My recent visit to Las Vegas for the Mix '08 conference gave me the opportunity to finally visit what I've been wanting to do for a very long time - Star Trek: The Experience in the Las Vegas Hilton. This is a Star Trek themed area that consists of a large promenade, 2 ride shows, a bar and restaurant and a shopping area. There are many attractions to the place and even if you've never been a major Trekkie/Trekker, this is worth a visit to see the place.
The whole area is built up like the main Deep Space 9 Promenade. Including Quark's Bar where you can go and order fairly out of the world food and drink. There are two ride shows - The Klingon Encounter and Borg Invasion 4D. Both of them are very different from the normal rides you take and are a whole lot of fun with a bunch of interactive elements and surprises along the way.
You also get to go onto a fully to-scale bridge of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D: Picard's original ship. The viewscreen shows the stars while in warp and at one point even Cmdr. Riker and Geordi La Forge talking to some StarFleet "personnel" around you. The rides are just great - with parts where you are weaving in and out of a dogfight in space between Klingon Bird-of-Preys and the Enterprise. A built to scale area even lets you wander around in the saucer section of the Enterprise and that's when you get to feel the size of this StarShip - it's huge!
I went ahead and got myself clicked sitting in the Captain's Chair of the Enterprise D as well as in Picard's and Seven-of-Nine's Borg Alcove. I also took both the rides, a behind the scenes tour, visited the History of the Future museum and had lunch in Quark's bar. 
After all this, I went ahead and bought a bunch of stuff from the shops as well: a limited edition die cast model of the USS Enterprise D, a scale model with sound and light effects of USS Enterprise E, a TNG-era communicator, a copy of the Star Trek magazine and a couple of T-shirts! Cost me a bomb - but it was worth it.
If you want to take a look at some of my other photos, head over to my Star Trek Experience gallery. There are no photos of the rides and stuff since it's prohibited there.
Tags:
star trek,
rave
Categories:
Star Trek