Ooh, that sounds an interesting experience... but, living in Manchester, England, I don't think there's much hope of me getting to that experience! ;-)

Tell me... how exactly did you "suddenly" find yourself in the transporter room - were the walls changing around you or something (That'd be pretty cool...), or did the wind blow and then you walked a bit and got to the transporter room?

How did you view the battle over Las Vegas? Out of the windows or on a viewscreen? [Oh, so many questions!] What was the crash into the Hilton like? I bet it was just like being in one of those simulator things, eh?

OK, that's enough questions from someone desperate to go to a Star Trek experience...

So, do you actually have to gamble at the casino
to do the Experience? We're Orthodox Christians
(Ya know, as in Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox,
Serbian Orthodox...oh, yeah, American Orthodox
too. What can I say.. here, we are a minority.)
and (just our IMHO, nobody get offended...please!)
we think gambling a waste of money and only for
people who can't do math. The upshot is, my
parents won't let me go to the Experience if I
have to gamble. :-( please say you don't hafta!

Answers to posted questions:
When you are waiting for the "ride" you are in a small white walled room. You just stand there. Somehow during transport the walls disappear and the floor changes and you really are standing on a lighted trasporter pad. It was quite magical!

The battle and crash are while you are in a shuttle. you can see out of front and side windows in the shuttle, and it was a really wild ride - very cool seeing a Bird of prey swoop down over the Strip.

You do not have to gamble to enjoy the Trek areas. In Vegas you must be 21 to gamble, and all the Trek areas are family oriented, so it is separated
from the casino next door. Quark's is a family eatery, which does serve alcohol, but is not a hang-out style bar. The rest of Vegas I found to be fairly uninteresting as I do not gamble. A few hotels were fun to look at, but the large crowds made things very impersonal. I was ready to leave after 3 days - I'll probably try to visit the Eperience again, but not the rest of town.

I forgot to mention one of my favorite parts of the Hilton: the Ladies room in the Space Quest casino/bar next to the Experience. (The Trek restrooms were fairly ordinary.) Every surface was shiny silver. The ceiling, stalls, fixtures, etc. were all stainless steel. The floor and walls were shiny platinum tiles. The mirrors looked ordinary until you got close, then you could see a 3D image floating in them. If you ran water in a sink, a holographic ad for an extraterrestrial cosmetic would play. (Like Rigellian Tongue Gloss) I've never seen anything like it. Ladies (really dignified older women) were dragging their husbands in to see it!
Anyway, the Hilton's space themed casino area is fun to look around in, it's designed so you feel like you're on a giant space ship. If you're old enough to go in, you should just look around - they spent a lot of time and money on some nice illusions. You don't have to spend any money there, you can just look.
The Dominion has contest right now where they're giving away free trips! Sign up at www.scifi.com soon!
Hope this helps!

Thanks!

I went too, this past summer. It was my 21st birthday present from my mom (the trip). It was interesting. She doesn't watch Start Trek at all, but came along because of me. She found the video terminals and exhibits while you wait in line to be useful: when we actually encountered a "Klingon" and "Ferengi" she was able to recognize them (in case you haven't been, the displays are organized thematically and have a lot of backstory in the display part and clip montages on the video). The Kilgon and Ferengi were the only aliens we saw, and when my mom asked them about their make-up, they got all indignant and said she must be mistaking them for imposters from the show, they however are real. Yeah, right, might have worked on a kid, but whatever. I was disappointed that we didn't get to spend more time on the bridge and touch anything: we were just whisked around. They used the right terminology though, which freaked out my mother, who didn't know any of it (when they said we were going in a "transporter" she clenched my hand nervously and said "what's that?" Ditto with "bridge" and "shuttle") The gift shop was a bit overpirced. We didn;t stay at the restaurant, and only glanced around the casino briefly, but didn't play. It is the only casino in vegas that carded me, btw, and I had been legal everywhere (as opposed to just in Canada) for 3 whole weeks by that time! :-)

KND: I went to the Circus Circus in Vegas when I was 12 or 13. You don't HAVE to gamble. Not a requirement. I just played in the arcade they have there. Blew $116 on MKII (Mortal Kombat II to th non-video game players out there).

I only saw Ferengi and Klingons as well, but they did let us take their pictures - they even patiently posed with me for a few shots!

I saw a commercial during the Sci-Fi channel's showing of "Whom Gods Destroy" for Star Trek books. It prominently features the Enterprise Bridge from the Experience! I recognized several officers from my visit. If anyone was wondering how realistic it is, this gives a pretty good look inside.

What no Dabo or Tongo!

Did anyone notice that a drink from the Experience was featured in an episode of DS9? (Or it might have been the other way around.) I saw one episode where Quark gives Dr. Bashir a "Warp Core Breach" served in a giant glass-type thing. I could have sworn I saw something about that in one of them Star Trek magazines awhile ago.

