star trek bar las vegas

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Star Trek the Experience

• Reviews: ★★★★★

Star Trek the Experience Overview

Star Trek geeks of the world are all heading to Las Vegas thanks to one adventure based in the Las Vegas Hilton. The Star Trek Experience is an interactive adventure that is based on the world famous science fiction television series by the same name. As you enter the experience, you will be thrown into the 24th Century. In this futuristic world you will be able to see and touch all there is to see in the future. The Star Trek Experience includes two, multi-million dollar completely interactive adventures for you to enjoy.

The adventures include Klingon Encounter and Borg Invasion 4D. In the Klingon Encounter you will have a chance to go on a Star Trek mission. Well, that is if you think you can handle the adventure. You will be going to war with the galaxy's most dangerous warriors! Your mission will be to evade the Klingon warship as you blast through galaxies at warp speeds on your shuttle craft. This adventure lasts 18 minutes.

Borg Invasion has been listed as the most ambitious 4D creation that has ever been conceived. Using live actors and amazing special effects you are offered a completely realistic Star Trek experience. You will be able to tour a research facility in the future. Meanwhile, the frightening drones that are part of the Borg Collective will be attempting to capture and absorb the guests in the facility by using state of the art cybernetic technology.

Kids Friendly

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Star trek the experience photos.

Star Trek the Experience Location

Star trek the experience reviews, stay at the hilton because of the star trek experience.

I have to travel to Las Vegas to attend several Trade Show and I always stay at the Hilton because of the Star Trek Experience. I will take a tram or a taxi to the trade show as opposed to a much shorter transit, just to stay at the Hilton and at the Experience. Trade Shows can be boring but a fresh light at the end of the tunnel has always been the Experience. I am shocked the Experience is closed and it has resulted in my Family and I now staying another hotel on the strip. Live long and Prosper to all that loved the Experience and that would love to see it be reborn elsewhere! Sincerely, WP Vos

I LIKE THE FOOD AT QUARKS

The main reason I go to Vegas and stay at the Hilton is because of Star Trek Experience. I love the atmosphere and the people that work there. The place is very very clean. I like the food at Quark’s and am sorry to hear that STTE may close at the end of the yet, because I haven’t tried some other items on their menu. If it does not my plans are to spend Christmas there. If it does I will not be going to Vegas.

WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE

I want to stay at the same time I spent at Star Trek the Experience was a wonderful experience. I hope to make it to experience the Star Trek Experience again this year. It would be a sure shame if this one of a kind event closed. I would promote the experience as a wonderful time for the whole family.

MOST FANTASTIC TIME

We visited Star Trek the Experience last year from Australia. We spent the whole day there and had the most FANTASTIC time. The timeline details were fascinating. The behind the scenes was very very informative. The characters around the place were such fun to interact with. And it was wheelchair friendly-nig bonus for me. We are so sorry to hear it is closing down. We were saving up to come again. RIP Star Trek The Exhibition.

SOMETHING NEW TO ENJOY

I have been to the Experience many times over the years and I always find something new to enjoy along with all my previous fun. I loved going onto the bridge of TNG’s Enterprise. And what a hoot it is to see all the characters around from all over the galaxy. A must do is to eat at Quark’s, but watch out the owner may try to sell you a napkin.

I AM VERY DISAPPOINTED THAT THE STAR TREK EXPERIENCE IS NOT AVAILABLE

I am very disappointed that the Star Trek experience is not available. I have been pumping up my family ,most of whom are flying for the very 1st time, about this attraction. This was going to be one of the major highlights of our trip. The 1st time my husband and I visited Vegas we came to the Hilton and had a blast at the Star Trek Adventure and have talked about t every since. Please open back up. If this is due to the financial crunch just lower your prices a little bit and maybe more people could afford to come.

STAR TREK THE BAR IS THE FUNNSET AFTER YOU DO THE VIRTUAL RIDE

Me and my friends go to Vegas every year after some times twice a year and always made it a point to visit the Hilton’s Star Trek the bar is the funnest after you do the virtual ride. I was there the last night open just by chance and am very disappointed to see it leave. It was one of my highlights going to Vegas over the last 10 years.

I was disappointed to hear the attraction was closing. I am planning a trip to Vegas and wanted to was going to book rooms at the Hilton until I learned the experience had closed. I guess we stay at Treasure Island.

Say it isn’t so! Our group was looking forward to seeing this attraction. I would have thought with the new movie it would have been very popular. We are all disappointed.

BRING IT BACK!

I really enjoyed my visit to the “Star Trek” Hilton. I especially loved Quark’s Bar where the 6ft plus Klingon “lady” put my know-it-all ex propery in his place and speechless for the first time in his life! I’d pay just to have her do the Divorce-paper servings!LOL

THE GREATEST TIME

My wife and I come to Vegas 3 or 4 times a year & always stayed at the Hilton because of Star Trek Experience & Quark’s bar. We no longer stay at the Hilton. We stay every where else. To the Hilton you made a big mistake, bring back The Experience & Quarks!!!

Quark's Bar and Restaurant

Location: Star Trek: The Experience, Las Vegas Hilton

Our thoughts: This restuarant is part of the Star Trek: The Experience complex at the Las Vegas Hilton. It's definitely a theme restaurant in the style of a Hard Rock Cafe or Planet Hollywood, with wacky names for its entrees (such as the "HamBorger" and the "(Onion) Rings of Betazed").

Tip: Don't provoke the Klingon.

More from Star Trek: The Experience

Activities • Museum of the Future • SpaceQuest Casino

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Let’s Read an Old Menu, Featuring Quark’s Bar and Restaurant, Deep Space 9, 2385 (at Star Trek: the Experience, Las Vegas, NV, 2008)

Hello, everyone and welcome to Let’s Read An Old Menu! This is a somewhat irregular column in which I, your humble LibraryLass, look at restaurant, hotel, and lunch counter menus from the 19th and 20th– and today for the first time, 21st , centuries. Sometimes things will be familiar, sometimes they’ll be weird. But one thing you can count on is that they’ll almost always have cottage cheese on the menu, and they’ll almost never actually explain what’s  in  anything.

What’s For Lunch?

Picture this: it’s 2007 and the coolest place in the universe is the Las Vegas Hilton, which contains on its lobby floor an entire miniature theme park dedicated to your six favorite TV shows: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Star Trek, The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek Enterprise. Oh, I was in heaven, alright, I insisted we go to this one when my dad took us to Vegas for what is still the only time in my life. It did not disappoint.

Is the restaurant still there? If not, what can we find out about it?

The hotel’s still there, but both Hilton and Star Trek are long gone– today it’s the Westgate Las Vegas.

In the 1990s Star Trek fandom was having a moment that it’s never equaled before or since. Star Trek nerdery was truly mainstream. Las Vegas was having a moment, too. No more was it the seedy, seething Sin City, it was a funtime destination for all ages! Viacom, Hilton, and Cedar Fair (parent company of Knott’s Berry Farm, Cedar Point, Great America, King’s Island, and a slew of other great amusement parks around the country) saw dollar signs. Together they built a place, a glorious place, one part museum, one part theme park, one part shopping mall, and all parts tourist trap. The Experience had everything, including a cadre of major Trekkies on staff who went to the effort of creating official backstories for their characters and remaining completely in character at all times. If you love the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Pandora- The World of Avatar, or Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, you have this place to thank.

Unfortunately by 2008 the boom times were long over for both Star Trek and Vegas, and the Experience’s tenth season would be its last. Even the promise of a newer, hipper, rebooted Star Trek film to come soon could not save it, and despite attempts to relocate from just off the Strip to Fremont Street, Star Trek: The Experience closed its doors for good in September of 2008. Personally, I blame Brunt. (…Eff. See. Ay.) Most of the authentic props and costumes on display were later sold at auction.

Cover’s just a nifty picture of the Enterprise-D.

It’s mostly pretty standard 21st century casual restaurant stuff, but the sheer number of Star Trek in-jokes is great in and of itself. It seems to have left the menu by the time this one was printed, but I remember (and know from finding at least two older versions of the menu elsewhere in qualities not quite suitable for the article) that a long-time mainstay of the menu was the Tribble Tenders. I think my sister may have ordered them when my family went.

The dessert menu was gone by this time too, but I found a PDF version of the 2007 menu on archive.org .

And this is the shortened drink menu, the original was like four pages long. If you want to make any of these for yourself, one of the hosts of The Ugly Couch Show was a bartender there and shares the recipes here . Honestly, the Warp Core breach may just be how I want to die someday.

If you liked this article and want to see more old menu content, please subscribe to my partner Lovely Bones on Patreon at  https://www.patreon.com/lilytina

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Star Trek: The Experience

• Edit source

Located at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino near the intersection of Paradise Road and Sahara Avenue. About 1.5 miles from the Vegas Strip. Home to two exciting attractions, Klingon Encounter and BORG Invasion 4D , Star Trek: The Experience provides visitors with a very realistic experience through the use of live interaction and motion simulators. Some may even say chillingly realistic. The Experience unfolds much like the stories that inspired it. It is scripted by "Next Generation" alumni Rene Echevarria and Ken Biller.

BORG Invasion 4D: As unsuspecting visitors tour a research facility, they are attacked by the BORG, who try to capture and assimilate them. The experience is all too real, with the utilization of 3D and 4D effects, as well as live actors.

Klingon Encounter: Visitors are "accidentally" beamed onto the Starship Enterprise, just as it is being attacked by several Klingon warships. In an effort to escape, visitors hurry to a shuttle bay, where they board a 27-car shuttle and attempt to make their way home.

