RED ALERT!
If you want to learn more about Star Trek: The Experience, read on. However, if you're concerned that spoilers may ruin the surprises (and there are some real doozies) before you have a chance to experience them yourself, wait till you make the trek out to Las Vegas and DON'T read on. You've been warned...When it's time for your crew to report for your mission, a uniformed guide escorts you to a holding area. The guide offers some standard simulator ride warnings and directs guests to watch monitors for more of the usual pre-boarding announcements. Suddenly the monitors go blank, rays of light envelop the guests, an unmistakable Trek transporter room sound fills the air, and the room becomes dark for a moment. When the lights come up, the room is transformed and you've been beamed aboard the USS Enterprise, circa the 24th century and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
It's a startling illusion, and the 21st-century guide helps maintain the fantasy by playing along. A breathless Enterprise officer greets the group and explains that a gang of rogue villains sent Captain Picard back in time in exchange for us Vegas stowaways. Our mission: get back to the nickel slots where we belong so that Captain Picard can return and say "Engage!" in his inimitable way. The officer whisks the group off to the bridge.
The actors and sets make the attraction. The officer that greeted our group looked vaguely like Commander Riker. He had a (pardon the pun) commanding presence, conveyed a lot of enthusiasm, and never broke character. More officers, looking nifty in their Starfleet uniforms and displaying the same commitment to their roles, were busy on the bridge punching buttons and raising shields to avert enemy fire. For the approximately two-dozen guests that shared The Experience with me, I counted eight performers that interacted with us throughout the course of The Experience. That's a high ratio and helps convey the realism (and the high price) of the attraction.
Where's the "whoosh?"
With its blinking lights, banks of screens, and other familiar touchstones, the bridge is a faithful reproduction. It's a real hoot to stand there as the action unfolds. From the bridge, one of the officers leads the group to a turbolift--Trek talk for an elevator--for a ride to the shuttle bays level. One quibble: when the doors to the bridge and the turbolift open and close, they don't make that Trekian "whoosh" sound that we all know and love. With the ship taking missile hits and frantic communications from the bridge broadcast in the turbolift, the ride to the shuttle bays is fraught with peril. Leaving the turbolift, the officer leads the group through one of the Enterprise's corridors. Hey, isn't this the part of the program where a few of the minor characters usually are zapped by aliens or blown to bits? As a minor player, you'd better be on the lookout.The Enterprise officer gives shuttlecraft boarding and safety belt instructions and closes the hatch to send the crew back on its journey to the 21st century. Motion simulators are ideally suited to mimic space travel; this is the way to experience warp speed. The Star Trek simulator cabins have windows in front, above, and along their sides and use a domed screen to project an encompassing image. The simulator experience culminates with a precarious ride down the Las Vegas Strip and a big bang above the Hilton.
The ride ends with the obligatory shuffle through the gift shop. Pointy ears anyone? How about a free souvenir photo when you sign up for the Star Trek credit card? Don't leave the time-space continuum without it. With all that excitement, guests surely work up quite an appetite so Quark's Bar and Grill offers items like Glop on a Stick and Klingon Kabob. The restaurant is crawling with Trekkies when it shows the latest Star Trek episode on its large-screen televisions.
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