There's a few more nits and explanations about the experience that I don't see here.

First, the during the transport, you are waiting in a room very similar to the waiting area to "Star Tours," to get on the simulator. Then the lights are cut, it is completely dark, and the wind blows. When the lights come back on, you're on the Enterprise.

There are some other problems with the layout of the Enterprise. First is the transporter on the same deck as the bridge. Second, the turbolift is behind the door that leads to the conference room (which may not be a nit. They say you are in 2371, which is after Season 7 but before Generations, when a new bridge configuration is seen. Among the changes is Picard exiting a turbolift behind the conference room door).

A nice touch is on the science station monitors. When the Klingon Captain appears on the main viewer, a profile of him appears on one of the science station.

Main Viewer technology of the future? It's obviously projection screen television.

The turbolift is rather large.

Okay, so LaForge leads us back to the wormhole and into a battle over Vegas. The problem is that the screen is so dark and murky I couldn't tell what was going on. It was just a jumble of special effects that had almost no significance except to create an experience similar to "Star Tours," even following the "We must destroy the superweapon" formula. Problem is that in "Star Tours" all the hardware and ships are familiar to us from the movies (minus the Starspeeder 3000, which is introduced to us in line). In STEx, the superweapon is a giant cloaked Klingon station, never before seen in any Trek medium.

Speaking of the Klingons attacking, in 2371 the Klingons and Federation weren't at war, and I don't remember any mention of these Klingons being rogue Klingons.

The name of the passenger Shuttle is the Goddard, which I believe is what Scotty's shuttle was called. This isn't really a nit.

Okay, the fight over Vegas is cool, but I went during the day, and the fight was at night. Also, The Enterprise shows up to make the save. But the battle is in atmosphere, and the Enterprise shouldn't be able to do that.

So, we're in the middle of a crisis, our lives at stake, and we still have time to see the safety video.

Plus those with certain medical conditions shouldn't be on the ride. They say this in the line outside. So during the video they say they'll find an alternate method of getting these people back to the past. Did these people ignore the first warning. And what's the alternate method? Go with the Enterprise back to the past? If the Enterprise was going back anyway, why did we have to take the shuttle?

On top of that, the giant screen is clearly visible as you leave the craft. That pretty much finishes off any sense of reality the ride may have had left. This is the major problem with the Back to the Future ride at Universal. If you turn your head DURING the ride, you can see not only the edge of the screen, but also the other simulators!

During the shuttle battle, Star Trek music is played. Did someone turn on the radio? (this is a nit with pretty much all of these simulator rides)

Yeah I've pretty much torn the whole thing apart. I guess that's the price of knowing too much about Star Trek. The ride is certainly not worth the $15.95 to get in. Rides like this and Back to the Future are of course based on the format of Star Tours, and for my money, Star Tours is still the best of them. The picture is better, the setting more in tone with the films, the movements of the simulator much better. And of course the music is better. I also like the wait in line better, plus the set-up story is better. In Back to the Future, Biff steals the DeLorean and locks the Doc in a jail cell. Doc has a remote to a new DeLorean, but for some reason needs passengers in it while he steers it through buildings and then rear ends the other DeLorean.

In STex of course there is the story of Picard disappearing which is of course absurd on so many levels you'd think Brannon Braga wrote it.

Star Tours is simple: You are going to take a tour of the Star Wars universe. You get sidetracked. What a ride.

For me the real Star Trek experience is sitting in Quarks Bar with my friends, hanging out with a Klingon while drinking a Warp Core Breach (this sucker is served in a fish bowl and actually smokes, thanks to some dry ice. I believe Quark served this in one of the last DS9 episodes). My friend even bought a bottle of Blood Wine. And sitting at the bar is FREE (minus cost of drinks and food, of course).

I thought Star Tours was rather dull, Back to the Future was definately way better. You forget to mention that people who've never seen these movies aren't going to care for storylines or whether this universe is canonical or right -- they're going to care for the FUN. That's right. It may be hard to believe, but, yes, FUN! Back to the Future had much more of a fun factor, my stomach actually tickled, I felt like I actually got swallowed by the T-Rex (which I closed my eyes on)... I didn't care if it was canonical or if the story made sense at all. Live a little -- have FUN. They're designed for this! As for ST:EXPERIENCE, I have yet to see that!

I know this has been brought up before, but look what I found at the ST:Experience "Official" online store. Pretty interesting, huh?

cool, does this mean that we are supported by Paramount or do they think that *anything* with the star trek name on it somewhere will sell?

If I know Paramount, probably the second one! :-)

I was fortunate enough to make it here in the past week. It was $19.95 for an all-day pass rather than $14.95 for a one-time shot, so I was able ride it quite a few times. I really enjoyed the ride, and the mood was very Trek. Now, on to the nits!