Tickets are good for the entire day, so you can leisurely stroll through the " History of the Future " exhibit, which displays Star Trek props, weaponry, spacecraft and award-winning masks and costumes.

Quark's Bar and Restaurant and Deep Space Nine promenade: Quark's Bar and Restaurant, which can be found in the Deep Space Nine promenade, is a galactic pit stop offering tasty concoctions that are out of this world. The Deep Space Nine Promenade also houses the Promenade shops, where you can check out the world's largest collection of Star Trek memorabilia and collectibles and perhaps purchase a souvenir.

Souvenir photos: Now you can take a souvenir photo in the Captain's Chair on the Bridge of the Starship Enterprise or in an authentic BORG Regeneration Chamber. Participants must sign up ahead of time at the ticket booth.

Star Trek: The Experience -- Secrets Unveiled : Visitors can now take a behind-the-scenes tour of Star Trek: The Experience and learn how the Klingon Encounter and BORG Invasion 4D rides make visitors feel as if they have truly been transported to another space and time.

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• >> Entertainment

‘Star Trek: The Experience’ brought otherworldly fun to Las Vegas

The interactive attraction at the Las Vegas Hilton let fans become part of Star Trek universe for more than a decade.

Las Vegas is a cosmopolitan sort of place, but nothing like it was when Andorians, Klingons and Ferengi hung out here.

It was during the days when “Star Trek: The Experience” offered fans of the now-iconic science fiction franchise the most intriguing entertainment offering this side of the Neutral Zone.

The $70 million attraction — part museum, part motion simulator, part dinner theater — opened in January 1998 at the Las Vegas Hilton (now the Westgate) and closed 11 years later. It took took up part of the hotel’s casino floor, near a futuristic SpaceQuest casino and a restaurant and bar named after “Quark,” a character from “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.”

While waiting in line for the attraction, fans could peruse a museum-like “History of the Future” exhibit that combined real history with Trekkian history. The attraction’s initial story line — a second, Borg-related attraction opened in 2004 — followed guests boarding a typical motion simulator ride. Things then took a novel departure into left field when some nasty Klingons seeking to prevent the birth of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard” (“Star Trek: The Next Generation” star Patrick Stewart was seen in prerecorded video) interrupted the ride.

The attraction closed in 2008 and talk of relocating it to Neonopolis in downtown Las Vegas never panned out. Two years later, many of the attraction’s props were sold, at least offering grieving fans the chance to scarf up themed signs, spaceship replicas, Starfleet costumes and the odd transporter room component for their memorabilia collections.

April Hebert worked at the attraction for its entire run. Now a communications professor at the College of Southern Nevada, Hebert was an actor then and came on board before it even was finished.

“I was everything,” she says, including a Starfleet officer, a Vulcan and an Andorian. Like other cast members, the job often involved interacting with guests.

“It was interactive theater, really. Environmental acting,” Hebert says.

While she recalls no untoward interactions with guests, she remembers that a colleague who played a Ferengi once had his faux ear pulled by an overeager woman. (In “Star Trek” lore, massaging a Ferengi’s ear is a turn-on.)

“She took off,” Hebert says. “I’m sure he was quite shocked.”

But she enjoyed her time at the attraction and still keeps in touch with some of her fellow cast members. This holiday season, Hebert again will host a party for some of them at her home.

And when people ask her about her “Star Trek” gig, “I always say it’s the best job in the galaxy.”

Contact reporter John Przybys at [email protected] or 702-383-0280. Follow @JJPrzybys on Twitter.

Some 450 tropical fish are being relocated from The Mirage to Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay.

The creator of “Spice Wannabe” says, “We haven’t had one bad review.” But the show is shutting down because of soft ticket sales.

After serving customers for nearly 30 years, Crown & Anchor British Pub, a longtime staple in the Las Vegas Valley dining scene, closed its doors earlier this month.

The chain, with locations mainly in the Southeastern U.S., serves a small menu of chicken finger buckets and combos, a chicken finger sandwich and a family meal.

Wynonna Judd, who has been performing live for 40 years, wanted to throw a party to celebrate her “milestone year.” That bash will coincide with National Finals Rodeo.

“Machete” star Danny Trejo opened up about his viral Fourth of July melee, saying he was targeted by parade spectators because of his race.

In the meantime, an Aug. 9 tribute dinner celebrates the James Beard Award-winning chef as he retires from the restaurant.

“Love” closed at The Mirage on Sunday after an 18-year run on the Las Vegas Strip. The surviving Beatles have already said goodbye to the Cirque du Soleil show.

Whitney Cummings walked on stage wearing some very Vegas apparel in the final comedy show at The Mirage.

Brandon Flowers was a bellman at Gold Coast when he found his girlfriend cheating on him at Crown & Anchor. The rest is history.

SpaceQuest Bar

Location & Hours

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3000 Paradise Rd

Las Vegas Hilton

Las Vegas, NV 89109

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Overall rating

Here's the SpaceQuest Bar in a nutshell: * A quick and easy dance floor tacked down onto the pre-existing carpet. * A quick and easy stage cobbled together for playing music or booty dancers. * Random, mismatched tables, chairs, and couches pulled out of storage and plopped together to make this seem like a "lounge". * A quick and easy giant, temporary curtain placed to shoddily cover up the multi-million attraction that was the primary basis of this area. * Bathrooms that still have video screens that wheeze out the original sci-fi shtick from 15 years ago, but now the voices are strained, and the videos cycle lazily out of focus when they are not going to a blank, white "Video" screen. Six years ago, Star Trek: The Experience closed down, which was arguably THE biggest draw the Hilton/LVH had outside of being adjacent to the city's Convention Center. Since then, the place has sat like a shell-like monument to the old place. I understand that it's a big space and needs to be filled, but since 2008, it looks and remains a cheap and temporary placeholder in its construction. It's an odd combination of this well-detailed space theme crumbling and falling apart due to age and neglect coupled with a set-up that may as well have been constructed by a child with cardboard boxes and bedsheets covering chairs. SpaceQuest Bar needs to figure out what to do with itself, as after six years, they still don't get it. The place looks like a graveyard. Either accept that the place looks like a giant space station, clean it up and run with the theme, or suck it up and remodel the place into a functional lounge that's actually nice, and not comprised of temporary and mismatched pieces. The "Star Trek" vibe still runs too strongly through the place, and trying to pass it off as something else is as ridiculous as losing the attraction itself (or losing the "Hilton" name, for that matter). "Star Trek" was one of my favorite areas, but put the area out of its misery already and do one or the other with it.

This place used to be so cool when it was Quarks and they had the Star Trek Experience... It was so much freaking fun to get drunk along with the interaction of the excellent actors who played Vulcans, Klingons, Andorians, and various other Star Trek characters. Vegas is much less interesting to me now without the nerd coolness that once was here.

This used to be part of the Star Trek Experience, modeled after Quark's on Deep Space Nine. Now all that's left are the surroundings, all Trek props have been removed. Sad coolness. Didn't try any of the drinks.

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Fan Film Factor

Exploring the world of Star Trek fan films.

How I ended up writing QUARK’S MENU at STAR TREK: THE EXPERIENCE in Las Vegas! (biography blog #3)

My first biography blog was posted on January 11, 2016, a day after Fan Film Factor first launched. It described how I turned down a job working for MICHAEL OKUDA in the Star Trek Scenic Art Department at Paramount Studios back in 1993. A year and a half later, I published my second biography blog , describing how I came to work as a freelance “professional Trekkie” fan consultant for Viacom Consumer Products starting in 1997. It was a gig I’d have for another six years.

It’s now 2022, today is my birthday (January 17), and I am going to indulge myself by finally publishing my THIRD biography blog, explaining how I ended up writing the menu for QUARK’S BAR & RESTAURANT at Star Trek : The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton. And as a special treat, here is a high-quality PDF file of the original menu for you to read and enjoy…

It was the summer of 1997, and I’d been working with JULIET DUTTON of Viacom Consumer Products for about 8 months, reviewing submitted Star Trek CD-ROM game scripts for accuracy, since Juliet wasn’t a Trekkie and didn’t know an Andorian from a Tellarite. Another person in licensing, KIRSTI PAYNE, was assigned to PARAMOUNT PARKS, a licensee that was finishing construction on a new Star Trek attraction at the Las Vegas Hilton that was scheduled to open early the following year. It would have an immersive virtual reality motion simulator ride, a Star Trek prop and costume museum, a gift shop (of course!), and even Quark’s Bar and Restaurant.

There was just one problem: their proposed menu was a complete disaster.

It wasn’t the food that was the issue so much figuring out what to call the various items. Uninspired names like “Cosmic Burger” and “Galaxy Fries” were falling far short of being Star Trek enough, and the menu just sounded boring. They needed help—badly! During a weekly staff meeting, Kirsti asked her fellow licensing staffers if anyone knew a creative Star Trek fan with a good sense of humor who was also able to write well.

Juliet said, “I have just the person for you…!”

A week later, I was sitting in Kirsti’s cubicle office at Paramount, reading through the list of food and drink items, along with descriptions of each. Kirsti asked if I had any ideas off the top of my head for names. I didn’t realize at the time, but looking back, that might have been an informal “interview” question…although these folks were pretty desperate by then. It was already July, and the menu needed to be sent to the printer by the middle of September to be ready for the grand opening. This gave me about eight weeks to not only write the whole thing but to also get it approved!

