If you ever get the chance to visit Las Vegas, try to arrange a two night stay at the Las Vegas Hilton. Inside that hotel is “Star Trek: The Experience”. Paramount invested millions of dollars just a few years ago to set up this permanent attraction.
I was fortunate enough to be working for a week at Colorado State University, so it became feasible for me to take my first ever journey to the Pacific time zone, (some 4½ hours behind Newfoundland time). Unfortunately for us, that hotel is also popular with businessmen attending conferences at the convention centre next door, so the weekday room rates can be fierce (more than US$200 per night). I was there on a weekend and I secured a very nice room for just US$55 for each of Saturday and Sunday nights.
I spent most of Sunday June 17 inside the Las Vegas Hilton. I must be one of the very few visitors to Las Vegas who has never gambled even a single coin during my stay there!
It was hard to wait for Star Trek The Experience to open (at 11:00 there, 15:30 our time). With a hotel check-in voucher, the admission price was just US$20. It was worth every penny! I took a quick stroll past the static exhibits, which consist of a museum of props and costumes from the various series, a Star Trek time-line and miscellaneous other items. I made a beeline for the ride. I was in the first group of the day. Those of you who abhor “spoilers” should skip the next five paragraphs right now!
First there was an amusing “safety video” as we waited in four lines. It ended with “... or if you are pregnant, you should not take part in this ride.” On screen, a man kisses his obviously pregnant wife goodbye. She leaves, he stays. We all laughed out loud at that! Then the display snowed over and the lights went out. When the lights came back up, the scenery around us had changed utterly. We were now in a mockup of the transporter room from Star Trek The Next Generation, with two costumed junior officers in front of us. One was a human male, the other had the appearance and attitude of a Vulcan female.
We were escorted out of the room, down spacious engineering corridors lit by flashing red alert lighting, and onto the bridge - a good reproduction of the TNG set. We were crowded around the rear rail, watching Commander Riker on the main viewscreen telling us from engineering that a Klingon renegade was trying to eliminate Captain Picard by abducting one of his ancestors - one of us! Then we were shepherded onto a turbolift. There was some shaking as the big E was supposedly hit by Klingon fire, then the turbolift opened onto a narrow Enterprise corridor. We proceeded along that curving but surprisingly long pathway to the entrance to the shuttlebay. We lined up then boarded the shuttlecraft and strapped in. By sheer luck rather than any good judgement of mine, I was near the middle of the very front row.
Now the main ride began: a wraparound viewscreen out the front windows of the 27 (or more) seat shuttlecraft showed magnificent scenery of a space battle and wild driving while the shuttlecraft lurched in time with the visual effects.
That was a truly awesome and spectacular simulation. I loved the exit from the shuttlebay, the close scrapes along the hulls of the Klingon battlecruiser and the Enterprise, the flight through the space clouds and the vortex, and the dogfight with the Klingon battlecruiser among the rooftops of Las Vegas. Magnificent!
The remainder of the simulation after exiting the shuttlecraft was an anticlimax. We left along a Deep Space 9 corridor and emerged at the far end of the “Promenade” - the large gift shop. I confess that I did succumb to the temptation of buying a few over-priced souvenirs, including a tribble that coos loudly three times when squeezed. I like the claim on the box of tribbles: “guaranteed not to consume quadrotriticale and guaranteed not to reproduce”!
I also took some videotape of two employees who were dressed up in full and convincing makeup as a short Ferengi and a menacing tall Klingon. I engaged in conversation with the latter while my camcorder was pointing in his general direction.
I did not have far to search to find a place for lunch: Quark’s Bar and Restaurant! I was seated at the most central two seat table. Immediately to my left was a 70cm screen that showed clips from all four Star Trek series and some of the movies in a continuously repeating loop. Looking up and ahead I could see a much larger screen showing much the same thing. Looking way up, directly overhead, I could admire the 4 metre long model Enterprise from directly below it.
The menu was a collection of puns from the Star Trek Universe. From the “Command Decisions” section of the menu I ordered “Flaming Ribs of Targ”. Targ it wasn’t, but ribs, yes. Nearly a pound of them. And the “flaming” part was true too! The plate arrived with a blue flame under the ribs. The flame took longer to die out than the “ambassador” (waitress) had anticipated. Those Klingons sure are stubborn. When I could attack the meal, it was truly delicious. I was given a big “weapon” (steak knife) with which to carve meat off the ribs. To drink, I had a “phaser fire” (iced smoothie blend of raspberry and strawberry, very nice), and a surprisingly large amount of ice cold water. For the “Final Frontier” (Dessert) I had the Deanna Troi Ultimate Chocolate Ice Cream Sundae: a quarter pound of warm chocolate chip cookies with the chocolate melted, under two scoops of vanilla ice cream and with four blobs of cream on the triangular plate: three at the corners and one on the centre, all surmounted by streaks of chocolate sauce and sprinklings of chocolate chips. That obscenely rich dessert cost just $10 or so in our money. The total “Damage Report” (bill) came to under US$35. I was at Quark’s Restaurant for so long that the Klingon visited me once on his rounds and the Ferengi twice! Needless to say, I was in seventh heaven during that meal, surrounded by the sights and sounds of Star Trek.
The admission price to the ride is good for an unlimited number of rides on that day. The acting and plot line were less entertaining the second time around, but the shuttlecraft simulation itself was just as awesome. It was nice to be able to stay in the air conditioned hotel all day, when temperatures outside varied between a night time low of 35°C (95°F) and a day time high exceeding 45°C under the relentless desert sun.
The strip of massive hotels strung out over more than six kilometres of Las Vegas Boulevard South is also worth a look after dark. The sheer opulence is staggering, enough to make even a Ferengi envious. The displays of flashing coloured lights are dazzling in places. Even the advertising signs are huge: the one outside the Las Vegas Hilton is at least twenty storeys tall and is clearly visible from the windows of a landing plane at the airport. The Paris Hotel has a one quarter scale model of the Eiffel Tower as its centrepiece. One leg is on the street outside, while the other three legs touch ground inside the lobby! An elevator ascends up the centre of it. The Luxor Hotel is a gigantic pyramid. The New York Hotel is a collection of 25 storey model skyscrapers all joined together. And on it goes for six kilometres.
I had no trouble avoiding the gambling, even though it is incredibly pervasive. Even the departure gates inside the airport have banks of slot machines in the middle of the waiting area! One piece of advice: if you do gamble, set a spending limit and keep under that limit, no matter what.
I am so glad that I chose to make this side trip to Las Vegas. My only regret is that there were no members of the USS Avalon there with whom I could share that fantastic day.
Promotional material for Star Trek: The Experience can be found on
the internet at
www.ds9promenade.com/startrek/.
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