I'm going to divide them into two groups: nits that need to be present for the sake of the ride, and nits that could be fixed.

First, the ones that cannot be helped:

The transporter pad is rather large, and is directly set into the ground. The armory is also missing and is replaced by an exit door. There are also quite a few exit signs around the entire set, but this really can't be helped because of fire regulations. You also walk directly from deck six to the bridge, but again, to move the ride along you can't be fooling around in a turbolift.

The bridge is smaller than I imagined, but I guess that's just because it's actually that size. The emergency turbo to the battle bridge also is not a regular door and does not have an exit sign. The viewscreen also shows the Enterprise being pursued by only three Klingon birds-of-prey, and I don't think this would be a significant threat. Speaking of the viewscreen, it fizzed every once and a while.

If Picard doesn't exist, how does anyone know of him?

The turbolift is much larger than the one we're used to on the show. While you're in the turbo, a Klingon attack knocks out the power. Again, I find this a little unbelieveable that the crew is this incompetent.

I must have missed that corridor outside the shuttlebay when it was shown on TV. There is also no loading bay for shuttlecraft like they have.

Were those personnel shuttles added after TNG concluded? And why is the pilot all the way in the back? Doesn't that make her job a little more difficult? But then again, with the computer control, I guess it wouldn't be that big of a problem.

And why does Picard ask you not to reveal anything that happened to you when the two shuttles, many Birds-of-Prey, and the Enterprise-D (over half a kilometer long), fought above Vegas in plain view of anyone?

Now, the ones that could be fixed if they made the effort:

First, the combadges were the ones from TNG and the year is supposedly 2371. Now, they can either give the actors the Generations combadges or move the year back. The new bridge as seen in Generations is not a problem because that could have happened anytime in 2371.

Mission Ops and Environment are switched around.

There is a corridor outside the doors leading to the aft turbolift, and a turbolift behind the doors leading to the conference lounge. I'm not sure if these could have been switched around because of the floorplan, but it makes more sense the other way around.

The officer takes the turbolift to deck 4, but Riker tells them to take it to Shuttlebay Two which is on deck 13.

Again, nothing is strapped down in the shuttlebay when it's depressurized. (But then again, I realize this was done for dramatic purposes.)

Why would a personnel carrier shuttle be named the Valiant? And it was pretty shameless how they lumped their shuttle design in with Star Trek history in the displays in the museum.

One of the panels in the shuttle shows a Okudagram of the spatial anomaly, but it's actually one of the Bajoran wormhole. Not really a nit, just an observation.

Even with the nits, I felt it was worth going to see. You could tell there was a lot of work to replicate the Star Trek feel, and all the good points outweigh its faults. The "crew" definitely knew their stuff, and were great at reacting to people's actions. Every Trek fan would enjoy this ride. I know I'd definitely go back. I do wish that you could have at least walked across the bridge, since I couldn't see much of the bridge area behind the tactical station.

I just got back from Vegas, where I got to ride The Experience, and I too have a few nits...

The transporter room seemed to be reversed, we got off of the pad and turned left to exit the room. On the TV, everyone goes to the right after leaving the pad. Also, our guides were taken to the right, where the exit doors would normally be. Perhaps they are being taken to the armory for questioning.

The turbolift and the transporter room seem to be a bit large. Of course, this is more to accommodate the people rather than for accuracy. And what about our tour guides? Are they still trapped in the future, or did the Enterprise drop them off after the battle?

The doors in the corridor all have door handles, except for the ones that we go through.

Why is Rikard playing in the shuttlebay while the ship is being chased by Klingons? Shouldn't he be on the bridge? (Of course, they couldn't correct this on the ride without anemetronics or a good look-alike in reality, but I don't deal with reality :D)

Why are the bridge and the transporter room on the same deck? (to help with the flow of the ride, of course).

I did manage to hit a button on the tactical console on my way out that was labeled "fire" right next to the photon torpedo controls on the bridge, but nothing happened. I guess I should have looked for the "Mode Select" instead. Fortunately for me, no one saw me, or said anything.

The turbolift is on its way to deck four, and when the ship is attacked, a report is heard that decks 15-20 have lost power. Why is the turbolift anywhere near those decks?

When walking down the corridor to the shuttlebay, the windows on the ceiling would indicate that we are still on the saucer section making our way to the main shuttle bay. This makes sense since we were going to deck 4 and the main shuttlebay is on deck 4. However, we should be somewhere on decks 15-20 since main power was out, which would put us closer to shuttlebays 2 and 3. Also, the bay looked a little small to be the main bay.

During the battle on the strip (I can see my hotel from here!!!), the street seems largely empty of both cars and people. I guess we got back during the off season for gambling.

Now, for the anti-nits...