Looking through the items, I commented that the burgers would obviously be Borgers, with the three variations of burger, cheeseburger, and bacon cheeseburger being one-of-three, two-of-three, and three-of-three. The chicken fajita wrap could easily become the Wrap of Khan. And the onion rings HAD to be the Holy Rings of Betazed.

I was hired on the spot.

Two months might seem like a lot of time, but I knew it would fly by. And while thinking up a few names on the spot wasn’t too tough, there were 41 food items (including appetizers, entrees, kids orders, and deserts) plus another three dozen mixed drinks, draft beers, and Trek -branded wines. I also had to come up with Trek -ish names for all of the categories like salads, sandwiches, pastas, etc.

Fortunately, I had an ace in the hole…or rather, about 15 of them! I belonged to (and still belong to) a local chapter of the STARFLEET International fan club called the U.S.S. Angeles . A couple of weeks after my meeting with Kirsti, the chapter was having a BBQ and pool party at a members’ home in Ventura, and I asked if I could reserve a half hour or so for “brainstorming.” The crew was more than happy to help me think of ideas—it was a lot of fun!—and we came up with some FANtastic names like A Pizza the Action, Isolinear Chips and Dips, Journey to Basil Pasta, and Glop on the Stick (corn dog) and a whole bunch of others.

We also concocted some wonderful names for many of the mixed drinks: the Patten Buffer, Orion’s Belt, the Red Shirt, Trill Chill, Risan Shine, and Wesley’s Crush. One of our drink names, the Warp Core Breach (a seven liquor blend with various fruit juices, served in a large fish bowl with multiple straws, and guaranteed to be too much alcohol for one person to handle alone) actually made it into the season six episode of Deep Space Nine “His Way .”

We didn’t think of names for everything, but that pool party gave me a very decent head start. My unofficial challenge for myself (because it wasn’t a requirement) was to come up with at least one name for each main character from each series—TOS, TNG , DS9 , and Voyager ( Enterprise was still a few years away)—and at least one name referencing each major alien race—Vulcan, Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, Bajoran, Ferengi, and Borg. Check out the menu and let me know if I missed anything.

Not everything I submitted was approved on the first try. I recall a rejection of Melon of Troi as the name for a melon colada (still not sure what was wrong with that name). But after finding out that the drink would be blue in color, Andorian Colada seemed fit nicely and was quickly approved.

Another rejection—which actually disappointed me quite a bit—was the name I wanted to use for the chocolate-peanut butter pie: Kai Pie. But they wouldn’t approve it. They did eventually approve the name Pie of the Prophets, and I ended up slipping “also known as Kai Pie” into the description, which the powers that be were okay with.

As clever as the names were, the descriptions were even funnier, and I encourage you to take the time to read them all thoroughly. Those blurbs actually took me way longer to create from scratch than I ever imagined, but in the end, they’re some of the work I am most proud of in my writing career.

I still remember the very last food item that I named…two food items, actually. The restaurant was going to feature a fresh fish catch of the day, and for many weeks, that item was going to be called Odo’s Fresh Catch of the Day (’cause Odo catches crooks, get it?). Yeah, I was never all that thrilled with the name either, and neither was Kirsti, but we were running low on time. I was finishing up the project, only needing to name the desserts, and I realized that Odo was much better suited for ice cream: Changeling Chocolate, Vorta Vanilla, Shapeshifter Strawberry. If I “transferred” Odo from fresh fish to frozen treat, I’d finally have the dessert section finished. But what about the fresh catch of the day? It was now nameless!

Don’t ask me how or why, but I often do my best thinking in the shower. And that’s when it hit me like a phaser on stun. I was so excited that as soon as I turned off the water and grabbed a towel, I ran to my phone to leave a voice-mail for Kirsti to hear when she arrived at work. She knew I’d been struggling to find a new name for the fresh catch, and we only had two days left until our deadline. As I heard the beep through my phone, I left the following message: “Kirsti, it’s Jonathan. Are you ready? I hope you’re sitting down. The fresh catch of the day is now…drum roll please…Fisherman’s Worf.”

She loved it, and so did I.

Surprisingly, Worf hadn’t previously appeared anywhere else in the entire menu! We had a Bird of Prey chicken sandwich and the Salad of Kahless, so Klingons were represented. But no Worf…until now. So it was truly perfect timing. The menu names and full text were sent in the following morning for final approval by the folks at Paramount Parks and the Las Vegas Hilton.

Early the following week, I got a call from Kirsti. While the menu text had been approved, someone over there suddenly asked, “We have a work-for-hire agreement with this guy, right?” Actually, no, they didn’t. I’d never been asked to sign one. That meant that, technically, I still owned all the rights to what I’d written. And I’d since found out that Star Trek : The Experience was planning to sell the menu in the gift shop.

They had offered to pay me $500 for writing the menu…which wasn’t all that much considering that I’d probably put about 70-80 hours of time into the project. And now, with the menu text approved and needing to be sent to the printers, I kinda had them over a barrel. Should I ask for a percentage of sales revenue? After all, this was likely something that fans would want to have as a keepsake.

In the end, I opted to simply sign the work-for-hire agreement rather than making life difficult for the Experience and probably alienating the friends I was making in licensing. I really did enjoy working with these folks (I was actually getting PAID to talk about Star Trek …I mean, c’mon!), and good reviews about me were already spreading to others in the licensing department like HARRY LANG and a young new hire by the name of JOHN VANCITTERS. Best not to upset the Kaferian apple cart!

The punchline to that story is that I found out later from Kirsti that during the first six months, the Experience had sold only a very small number of menus (probably because they were priced at $10 each for the bar and food menu separately!), and I’d likely have made almost nothing in royalties had I demanded a percentage of sales. However, during that same period, several thousand menus were simply taken by diners who didn’t know that the menus weren’t giveaways. They were actually quite expensive to print, and the Experience was having to spend a fair amount replacing them! Eventually, the wait staff was told to be certain to collect the menus from the tables and make sure none of them were taken by the customers. And even then, many menus still found new homes far beyond Las Vegas.

As the years went on, the food the drink menus at Quark’s changed. Items were added, unpopular items were removed (prune juice—a warrior’s drink—didn’t last more than 10 months). And each change was done with no input from me, which made me a little sad, as the new iterations became progressively less funny, less creative, and increasingly generic.

But that’s okay. I still cherish having been even a small part of Star Trek : The Experience …a very special destination that I visited maybe a dozen times during its all-too-brief decade of existence. And as it happened, that wouldn’t be my only professional contribution to that wonderful place. A few years later, I’d be hired to create the 2D LCARS animations for the Borg Invasion 4D ride. But that’s a story for another blog…

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15 thoughts on “How I ended up writing QUARK’S MENU at STAR TREK: THE EXPERIENCE in Las Vegas! (biography blog #3)”

It’s too bad Viacom aren’t tapping you for storyline ideas these days too. Or, any other with such a Trek history & knowledge. Maybe you should market yourself as a genuine: “Star Trek Consultant” you know, to help the writers on all the new series? Your story is rather unique, and could make a good book some day, each blog entry, a chapter? And you could even write yourself into a fictional episode, like that Deep Space episode where Sisko was a writer on old 20th century Earth. Of course time travel would need to be a part of it. Perhaps you meet the Gardian of Forever?

Ah, a true Marty Sue character! 🙂

Omg that is so cool. Thank you for sharing such an amazing story. I went there with my whole family back in 1998. It was an amazing experience and we loved eating at Quarks and I remember how much I loved the menu. Great job you should be very proud.

Wow! I absolutely HAD TO follow the links to see WHY IN THE WORLD you would actually TURN DOWN working with Mike Okuda (Of Okudagram fame!) OK… so I read the blogs. I get it… but man. It’s like, ask me which hand I want cut off… 🙁 But FAMILY does come first. 🙂 I’m glad you got a second chance, albeit in a different department. 🙂 All I can say is… “Wow…” (in Rom’s voice, when he was appointed Nagus!) 😉

Ah, the road less traveled by. But I have no regrets. I wouldn’t trade the six years I had working with my brother and the fine people at 2-Lane Media, Inc. for anything…even a job working long hours on Star Trek.

Congratulations, happy birthday, and I must’ve been there during the 10 months that Prune Juice was on the menu! TIL I’ve been reading you longer than I ever thought.

I can’t believe I am entering my SEVENTH YEAR doing this blog!!!

I totally blame Alec Peters for talking me into doing this!

I didn’t know you were involved with the Experience. I ate at Quarks several times and always loved reading the menu. It was great.

We went to the Experience as a group one time in full ST uniform. We had a Jonathan Frakes lookalike with us and went on the ride. I’ll never forget the double-take by one cast member as she had just talked to Riker on the main bridge screen and turned around to leave, almost walking into our Riker. She froze for a second, looking surprised, then gave him a quick nod, saying “Commander,” then getting off the bridge. It was pretty funny.

I too was a bit of a Frakes lookalike back in the day…at least in body shape. And in the late 1990s, I sported a mustache and goatee-style beard. One time at the Experience, I was waiting for a table at Quark’s dressed in a command-red TNG uniform, and an older woman came up to me and said, “I loved you in Star Trek.” I simply replied, “Oh, thank you.” After all, my name is also Jonathan. 🙂

If the only menu item you created was the “Wrap of Khan”, it would have been enough. I did not know whether to boo, laugh or hiss (or all three at the same time).

