Boldly to go... (Star Trek The Experience)

Member Name: T-Boy67

Product:	Star Trek The Experience
Date:	28/01/02 (1036 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Amazing, Thrilling, Wow

Disadvantages: Expensive, Might not appeal to some weiros who don't like Star Trek

The Star Trek Experience has it's home in glitzy Las Vegas. It is an museum exhibit/theme park ride/merchandising opportunity.

The Las Vegas Hilton is set back from the bright lights and horrendous traffic problems of Las Vegas Boulevard, otherwise known as the "Strip".

After paying your entrance fee you need to get your hand stamped with your intergalactic passport and you will be unable to travel on the shuttle craft later. In reality this is just some invisible ink that only shows up under ultraviolet light, but it does mean that you can come back and see the attraction again and again during the same day of the visit.

You can then wander along the many exhibits which are slightly out-of-date (if a TV show set in the future can be out of date) with there being no mention of the fact that Voyager has returned from the Delta Quadrant and also there is only a picture of the brand new Enterprise crew. This new series is currently premiering on Sky One for all of you out there with Satellite or Cable TV. There are lots of props from all of the first 4 TV series, including plenty of Phasers, Communicators, and even a photon torpedo which you can play with. Opposite the display cabinets is a Star Trek timeline, which tells the history of the future - as it were.

Before proceeding any further a member of Starfleet will photograph you for your passport and you are handed a slip of paper with a number on it. Then you can continue walking through more exhibits, this time with life size models of many of the alien races and culminating with 3 excellent borg drones. At this point you are then inspected for your intergalactic passport by a crew member using a very small ultraviolet light.

****Spolier****
Don't read any further if you intend to visit this exhibit and don't wish to have the ride ruined by what I'm about to write.

Then it is time to enter the ride. You walk into a square loading
room and there are 4 doors infront of you. The staff ask you to line up in 4 rows and to make sure that you can see the screen above. If any of you have been on theme park simulator rides before then all this seems very familiar. The doors behind you close and the video screens burst into life. The clip starts and is your usual "make sure you are fit to ride this ride and no pregnant mothers or people with back or heart disorders" type of thing. But then the picture starts to go fuzzy and then the signal cuts off and there is just static. The staff are concerned and ask if everyone is ok, then suddenly there is a burst of pinpricks of light, kind of like when you stand up too fast and you see stars. Then black! And I mean black. Your ears become filled with the recognisable (to those who've watched any Star Trek episode) sound of the transporter beams. You can feel air blowing all around you. This lasts for about 5 seconds or so and then all of the lights come back on.

I don't think I've ever been as amazed in my life. We are no longer standing in a small square room. There are no monitors above our heads. We are now standing on the transporter pad on the Starship Enterprise. The room is longer than it was and infront of us is a console with a crew member standing there. He tells us not to be alarmed and that we've been transported into the future. Just then the doors swish open and in comes
another crew member telling us we're wanted on the bridge.

We walk down a corridor and enter the bridge. The set is extremely realistic (for a replica of a sci-fi TV show that is) and we all stand facing the view screen. Will Riker appears on the screen and briefs us as there is a big fight going on with some Klingons who've got themselves a time travel device and that they're after a distant relative of Captain
Picard, and that relative is one of us. They have to keep us safe and destroy the time travel device. We
are sent to the shuttle bay to help destroy the machine and then hopefully get us back to our own time.

We are ushered into the turbo lift. During our descent the ship is attacked by the Klingons. There is no need for us to pretend that the ship is being hit and then throw ourselves at the walls, like countless actors and extras have had to do in the name of art, this lift is really rocking and you do lurch from side to side with each blast from the Klingon ship. Finally the lift stops and you get out into an large storage area which leads to the shuttle bay. This is where you board the specially modified shuttle pod.

After boarding the shuttle blasts off from the Enterprise with Klingons in hot pursuit. We track the machine causing the temporal anomaly. With the help of the other shuttle flying with us, we are able to destroy it and we head for the rift in time to bring us back to the present. We fly through and over the tops of all the hotels that you'll recognise below you. But, watch out! The Klingons have followed us and are attacking again. We try to out manouver them, but it looks futile. Just in time, the Enterprise appears from the rift and destroys the Klingon warbird, just before we were about to become space waste. The Enterprise thanks us for our assistance and we fly over the Hilton hotel and head for an access tunnel. We crash through and the ship pilots itself between down to between the 2 simulator rides that we should have been riding before our adventure.

The shuttle doors open and we are escorted from the area by a very bemused cleaner who was on her break and asks us not to tell anyone we've been down in the staff only areas, otherwise we might be in trouble. She directs us to a lift and tells us that will take us back to where we should have been and she sits back down to read the magazine she had and watch the telly. As we wait, the programme she was watching is the News which has a breaking story about ali
en space craft that have been seen above the Las Vegas Strip.

****End of Spoiler****

After leaving the ride you enter an area where you use the passport that they gave you to view yourself on a photograph. These photos are fun as they superimpose you into a crew uniform and pop you into the middle of your favorite cast. Original series, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine or Voyager. I'm sure they will soon add the new Enterprise to this list as well. If you wish to purchase these photographs, be prepared for a hefty price.

Next is the gift shops called Deep Space Nine Promenade which includes replica costumes, videos, DVDs, games, puzzles, in fact virtually anything with Star Trek printed on it. My favourite were the alien teddies. These had pointy eared Vulcan teddies, wrinkly foreheaded Klingon teddies and even biomechanically altered Borg teddies. The also had some Tribbles that wobbled and made the giggly tribble noise, but sadly they don't breed.
Next is another more expensive giftshop including memorabilia, such as jewellery, watches and signed photos and posters. There was even an excellent full-size replica of Captain Picard as Locutus of Borg for a cool $5000.00.

Finally there is Quark's Bar & Restaurant where you could buy cases of Romulan Ale and other themed alcohol and more key-rings and posters and stuff, but also you could sit down for BBQ Continuum Pizza, Isolinear Chips & Dip, The Wrap of Khan or even a simple Cheeseborger. None of these are my jokes thankfully, they are the real items from the menu.

After that you are free to wander the exhibits and ride the ride again and again as many times as you like on the same day.

Overall I loved my visit. It is slightly expensive at $24.99, but as a big fan of Star Trek, it was well worth it.

Summary: