Vegas Star Trek Experience Closing Down

Leebert writes "Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton is closing its doors today after the attraction owner and the hotel could not work out a renewed lease deal. In its 10-year tenure, more than 3 million people have visited the Trek themed exhibit. 'Trekkies are incensed. They've scrawled reminiscences about the exhibit on the walls inside, and they're calling Cedar Fair and the hotel to complain. But their online rumor that the space the exhibit occupies will become a theater for pop star Michael Jackson is unfounded, Sternberg said. He said nothing's decided.'"

Comments

It wasn't 'sub-Disney' at all

[mschuyler]

It was on a par with Star Tours in Disneyland--better because of the costumed actors as part of the show. I enjoyed it, took both sets of adult kids to it over the years. My wife would never open her eyes in teh shuttle. "My, God. Open your eyes and experience the thrill!" The costumed Ferengi in the restaurant was great and the props and timeline were top notch. Guess there's no reason to go out of your way over to the Hilton any more. Oh, well.

Re:SciFi Museum

[Mitch Haile]

I realize this might have been a joke, but I've been to both the SF museum in Seattle and the Star Trek Experience in Vegas.

Trust me, the SF museum in Seattle has nothing on the Star Trek Experience. No disrespect to Paul Allen; it's just the magnitude of the two isn't even close.

The Star Trek Experience was absolutely incredible--very well done, terrific actors, great museum, the rides were stellar, and Quark's bar had some kind of fish bowl alcoholic drink with dry ice--all in all, an unforgettable experience. And I say this as someone who was never very interested in Star Trek.

Re:Wow 10 years!

[religious freak]

Wow, then you've missed out. I've been there a couple times and it was great fun. The experience/ride was cool, but my favorite aspect was just the overall ambiance of the place. It truly was a Disneyland for a trek nerd.

They had a reproduction of Quark's bar where you could order exotic looking (and fairly tasty) food and drink, Klingons and Feringi walking around making comments about typical ST stuff, and all kinds of ST crap to buy. Yeah, all of it was woefully overpriced, but it IS Vegas and much better than spending an hour at a blackjack table.

I still have a couple of tribbles I bought there. Though I'm actually surprised it stayed around so long, it's a shame to see it go... a real shame.

been there a few times

[Rick Bentley]

For those who haven't seen it, it was pretty great. I went on it when it first opened on a company event (General Magic) while at a trade-show and went back on my own a couple more times over the next several years. It went something like this:

1) After you buy your ticket you get in line to get in. The line winds around a kind of museum that goes through the time-line of the Star Trek Universe. It's kinda like reading a big comic book summary of all the different shows and movies.

2) Then you get together for a shuttle simulation ride. But before you can get on the ride, while watching a safety video, you get accidentally beamed aboard the Enterprise (Next Generation vintage).

3) Then you are put on a "real" shuttle and go on a crazy ride involving battle with Klingons before you're brought back to your own time through a wormhole or whatnot.

4) After the ride you can go hang out and Quark's bar and stuff like that. At the bar there's usually at least one Klingon in character with a working knowledge of Klingon (at least the three or four things I'm geeky-enough to know). I hear more recently that there was a Borg-related ride added on as well.

Wikipedia has all the details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Experience

Anyway, it wasn't geek nirvana but it was kinda close. I can only hope that the Genesis Planet that is Vegas produces a new better one someday...

Re:Wow 10 years!

[Nogami_Saeko]

I was there in January during CES. I found it a little overpriced, however it was pretty fun. I thought that the Borg experience where you actually take part in a pre-scripted adventure was the most entertaining of the two. The transporter effect on the Klingon adventure was pretty interesting.

I agree with others that Quark's bar was pretty good. The drinks were good, and the food was actually good (and not too expensive, given that it was Vegas). Fun atmosphere. Maybe they should just move Quark's somewhere else. It would probably still be popular.

That said, it did have some rough edges on it. You could start to get the feel of things being a bit run-down and in need of some updating (older, burned-in computer monitors set in the display screens, etc). The IMAX films were getting pretty scratched up and were in bad shape - they really needed some crisp new prints.

Could it still be successful as a Vegas attraction? I dunno - it's been quite some time since TNG, and until the Trek franchise is re-invigorated, existing fans probably wouldn't have been quite as interested.

N.