I prefer laughter, personally. 😉

Happy Late Birthday Live Long and Prosper

Thank you, David.

My wife and I shared a Warp Core Breach drink just before we got married in Vegas. Still together after 20 years. We then drove from Vegas to San Fransisco – a great time to be a Trekkie.

Usually, warp core beaches spell trouble, James. But I’m glad it worked out for you.

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An exclusive high-resolution 360 view at a spot the main restaurant "Federation side" seating area at Star Trek: The Experience at the former Las Vegas Hilton in Las Vegas Nevada as seen in it's final days in August 2008.

The atmopshere in this central open restaurant area was phenomenal.   A true fan could easily make themselves believe they were in a restaurant in the future on Deep Space Nine... as long as you didn't look around at the people sitting amongst you.

Open from 1998-2008, Star Trek: The Experience was one of the largest and singlemost authentic reproductions of a fan television show.

Sporting a stunning display or architecture, this major tourist attraction located in the Las Vegas Hilton featured this grand lobby with giant starships adorned on the ceiling.

Among other highlights was the full-scale recreation of the bridge of the Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next Generation as well as a giant dual section restaurant, a triple partitioned gift shop, motion-simulator shuttlecraft, and a simulated space station as staged under attack by the Borg.

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Overview and HistoryIn Spanish the word "vega" means fertile plain or valley, a fruitful ground, or a meadow. In Cuba it means specifically a tobacco field, usually by the bank of a river. Both sound like places where you can make a lot of money, right? You can see why they chose it for the name of this gambling heaven in Nevada! Let the show begin!Geologically, Las Vegas is an oasis in the desert. Take a look at Death Valley, just 150km from Las Vegas. Although the Mohave desert is dry as a bone at present, it wasn't always that way. The oasis of Las Vegas was once a wetland full of marshy soil and plants complete with woolly mammoths slurping up the cool refreshing water. Archaeologists found the ten-thousand-year-old remains of a mammoth in the middle of a 1993 construction project. Surprise!As time went on, (this is geologic time here, waaaay before humans showed up) the marshes dried up and left only some underground water nestled in a valley that was easily missed. Native Americans knew about the oasis but it was a secret to the European travelers until the nineteenth century.The discovery of this little green stripe in the middle of the Mojave desert is credited to Rafael Rivera, who came through in 1829 en route to Los Angeles. His discovery of this watering hole made life easier for thousands of settlers who were going West in the California Gold Rush. The spot was originally labeled "vegas" on the maps, referring to the meadow in the desert. Around the year 1840 the name was changed to "Las Vegas" and there it has grown ever since.Here's a look at Las Vegas by night -- not bad for a little watering hole!By 1904 the railroad companies had begun extending tracks to this gold mine of fresh water. Today the Jackie Gaughan's Plaza Hotel stands on top of the original Union-Pacific train station -- the only station in the world located inside a casino. Where there are trains, there are working men and where there are working men, there are saloons. Where there is a saloon, there will be a game of cards and with that, GAMBLING! A frontier town sprang to life with sweaty men drinking, fighting and betting on anything they could think of.Nobody knows how many cowboys really had a gunfight in the dust outside a bar in Las Vegas' shimmering past, but in 1910 a strict anti-gambling law came into effect and stopped them all. It prohibited all forms of gaming in public places and for about three weeks everyone mourned the loss of their favorite pastime.That being finished, the illegal secret night spots took over and business as usual carried on. Soon enough the Nevada stage legislature realized how much money they were missing, via taxes on gambling, and the era of the big casino was off to a running start. The licensed gambling casinos now generate almost fifty percent of the Nevada state budget! Take a look at the Hotel Luxor to get an idea of what kind of money we're talking about here.Growing cities need water, electricity and jobs for people. In 1931 construction began on the Hoover Dam project to fill these needs by using the Colorado River. When it was finished, thirty miles away from the city, it was the world's largest concrete structure and the world's biggest hydro-electric power generator. This project kept money flowing into Las Vegas during the Great Depression and helped the city to keep growing.The world-famous Las Vegas Strip followed hard on the heels of the Depression and WWII. The Strip began as a two-lane highway you could follow from Vegas to Los Angeles. It turned into the site of a building boom for the next six decades and saw the arrival of such famous casinos as the Sands, the Riviera, Stardust and the Tropicana.They got a little competition from Atlantic City when New Jersey legalized gambling in the 1970's. The war was on to see who could make the biggest, flashiest and most opulent mega-resort around their casino. Stop in at the Belagio or Caesar's Palace to find out who won THAT contest...All of these, by the way, owe a debt of gratitude to the Flamingo Hotel, which beat them to the punch be thirty years. Reputed mobster Bugsy Siegel opened the Flamingo in 1946, launching one of the most celebrated of the early casinos only six months before being murdered. Viva Las Vegas!Bugsy's original idea of making a resort in addition to a Casino has now become an altered reality to big to be believed. Las Vegas now hosts hotels and resorts that are like a movie set with tourist facilities built into each scene. You can be a Pirate of the Caribbean, go for a stroll through the city of Paris, or spend the night inside the medieval castle Excalibur.And say "shush!" to the Sphinx for me when you're in Luxor, the ancient Egyptian temple.Getting ThereThe McCarran International Airport is the one for you, if you're not driving across the desert in a convertible Cadillac that has the horns of a steer mounted on the hood. Los Angeles to Las Vegas is a 300 mile drive which means somewhere out there, there's a person who's done it in three hours. Or tried.TransportationWell, it's mostly a driving city. There are local city buses connecting the suburbs with downtown, the normal interstate buses like Greyhound, and literally a thousand taxis. You can hop a train on the Amtrak line, but don't stand around waiting for the metro. And with Boulevards like this one, who would want to be underground?People and CultureLas Vegas has a language that's all its own and it lives in the casinos. There are some familiar ones you already know, like "high roller" (which is a person who spends a lot of money). But did you know that a high roller is the same as a "whale"? And how about "Dark", as in, no show. Dark Sundays means there are no performances, so the main marquee is switched off and the stage is dark."Comp" is short for complimentary or free, and if you're "in red" it means your name is highlighted with the color red on the guest list, because you've been comp'ed. And for the modern edge, "eye in the sky" means a hidden surveillance camera in the ceiling. Las Vegas is full of mirrors -- they make the room look bigger, they multiply the lights, and they make a great place to park a supervisory camera system. There's a saying that goes, "if you can't spot the fish at the table, you ARE the fish." Fish is an inexperienced gabler. Card sharks are the ones who eat the fish. Sharks might be using a shiner, too; that's what the eye in the sky is for. (Shiner is a little mirror a shark uses to cheat by seeing your cards.)Things to do, RecommendationsI've got a recommendation for all you young lovers out there... get hitched at the Chapel of the Bells! Follow it up with an intergalactic honeymoon on the USS Enterprise. Here you will find a full-scale replica of the control room of the famous star ship from Star Trek. Las Vegas may in fact be the world's biggest collection of surreal and odd places to explore, like the Borg chamber, another Star Trek household word.Have fun, stay hydrated out there, and don't forget to take some pictures from the highest location you can get to. Here's a shot of the volcano erupting at the Mirage Hotel.And lastly, remember the most important piece of advice there is:"What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."Text by Steve Smith.

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Quark's Bar menu from "Star Trek: The Experience" Las Vegas, Nevada (2001)

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Cuisine (20 of 115), 475 restaurants available nearby, 1. benihana - westgate las vegas resort & casino, nv, 2. sid's cafe, 3. fresco italiano - westgate las vegas resort & casino, 4. edge steakhouse - westgate las vegas resort & casino, 5. bacchanal buffet - caesars palace las vegas, 6. mon ami gabi - las vegas, 7. hell's kitchen - caesars palace las vegas, 8. golden steer steakhouse, 9. stk - the cosmopolitan of las vegas, 10. tao asian bistro - las vegas, see what locals rave about.

• OT OpenTable Diner vip Las Vegas • 6 reviews 5.0 Dined 2 days ago Food was excellent and everyone we encountered were warm and friendly. I will definitely be back! More info Fresco Italiano - Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino $$$ $ Price: Expensive • Italian • Westgate Las Vegas Hotel & Casino • 4.4
• WD WD2018 Washington, D.C. Area • 67 reviews 5.0 Dined 4 days ago Liman B. was an excellent server. He was friendly, courteous, attentive and informative. He made excellent recommendations for cocktails and steaks. We enjoyed both our drink and food selections. There was also a tremendous team effort from the entire staff, particularly the gentleman who served our bread and kept our water glasses full at all times. Liman’s stellar customer service attitude along with delicious food and drink made for an outstanding wedding anniversary dining experience. Thank you for a job well done! More info Edge Steakhouse - Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino $$ $$ Price: Moderate • Steakhouse • Westgate Las Vegas Hotel & Casino • 4.8
• F Foodnut Las Vegas • 48 reviews 5.0 Dined 5 days ago This is one of the oldest Benihana's in the world. They were one of the first franchise stores and in this world that usually is not a good thing... But in this specific case it's a GREAT thing! They have stayed true to their roots and so many of the employees have been there for a REALLY REALLY LONG TIME! Loved this experience, everything was as I expect it to be at a top notch Benihana. Which unfortunately I can't really say about more of my other recent (last 2 years) Benihana experiences in the South West (NV,CA). I've been to Benihana over 300 times in my life over the last 30 years. The portions are the same size they always have been and the quality is just as good as I remember. We had a great experienced Chef that cooked everything to perfection. Please make sure to come to THIS Benihana when in Vegas. And if your a local and have a Westgate players card, ask about the Locals' Thursday special! More info Benihana - Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino, NV $$$$ Price: Very Expensive • Japanese • Westgate Las Vegas Hotel & Casino • 4.5
• OT OpenTable Diner Chicago / Illinois • 1 review 5.0 Dined 5 days ago We went for brunch at 9:45AM, which was perfect. There were no lines and everything was hot and fresh. The food was excellent, and all of the seafood was really fresh. The prime rib was flavorful and perfectly cooked. Very impressive for a buffet, and food quality was well above what I expected from a buffet. More info Bacchanal Buffet - Caesars Palace Las Vegas $$$$ Price: Very Expensive • American • Caesars Palace • 4.2
• NF NurseFoodie12 Washington, D.C. Area • 6 reviews 5.0 Dined on Feb 17, 2023 Wonderful service and absolutely delicious food! The salmon dinner and the salmon sandwich is to die for! Had both! Went 2 nights in a row! More info Sid's Cafe $$ $$ Price: Moderate • American • The Strip • 3.8

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• The Podcast
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• Quark’s Drinks

GeekShock #745 – Low Grade Disappointments mastertorgo

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• keyboard_arrow_right Quark’s Bar Drink Recipes

Quark’s Bar Drink Recipes

By popular demand, the Geek Shock podcast is proud to bring you the actual Drink Recipes from Quark’s Bar at Star Trek: The Experience in the Las Vegas Hilton. Remember, 80s Jeff was a bartender there for years, and most of us worked there as Starfleet or Aliens (or both), so we know what we’re talking about. (These are the real deal, and all other sites featuring “star trek drinks” are full of crap.  Fight me.)

Saurian Brandy

The Saurian Brandy is a martini-style drink:

• 1.5 oz Smirnoff Vanilla Twist Vodka
• 1 oz Banana Liqueur
• .5 oz Godiva Chocolate Liqueur

In a Shaker cup, combine the Vodka and Banana Liqueur with ice. Shake gently, then pour into a chilled Martini glass. Last, gently pour the Godiva Chocolate Liqueur down the side of the glass so it sinks to the bottom, forming a layer. You may garnish this with a Maraschino Cherry (which is how we garnished it at Quark’s).

This apple martini-style drink was also once called the T’Pol-tini:

• 1 oz Smirnoff Green Apple Twist Vodka (you can use another apple vodka, but the Smirnoff tastes best in this drink)
• 1 oz Dekuyper Apple Pucker Apple Schnapps
• 1 oz 99 Apples Apple Schnapps
• splash Sweet & Sour Mix

In a shaker cup, combine all ingredients with ice. Shake gently, then strain into a chilled Martini glass. For garnish, you can add apple flavored sugar to the rim of the glass. The sugar can be found at most liquor stores.

Pattern Buffer

Here’s another frozen drink with festive colors for the holidays. This is also a swirled so follow the directions carefully:

• 1 oz Malibu Rum (or other brand coconut rum)
• 1 oz Midori (or other brand melon liquer)
• 1 oz Crème de Banana liqeur
• 3 oz Pina Colada mix (liquid, not powder)
• .5 oz Grenadine

Pour the Malibu rum, Midori, Crème de Banana, and Pina Colada mix into a blender with about a half cup of ice and blend until smooth, not watery (adding more ice if necessary). Pour the Grenadine by itself into the bottom of a tall glass. Finally, slowly and gently pour the frozen mix from the blender into the glass to get that swirled effect.

Orion’s Belt

This was a popular, easy to drink shot:

• .5 oz Midori(or any other brand of melon liqueur)
• .5 oz Malibu Rum (or any brand of coconut rum)
• splash of pineapple juice
• splash of half and half

Put all ingredients into a shaker cup with ice, shake, strain into a shot glass and enjoy.

This can also be made as a tall drink (also known as the Jamaican Ten Speed):

• 1 oz Midori(or any other brand of melon liqueur)
• 1 oz Malibu Rum (or any brand of coconut rum)
• about 1.5 oz pineapple juice
• about 1.5 oz half and half

Pour all ingredients into a glass with ice, stir and enjoy.

Cardassian Cooler

This was another very popular shot, and easy to drink:

• .5 oz Melon Liqueur (Midori or whatever cheap melon liqueur you can find)
• .5 oz Smirnoff Citrus Twist Vodka (you can use a different citrus vodka, but Smirnoff works best)
• .5 oz Triple Sec

Combine all ingredients into a shaker cup with ice, shake, then strain into a shot glass. That’s it.

James Tea Kirk

Like the Borg Sphere is basically a Tokyo Tea, the James Tea Kirk is basically an AMF (Adios Mother Fucker). Not a difficult drink to find a recipe for, but here you go:

• .75 oz Bacardi Superior (or other white rum)
• .75 oz Vodka
• .75 oz Blue Curaçao
• 1 oz Sprite (or 7up or other Lemon Lime soda)
• 1 oz Sweet and Sour mix

Mix together and pour over ice.

I was going over my old drink lists and found the old recipe for the bowl version of the James Tea Kirk. This one I thought was better so here you go:

• 1.25 oz Gin
• 1.25 oz Smirnoff Citrus Twist Vodka
• 1.25 oz Vodka
• 1.25 oz Blue Curaçao
• 1.25 oz Bacardi Superior (or other white rum)
• 30 oz Sweet and Sour mix

Mix all ingredients in a bowl with dry ice and enjoy. This used to have Gatorade Alpine Frost in addition to the Sour mix, but they don’t make Alpine Frost anymore.

Liquid Latinum

• 1 oz Midori (or any other melon liqueur)
• 1 oz Blue Curaçao
• 1 oz Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum (or your favorite spiced rum)
• 1 oz Alize Red Passion
• about 1 oz Orange Juice
• about 1 oz Pineapple Juice

This is a layered drink so you want to put the ice in the glass first. Next, pour the Midori and Blue Curaçao at the same time. The next layer is the Juice, pour both at the same time. Finally, pour the Spice Rum and Alize for the final layer.

Tamarian Frost

• 1 oz Smirnoff Vanilla Twist Vodka (you don’t have to use Smirnoff, but I would recommend it or Stoli Vanilla, since they have the best vanilla taste of the flavored vodkas I’ve tried)
• 1 oz Godiva Chocolate Liqueur
• 1 oz butterscotch schnapps
• about 2 oz half and half

Mix everything together and pour over ice, though you’ll want to be careful not to agitate it too much or the half and half gets pretty frothy, just like the Chocolate Obsession.

Deanna Troi’s Chocolate Obsession

• 1 oz Starbucks Coffee Liqueur (Kahlua, which was in the original recipe, can also be used)
• 1 oz Irish Cream (we used Merry’s Irish Cream, but Bailey’s or Carolyn’s or whatever work too)
• 1 oz Dekuyper Luscious Raspberry Rush (this one, like the Warp Core, is hard to replace with another brand. It really makes the Drink)
• a couple quick squirts of Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup
• about 2 oz Half and Half

I recommend mixing the alcohol and the Chocolate Syrup in a shaker first, shake, then add the half and half and gently shake. If you shake too hard after the half and half is added, it gets really frothy. Next, pour into a glass and enjoy. It may be hard to find, but if you can locate some chocolate sugar, add it to the rim of the glass with a little lime juice for a tasty garnish.

Here’s a drink that was often requested. Raktajino was like Klingon style coffee on the TV show, but at Quark’s it was an alcoholic drink:

• 1 oz Starbucks Coffee Liqueur (you can substitute Kahlua, but I think this one is better with the Starbucks)
• 1 oz Butterscotch Schnapps
• about 2 oz Half & Half
• .5 oz (about two squirts) Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup

In a shaker cup, combine the alcohol and chocolate syrup, then shake vigorously. Last, add the Half & Half and shake gently (if you shake too hard, it gets very frothy). Pour over ice into a tall glass and enjoy!

Stardrifter

• 1 oz Smirnoff Orange Twist Vodka (you can substitute another orange vodka, but Smirnoff seems to taste the best for this one)
• .5 oz Banana Liqueur
• about 1 oz Pineapple juice

This drink is also layered so pay close attention to the order on this one. First, get a tall glass and fill with ice. Next, pour the vodka, then the orange and pineapple juice (you can mix the juice in advance if you like). Add the Alize next, so that it sits on top (it will mix a little, so don’t worry if it’s not perfect, it will still taste great). Last, float the Banana Liqueur on the top.

Risa Colada

• 1.5 oz Malibu Rum (or whichever coconut rum you can find)
• 2 oz Pina Colada mix (liquid mix, not powder)
• .5 oz Blue Curaçao
• about a 2 oz scoop of ice cream

This is a swirled drink so follow along carefully. Put the rum, Pina Colada mix, and ice cream in a blender with about a half cup of ice and blend until smooth (add more ice if necessary). In an empty glass, pour the .5 oz of Blue Curaçao. Finally, slowly and gently pour the frozen concoction into the glass with the Curaçao to get that swirled effect. Enjoy as is or top with whipped cream.

The Harry Mudd is made as a shot:

• .5 oz White Crème de Cocoa
• .5 oz Irish Cream
• .5 oz Butterscotch Schnapps
• .5 oz Goldschlager

Pour all ingredients and ice into a shaker cup, shake, strain into a shot glass and enjoy.

The shot can also be made as a drink:

• 1 oz White Crème de Cocoa
• 1 oz Irish Cream
• 1 oz Goldschlager

Combine all the ingredients into a blender with a couple scoops of vanilla ice cream, blend well, pour into a glass, then top with whipped cream and enjoy! (I like this one better than the shot.)

One of the most requested drinks, named after a drink that was mentioned on the “The Corbomite Maneuver”, an episode in the first season of Star Trek (The Original Series).

• 1 oz Coconut Rum (Malibu probably works best)
• 1 oz Peachtree Schnapps
• .25 oz Amaretto
• 2 oz Cranberry Juice
• 2 oz Pineapple Juice

Mix the Coco Rum, the Peach Schnapps, Cranberry and Pineapple Juices, over ice. Finally, float the Amaretto on the top and enjoy.

Chaotica’s Death Ray

This is a good drink if you like Banana. The Death Ray is as follows:

• 1 oz Malibu Coconut Rum (or any Coconut Rum)
• 1 oz Bacardi Superior (or any cheap, clear, white rum)
• 1 oz Bacardi 151 (or any cheap 151 proof rum)
• about 1 oz Cranberry Juice

Mix all the ingredients and pour over ice and drink away!

Probably our second most popular drink on the menu, after the Warp Core Breach of course.

• 1 oz Bacardi Superior (or any white rum)
• 1 oz Bacardi 151 (you can use any 151 proof rum I suppose, since you don’t drink it for the taste)
• 1 oz peach schnapps
• 1 oz triple sec

Basically mix all the ingredients listed together and pour over ice and there it is. If you can find it, peach sugar for the rim of the glass is the garnish we used.

Borg Sphere

I personally hate this drink, but enough of you have requested it so here it is:

• 4.5 oz vodka
• 3 oz white rum (i.e. Bacardi Superior or any other non-flavored clear rum)
• 3 oz melon liqueur (Midori is the most common brand but there are others)
• sweet & sour mix (common bar mixer found in any store)
• Sprite (can also use 7up or Sierra Mist)

Mix the alcohol in a pitcher or other container, add about 15 oz sweet & sour mix and about 15 oz sprite, food-grade dry ice for that smoking effect and also some regular ice.

Warp Core Breach

The Warp Core Breach was by far and away the most popular drink at Quark’s, and was even featured on an episode of Deep Space Nine (AFTER it was served at Quark’s, not the other way around).  It came in a giant fishbowl with dry ice and a bunch of straws, once one person ordered one, nearby tables would want one too. We all have stories of people taking one down by themselves and falling over drunk.  Good times.

• 4.5 oz Bacardi Superior (or any white, clear, cheap rum out there)
• 3 oz Bacardi Limon (or any lemon rum you can find)
• 1.5 oz Bacardi Select (Meyers Dark rum also works, or whatever dark rum your store has)
• 1.5 oz Bacardi Spice (Captain Morgan’s also works, but any spice rum will do)
• 1.5 oz Dekuyper Razzmatazz, this is the most important part, other Raspberry liqueurs don’t seem to work)
• .75 oz Bacardi 151 (any 151 proof rum will do, since they all seem to taste like gasoline by themselves)
• 30 oz Welch’s Mountain Berry. This is a great substitute for the Sobe Power fruit punch, which isn’t made anymore. The Mountain Berry lacks some of the tartness of the Sobe, but adding a pinch or two of powdered citric acid will do the trick.

Mix the alcohol, pour into a bowl, add the 30 oz of Welch’s Mountain Berry and food-grade dry ice and there you have it, the Warp Core Breach.

Note:  In the early days, they used to use a mix of equal parts cranberry juice, pineapple juice, and orange juice in the Warp Core instead of Sobe Power. Some prefer this juice mix and some prefer the Sobe. I say, use whichever you like best.

Quark’s served a number of beers on tap with fun Star Trek names:

• Romulan Ale = Pabst Blue Ribbon (though it has also been Gordon Biersch Golden Export and before that, Warsteiner Lager), with blue food coloring
• Klingon Warnog Ale = Pyramid Hefeweizen
• Klingon Blood Ale = Gordon Biersch Marzen (formerly Spaten)
• Trixian Bubble Draft = Bud Light (has also been Moretti’s Italian Lager and J.W. Dundee’s Honey Brown)
• Dominion Lager = Gordon Biersch Blonde Bock (years ago it was Krombacher)
• Obsidian Dark = Newcastle Brown Ale (Isenbeck when I first started)
• Cardassian Pale = Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
• Maporian Ale = Fat Tire Amber Ale

Copyright 2021 GeekShock. All Rights Reserved.

Star Trek: The Experience

Star Trek: The Experience was a US$70 million permanent Star Trek -themed attraction at the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel, owned by Cedar Fair Enterprise . It contained shops styled after the Deep Space 9 Promenade , a restaurant styled after Quark's , and the Klingon Encounter and Borg Invasion 4D rides. The store was the largest Star Trek -themed store in the world. Incorporated into the attraction was " The History of the Future Museum " exhibit , a large collection of props and artifacts.

Terry Farrell commented after a visit The Experience " I got jostled around and shot at. I didn't have to pretend to react for once. Instead of jumping around and shaking, the ride did it all for me. That was pretty cool ". ("Farrell's Fate", Star Trek Monthly  issue 43 )

• 1.1 Opening
• 1.2 Closing
• 2.1.1 Moogie's Trading Post
• 2.1.2 Admiral Collection
• 2.1.3 Molecular Imaging Chamber
• 2.1.4 Zek's Grand Emporium
• 2.1.5 Latinum Jewelers
• 2.1.6 Garak's Clothiers
• 2.2 Quark's Bar and Restaurant
• 2.3 The Captain's Lounge
• 2.4.2.1 Film credits
• 2.4.3.1 Stage credits
• 2.4.4 References
• 2.4.5 External link
• 2.5.2.1 Film credits
• 2.5.3.1 Stage credits
• 2.5.4 See also
• 2.5.5 References
• 2.5.6 External links
• 2.6 Star Trek The Experience Secrets Unveiled
• 2.7 The History of the Future Museum
• 3.1.1 Andorians
• 3.1.3 Ferengi
• 3.1.4 Klingons
• 3.1.5 Romulans
• 3.1.6 Vulcans
• 4 Attraction managerial staff
• 6 Further reading
• 7 External links

History [ ]

Proposed 1:1 scale USS Enterprise concept art

In 1992, Gary Goddard began developing The Starship Enterprise as an attraction in Las Vegas. It was intended to be a full-scale replica of the refit - USS Enterprise , both its exterior and interiors. The idea was rejected despite five months of planning as the cost would have been too high if the attraction had flopped. [1] (X)

The grandiose and ambitious scheme came close to fruition, though; newly-appointed Paramount Pictures studio head Sherry Lansing , for example, was strongly in favor of the project as proposed by Goddard as were her other conglomerate executive colleagues. However, it was their superior, Vice-President of Paramount Communications – the conglomerate holding company at that time before the acquisition by Viacom – Stanley R. Jaffe who vetoed the plan as proposed, the only executive to do so. [2] " Albert Einstein said it best: 'Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds', " Goddard sighed. He explained,

"All of our work, the effort to get Paramount, the mayor, and redevelopment committee aligned, everything had come to this moment. We were ready to go. Money in place, land provided by the city, license for the property negotiated with Paramount licensing – all set. If Mr. Jaffe says "yes" we are a "go". And the city wanted to have a press conference within a week announcing the project. So with everyone in the room, I take Mr. Jaffe through the project. With the art, the plans, the overall concept. After my spirited "pitch" everyone was beaming – everyone except Mr. Jaffe. Mr. Jaffe thanked us for the effort, and he congratulated us on creating a bold concept and presentation, and then went into a speech that went something like this: "You know, this is a major project. You're going to put a full-scale ENTERPRISE up in the heart of Las Vegas. And on one hand that sounds exciting. But on another hand, it might not be a great idea for us – for Paramount." Everyone in the room was stunned, most of all, me, because I could see where this was going. "In the movie business, when we produce a big movie and it's a flop – we take some bad press for a few weeks or a few months, but then it goes away. The next movie comes out and everyone forgets. But THIS – this is different. If this doesn't work – if this is not a success – it's there, forever…" I remember thinking to myself "oh my god, this guy does NOT get it…" And he said "I don't want to be the guy that approved this and then it's a flop and sitting out there in Vegas forever." "And with that, Mr. Jaffe in a single moment, destroyed about five months of work by a host of people, and killed one of the greatest ideas of all time. Stanley waltzed out of the room and I think everyone was stunned. No one could believe it. But our dream pretty much ended there. Sherry Lansing was stunned and apologized to the room and followed her boss out. The Paramount licensing team was embarrassed to say the least, and of course, they were also realizing they had just lost out on millions of dollars in future licensing revenues too. The mayor and the redevelopment committee were just depressed I think. But they thanked me for all the efforts I put into it, and for making the meetings with Paramount possible, and then they headed back to Las Vegas." [3]

Incidentally, Jaffe had actually saved Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country the year prior after it was canceled for pretty much the same "too expensive" reasons. ( see: Film background information for particulars )

Opening [ ]

In its scaled down scope, The Experience eventually opened with 2,500 on hand (including a host of "official" Star Trek alumni) for a gala premier on 3 January 1998. It was originally a property owned by Paramount Parks, built by the Landmark Entertainment Group resort/theme park developer and coordinated by the Paramount/Viacom (the new owner as of 1995) licensing division. It was sold to Cedar Fair, owner of Knott's Berry Farm, along with the other Paramount Parks division amid the parent Viacom split of CBS and Paramount Pictures in 2006.

