was playing a shortened version of the Claymation classic "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." However, unless you knew where it was, there was no signage promoting it and no showtimes available. You sort of just had to wing it and hope for the best.

Getting to each Icy experience was also problematic as there were no signs leading you to the activities. We asked one worker how to get to the Ice Bumper Cars, and he had no idea. We wandered around until finally we figured out the maze and got to it. The Zipline was interesting because not only is the wait fairly lengthy, but you are required to walk back the length you zip-lined to return the harness. Why don't they have workers to do this for you?

The other bars and food vendors were also problematic. I went to one booth for a simple sandwich. Not only did they offer zero drink options (not even water) but the fairly pedestrian sandwich took thirty minutes to get. When we went to a Chalet bar (which looked really nice inside) it took about ten minutes to be acknowledged, vodka was scarce, and the specialty drink we ordered was so bland and strong we had to throw it away.

The stocking making shop was organized in an unusual way, with barely any instructions on what we were doing. Last year we grabbed what we wanted to put on our stockings and were give glue-dots to put our decorations on. This year, we decorated our stockings then had to wait as two friendly workers dressed as elves glue-gunned our decorations on the stocking. We were also limited to eight decorations, something not told to us upon arrival. This, of course, took forever and, as nice as the workers were, it was disorganized and lengthy.

It's disheartening to say all of this because the Queen Mary events are my favorite events of the Halloween and Holiday seasons. To be fair, my friend and I loved soaking up the atmosphere and the lights and certain areas to relax were cozy and cute. But normally we can get through the event in about two hours or so. We arrived at 4:15 p.m. and didn't leave until around 9:15 p.m. That's five hours, with most of that waiting to get food or beverages.

I hope that things got ironed out in the days that followed so perhaps checking Yelp reviews or asking friends who have gone might be apropos. Hopefully, it was opening-night jitters that have since been solved so that guests can skate on through.

"Queen Mary's Chill" runs through January 7, 2018, at the Queen Mary 1126 Queens Highway, Long Beach, CA 90802. For information and tickets, visit QueenMary.com/events/chill-2017-2018.