When I went into the ride it was about 3:00pm. When we got out it was day outside, but the battle over Vegas was at night. There was no mention of the large ships or phaser fire on the local news. So now there's a real shuttle from the future at the Hilton, just waiting for us to dissect for the secrets of warp drive, transporters, replicators and advanced computing!
It is possible that the time anomaly vomited us back to the present a few hours after we left, making up for the difference between night and day. I'm sure that the shuttle was either beamed out or flown out after everything settled down.

On top of that, the giant screen is clearly visible as you leave the craft. That pretty much finishes off any sense of reality the ride may have had left. This is the major problem with the Back to the Future ride at Universal. If you turn your head DURING the ride, you can see not only the edge of the screen, but also the other simulators!
Remember, they dropped us off at the base of the "real" ride, right in front of the "ride's" screen. Also, as we are landing, and Picard is giving his speech, the sound of a projector can be heard. The sound is absent during the rest of the flight, indicating that we are staring at the simulators' movie screen, and not open space or the strip.

I've always wanted to go into warp speed!! I've also always wanted to transport somewhere. Was the bridge from the original star trek with kirk or the next gen with picard. it didn't look like kirks chair/bridge. My dad (ScottN) says it's enterprise-d.
in the turbo lift after the "klingons got their shots" the people asked if we were okay and this little boy says "Yah, but it went to fast so i pluged my ears" Everybody laughed.
The ride was so cool. i sat in the back and i could still see. I'm only 11 and short for my age too.

q. towards the end, when the klingons are pulling our ship up with that beam, what is that beam called. i never knew that they had a beam like that.

comment/nitpick: I went on it twice and both times the chief person on the screen says ensign thomas take theese people to safety. Ensign Thomas looked different every time. (a different person)

John Latchem said, "On top of that, the giant screen is clearly visible as you leave the craft. That pretty much finishes off any sense of reality the ride may have had left."

We happened to be there on Super Bowl Sunday in February of 2000 (or was it still January? At any rate, the Super Bowl was on) so instead of playing Trek scenes on the TV screens, they had all the pre-game stuff. Now if I was interested in the Super Bowl, would I be at the Star Trek Experience on the day of the big game?! Talk about taking away your sense of reality! It was on the big screens in the bar, on TVs in the gift shop and I think could be heard even going through the museum part of the exhibit (but not on the ride itself). They joked that it was "retro day" and they were showing football from the past but I really felt like it had a negative impact on my "Star Trek experience". I did really like the ride and enjoyed our Quark's bar food. I would go again but not on Super Bowl Sunday.

Nit. The timeline gives First Contact with the Klingons as 2218 (no doubt taken from TNG:First Contact). However, as we all now know, Humanity's First Contact with the Klingons occurred in 2151.

I have a nit for the experience:
When they take us to the simulators at the end they say:
"These are the simulators you were about to enter. We will put you below them."
Yet, on the elevator, the guard presses the down button.
OH by the way, on the timeline it said McCoy was born in 2027 or something like that and Spock was born in 2030 or something like that, i forgot the actual number. I had no idea that McCoy was 3 years older than spock.

Hey, TrekGrrl, you got Grandpa to take you! Love ya! -- Dad

There's definitely a time anomaly of some sort around that ride, or else time goes at a different pace in the future. When I was on line for the ride during my Las Vegas trip in July, we were told tours left every 8 minutes. Well, about 30 minutes later by my watch we finally got going!

The one of the best parts of the whole experience was when a Klingon woman started making fun of my boyfriend because he didn't recognize her from when he took her picture about 15 minutes earlier. She stopped him a couple of times to rag on him! I can only imagine what she would have said if I had let her know he's not a Star Trek fan!

I was very careful to address the Klingons as "Honorable Warrior". I did tell a Ferengi that he'd have to pay me to hassle me (no profit in it for me otherwise) ...

I just went to The Experience. Well...not really much to say that hasn't been said, so I'll just say I had a lot of fun.

By Jason on Tuesday, April 17, 2001 - 11:17 pm:

> It is possible that the time anomaly vomited us back to the present a few hours after we left, making up for the difference between night and day. I'm sure that the shuttle was either beamed out or flown out after everything settled down.

Curiously enough, when I visited the Experience in 1998 I was met by an elderly janitor upon disembarking from the crashed shuttle. Upon being asked what the year was, he replied "1968." So the anomaly threw us more than just a couple of hours out of time...

Ugh, and you had to live through the 70's again?! Poor you!

Any info on the upcoming Borg:4D ride? From what I hear, it's another simulator, and features Robert Picardo as the Holo-doc. And of course, the Borg. Other than that, I've heard nothing. Anyone else know something about it?

Zarm, they've started running TV ads for it, playing up the Borg aspect. It appears to definitely be Voyager based.

Now, will they be the really scary TNG Borg or the wimpified VOY Borg?

From what I heard, the ride will "assimilate" the riders...you'll be able to get a picture of what you look like as a Borg.