On the Star Trek: Voyager Season 1 DVD , the sixteen-minute special feature , " Star Trek: The Experience ", explained the attraction, including interviews with some staff members and performers.

Closing [ ]

On 2 May 2008, TrekMovie.com reported the future of Star Trek: The Experience was in doubt due to declining attendance. On 2 July 2008, Cedar Fair and CBS Consumer Products officially announced that Star Trek: The Experience would be closing on 1 September 2008 , as no agreements were reached between the various parties needed to keep the attraction operational. Cedar Fair was required to completely vacate the space at the Hilton by 31 December 2008, when their contract with CBS expired. At the time, CBS stated that they were exploring several possibilities to keep The Experience running, possibly at another location. [4]

The closing ceremony was held on 1 September 2008. The public was invited to attend the ceremony, which was presented in the tradition of a naval decommissioning ceremony. Giving the keynote at the closing was Suzie Plakson , who introduced all the members of the Star Trek: The Experience staff. April Hebert, who played T'pril, was introduced last as the longest serving cast member of Star Trek: The Experience and given the United Federation of Planets banner. Chase Masterson was also in attendance for the closing ceremony, and Garrett Wang made a brief appearance at Quark's shortly before closing. Chad Boutte, Operations Manager of Star Trek: The Experience , gave the final speech with the final words "live long and prosper".

The production-used props and equipment displayed at the attraction were shipped back to Hollywood where Paramount Pictures will retain them in storage . [5]

Star Trek actor Robert Picardo , who performed in the Borg Invasion 4D , was critical of the decision to close the attraction right before the release of the new Star Trek film which he expected to revitalize the franchise . [6] (X)

According to a 6 Feb 2009 article from the Las Vegas Sun , Star Trek: The Experience was to reopen in the Neonopolis Mall in downtown Las Vegas on 8 May 2009. This ultimately did not happen, for reasons as yet unknown. It was stated that the date was chosen to coincide with the release of Star Trek . Reports stated that only the first phase would open this year, with the complete Experience to re-open in early 2010. On 10 April 2010, some of the unwanted props and equipment from the exhibit were sold at auction . [7] The " STAR TREK: THE EXPERIENCE Warehouse Sale" was handled by newly-formed auction house Propworx of Alec Peters in their first Star Trek auction. [8]

In April, 2011, CBS released a statement that the licensee was unable to meet the terms of the license for the attraction and hence the agreement was terminated. [9] CBS stated they remained committed to creating a new Star Trek attraction, either in Vegas or elsewhere. As of October, 2016, no new Star Trek attraction has been announced.

The Experience [ ]

Main atrium and entrance

Star Trek: The Experience played host to parties, receptions, weddings, scheduled events, and conventions. Those who wished to hold their wedding there could have it in Starfleet uniform on the bridge of the USS Enterprise -D , with Star Trek aliens such as Ferengi and Klingons as witnesses. The bridge facility was available for photo opportunities and costumes could be rented for the same.

The Klingon Encounter and Borg 4D adventure rides uniquely combined ride simulators, accurately detailed sets, special effects and trained, dedicated costumed live actors to make guests truly feel they were actually in the Trek universe. The site offered tie-in parties, photo opportunities and sidebar events when Creation Entertainment 's annual Star Trek convention was held at the Hilton in August.

Promenade shops [ ]

When Star Trek: The Experience originally opened, the promenade was two-stories tall. The first story featured the several shops where guests could purchase a plethora of Star Trek merchandise ranging from your typical branded souvenirs, to high end prop, costume and make-up replicas, and everything in between. Many products were produced exclusively for The Experience. The second story wasn't accessible to guests, but was fully themed to look like the upper level of the promenade on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine .

Moogie's Trading Post [ ]

Cruise the full line of exclusive Star Trek: The Experience apparel, accessories, and more for that perfect souvenir.

Moogie's Trading Post retailed a wide range of Star Trek -related products to the public, including a number produced for the Official Star Trek Fan Club , and was located outside of Quark's, just before the entrance to the Promenade.

Admiral Collection [ ]

Explore our collection of limited edition Star Trek memorabilia, authentic masks and props produced by the Paramount Pictures Studio Make-Up and Prop departments, beautifully sculpted ships, artwork, and other unique gifts, exclusively produced for Star Trek:The Experience. This is the shop for the true Star Trek collector.

Molecular Imaging Chamber [ ]

Transport yourself into a classic Star Trek scene using the latest state-of-the-art, green screen technology. Your souvenire lenticular photograph is provided in a custom Star Trek: The Experience photo holder

Zek's Grand Emporium [ ]

A Cardassian viewer inside a shop

Discover the largest collection of Star Trek products, apparel, gifts, souvenirs and other officially licensed Star Trek merchandise in the universe. There's something for everyone, from the browsing shopper to the avid Trekker.

Latinum Jewelers [ ]

Shop signs on the Promenade, including Latinum Jewelers

Garak's Clothiers [ ]

Shop signs on the Promenade, including Garak's Clothiers

Trek through our exclusive line of fashionable Star Trek clothing, jackets, accessories, gifts, jewelry and much, much more.

Quark's Bar and Restaurant [ ]

Quark's Bar & Restaurant was a fine dining establishment.

The Captain's Lounge [ ]

Around 2006, the promenade was remodeled to make better use of the second story. The themed second story closed off from the main promenade and converted into a lounge that could be rented out for meetings and receptions.

Klingon Encounter [ ]

The Klingon Encounter ride, was featured from the very opening of The Experience right up until its closure, making it the longest running show in the entire Star Trek franchise according to IMDb. [10] Still, due to budget cuts near the end of the attraction, the number of stage live performers accompanying the visitors, pursuant an earlier "Light Night Show"-schedule, was reduced to two bridge officers only. [11]

Initially, a group of about twenty visitors entered a rather confining room. (The exact number of participants varied, as friends and family were unlikely to split.) Once inside the room, one of the ride directors began speaking about the Experience and seemed to be intentionally making it sound unexciting, like you were "visiting a typical museum" and limited to a shuttle ride – motion simulator. During this initial lecture of Star Trek history, a small device displayed scenes from several Star Trek films .

The group entered the next room, where they were instructed via monitor about the shuttle ride when there was "trouble" with the monitors... then the lights went out. Dozens of small round flashes flickered through the darkness to simulate the "transporter effect", accompanied by the transporter sound effect and a rush of cold air. When the lights returned, the walls and floor had changed... you appeared to be on the transporter pad aboard the USS Enterprise -D. The layout was similar to the usual transporter room as seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation , and the group was facing a Starfleet uniformed transporter technician at their station.

While on the transporter pad, a Starfleet officer asked the group leaders (two ride-tour directors) to accompany them. An officer then explained that the visitors were beamed aboard the starship Enterprise and were in " what 'you' would call the future, the year 2371 ." He then requested the group to follow him. The group was led down a typical starship corridor to the bridge.

On the bridge, the group stood in the rear between the science stations and the tactical station. A crewmember explained that Captain Jean-Luc Picard disappeared the moment the group beamed aboard the Enterprise .

Although the three chairs that (from port to starboard) Counselor Deanna Troi , Picard, and Commander William T. Riker usually occupied were empty, that was only visible if one ventured to look over the semicircular counter that housed the tactical station.

Riker explains the situation…

There were various crewmembers busy on the bridge during this time, and they contacted Commander Riker, who promptly appeared on the main viewscreen . Riker explained that a group of rogue Klingons, led by Korath , transported your group to the future because "one of you is an ancestor of Captain Picard". Korath's plan was to kill the group, and prevent Picard's existence. Riker stated that your group was to escape via shuttlecraft and go through a temporal rift, which should return all the guests back to their original time, and restore the existence of Captain Picard.

While the group was in the turbolift , the Klingons attacked the Enterprise . There was a malfunction and the turbolift entered a (simulated) free fall. There were several jolts on the turbolift during the attack. Finally, the group arrived at the shuttle bay deck along a large section of corridor.

The group then lined up to board the shuttlecraft. Each line corresponded to a row of seats in the shuttle, so people in the same line would sit in the same row.

Korath declares victory…prematurely as it turns out

The shuttle ride, "led" by Geordi La Forge, began by exiting the Enterprise and entering a battle between the Enterprise and a few Klingon vessels. The shuttle went into warp and dropped out in the rings of a planet, where they were instructed to find and destroy a cloaking generator on the planet's surface. There were several dogfights during this time. The shuttle then returned through the temporal rift to present-day Las Vegas , buzzing the Sands Hotel at one point. However a Klingon ship followed, and locked a tractor beam on the group's shuttle. " It's over, Humans! " Korath exclaims " But take heart, today is a good day to die! " Suddenly a familiar voice states " If you say so, Korath... " The Klingon ship and then exploded in front of you as the Enterprise flew triumphantly through the ship's destruction, complete with Goldsmith -esque fanfare. The shuttle landed at the Las Vegas Hilton, in a unique manner, and the ride ended, right next to the "motion simulators" the visitors were supposedly waiting to enter before they were "beamed off" at the start of the story. Before the crew of the Enterprise left, Captain Picard opened a communique to the shuttle and thanked the group for "restoring his existence." He stated " While only one of you is my ancestor, each of you holds that same opportunity for the future. Guard it well. "

The DS9 docking port exit

The shuttle door opened, and typically there was a custodian behind it. He explained that the shuttle fell through the floor and that you were in a restricted area, and you must leave immediately. The custodian led the group to an elevator and then out to the Deep Space 9 Promenade and Quark's Bar and Restaurant . While waiting for the elevator, the group members could watch a monitor with a "breaking" local Las Vegas "news broadcast" featuring the "UFO" sightings that were the Klingons and the Enterprise .

Film background information [ ]

• This script, replacing an initial story offered by attraction developer Landmark and rejected by Star Trek then-Executive Producer Rick Berman , was written by actual Star Trek series writers Rene Echevarria ( TNG and DS9 ) and Kenneth Biller ( VOY ). It was intentionally meant to play on participants' role as Las Vegas tourists, rather than as residents of the Star Trek future.
• Ira Steven Behr commented: " I think probably one of the fun moments that we had was René Echevarria was co-writing the motion ride at the Hilton Hotel in Vegas. He had never been on a motion ride. He kept saying, 'How do I write this? What’s it like being out on a motion ride?'. He was just complaining days, and days, and days. One morning, some Wednesday morning, we came in to have our story break. We barely had sat down, and René was talking something about the motion ride. I said, 'Okay, we’re going to Disneyland. We’re going to go on Star Tours, and René’s going to sit on Star Tours and know what it’s like to be on a motion ride. He will now shut up, and then we can get back to work'. I took the entire staff down to Disneyland. We went on Star Tours, and also Indiana Jones because they begged me, which had just opened at the time. Then we went back to the office . [12]

Film credits [ ]

• Mario Kamberg
• David de Vos – Hi-definition sequences
• Gene Roddenberry – Creator "Star Trek"
• Kenneth Biller – written by
• René Echevarria – written by
• Vaughn Armstrong as Korath
• LeVar Burton as Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge
• David de Vos as News Reporter
• Edward Dentzel as Security Officer
• Jonathan Frakes as Commander William T. Riker
• A.J. Gardner as Lt. Cmdr. T'Khyla
• John C. McDonnell as Various (voice)
• Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard (voice only)
• Debra Wilson as Security Officer
• David Berry as Fan
• Cameron as Kellogg
• Bruce Hyde as Himself
• Rick Berman – Executive Producer
• Sharon Davis – Producer
• David de Vos – Producer
• Sharon Davis
• Guy Tsujimoto – Sound Editor
• Erik Akutagawa – Scan/Record Operator
• Lisa Atkinson – Digital Production Manager
• Tony Barraza – Avid Assist
• Barbara A. Bordo – Digital Paint & Roto Artist
• Megan Bryant – Digital Camera Supervisor
• John Butiu – Rhythm & Hues : Modeler
• Jeffrey Castel De Oro – Scanning and Recording Operator
• Lisa Clarity – Visual Effects Artist
• Brian Gardner – Software Developer
• Ian Hulbert – Rhythm & Hues: Digital Artist
• Alessandro Jacomini – Rhythm & Hues: Lighting Artist
• Paul Newell – Animation Software
• Chris Olivia – Effects Animator
• Scott Peterson – Technical Director
• Kristina Reed – Visual Effects Producer
• Robert Schajer – Production Coordinator
• Suponwich Juck Somsaman – Rhythm & Hues: CG Supervisor
• Stephanie Taylor – Visual Effects Coordinator
• Stephan Martiniere – Rhythm & Hues: Conceptual Designer
• Kevin Tengan – Systems Administrator
• David de Vos – Producer High-definition Sequences
• Herman F. Zimmerman – Design Consultant
• Paramount Pictures
• Rhythm & Hues Studios (as Rhythm and Hues)

C. Clayton Blackwell and Charles O'Neill, have IMDb cast credits as "Security Officer" and "Starfleet"; this is formally incorrect however, as they were part of the stage live performance crew, and not part of the film. Likewise, the majority of the "Other crew" and "Companies" worked on the live part of the attraction and not the film.

Attraction background information [ ]

• Several faithfully-recreated locales comprise this ride, including the Enterprise transporter room , bridge, and a shuttlebay . Longtime Star Trek Production Designer Herman Zimmerman was contracted to oversee design and construction as accurately as feasible, although some features – such as standard lighted exit signs, not Starfleet-style signage – had to be compromised for real-world building and safety codes.
• The bridge – complete with animated controls and working viewscreen – could be rented for private functions, such as weddings.
• In 2004, two of the four bridge sets and others were compressed or rearranged to make room for the new sister attraction, Borg Invasion 4D .
• The title Klingon Encounter was coined only after the second ride was added. Previously, it had simply been known as just the " Star Trek: The Experience ride."

Stage credits [ ]

• Transporter Officer (lieutenant)
• Ensign Thomas
• Lt. Edwards, Ops Officer
• Conn Officer (ensign)
• Grand Corridor Officer (guided guests from the turbolift to the shuttlebay)
• Shuttle Bay Officer (put guests on the shuttle flight simulator)
• Janitor/Custodian
• Charles Clayton Blackwell [14]
• Stephanie Firestone
• Bonnie Gordon
• James "Jim" Hilton [15]
• Kimmie Kidd
• Miriam Krasny
• Charles O'Neill [16]
• Andrew Redmond
• David C. Cobb – Attraction Developer
• Linda Danet – Production Coordinator
• Charles D. Kelly – Site Art Director
• Anthony Esparza – Senior Vice President: Design & Entertainment
• Gary Goddard – Writer, Producer
• Joseph Neibich – Production Staff
• Penny Smartt-Juday – Project Coordinator
• Cuningham Group: Architect of Record
• Gary Goddard Entertainment : Production Company
• Landmark Entertainment Group : Production Company
• McFadden Systems, Inc. : Shuttlecraft Ride
• Paramount Parks: Production Company
• Rick Berman Productions: – Creative Consultancy and Production Company
• The Levy Restaurants: Restaurant operation

References [ ]

2371 ; USS Enterprise -D ; Klingon Bird-of-Prey ; Las Vegas ; time travel ; turbolift

External link [ ]

• Klingon Encounter at the Internet Movie Database

Borg Invasion 4D [ ]

The Borg Invasion 4D ride, christened under its original working title Star Trek: Borg Encounter for the Bremen, Germany venue, opened on 18 March 2004 . It was developed by Paramount Parks, working closely with Rick Berman Productions , Viacom Consumer Products, and a number of Star Trek consultants and creators to ensure the authenticity of the experience. Threshold Digital Research Labs produced the visual effects and 3D film portion. While an official franchise production, events depicted in the film are, as usual for these types of productions (therefore also including the above featured Klingon ride), not considered canon . The entire ride, including the film, lasted for about 25 minutes.

As with its sister Klingon ride, due to budget cuts near the end of the attraction, the number of stage live performers accompanying the visitors, pursuant an earlier "Light Night Show" schedule, was reduced to three, of which only one was Borg, where there were previously half a dozen. [17]

Effects for the ride included droplets of water, wind bursts, minor motion, and jabbing of the occupants – in the back and under the legs – through their chairs, thus the "4D" in the title. (Though mild, the unexpected sensations could be startling.)

Arriving at Copernicus Station

This ride took groups of up to 48 people at a time. They entered a briefing room aboard the Starfleet science research facility Copernicus Station. The briefing room had a large viewscreen in the front beyond a podium, upon which several Starfleet personnel stood. There was also a Starfleet officer on the opposite side of the room. On the screen, The Doctor from USS Voyager appeared and greeted the group. He explained that the group had been selected to undergo medical testing because some of the members were immune to Borg nanotechnology (which he "detected" when the group entered the room). In the middle of his presentation to the guests, The Doctor was interrupted by one of the station administrators. She said that they had detected a ship approaching the station at high warp. Since it didn't respond to communications, the station went to yellow alert (as the lights dimmed). The administrator said that they would postpone the medical testing until this possible threat was dealt with.

Copernicus Station under attack by a Borg cube

When the tactical officer of the station had a visual, the administrator said " Let's see it. " Lo and behold, in all its grim glory, it was a full size Borg cube that slowly and ominously approached the station. The officers in the room and The Doctor all shared the same grim expression, knowing that difficult times were ahead. The station went to red alert (with the lights flashing red) and the administrator gave orders to open fire on the cube; the ground shook beneath and the sound of phasers and quantum torpedoes firing thunderously were heard. The cube appeared to sustain heavy damage, but was still able to tractor a section of the station away. The administrator requested a young security officer, Lt. Elkins, to get to the docking bay and help evacuate the visitors. He complied but informed her that they suffered heavy damage. The Borg located the testing facility and as The Doctor informed them to brace for impact, the cube fired a projectile, and all the lights went dark, but not before hearing a large amount of static. Then, all as one, the dreaded automata spoke. " We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. "

Borg drones overrunning the station

The viewscreen came back online, and The Doctor checked in with Lt. Elkins. When The Doctor asked if Elkins was all right, he reported " For now. There's an extraordinary amount of damage down here. Sir, the Borg have entered the facility. The station's being overrun. " The Doctor then told the group to get to the shuttle Olympia while there was still time; at this point he delivered the relevant safety instructions for the ride. As he was about to end the transmission, you saw a group of Borg drones enter behind him. The Doctor proceeded to fire a phaser, and you saw one of the medical technicians injected with Borg nanoprobes as his skin turned ghastly white, and his veins turned black. Frantically The Doctor told Elkins, from the viewscreen, that they needed to evacuate and then disappeared from view as a group of drones approached his position. A security officer entered the room, and led the group to the next room: a corridor that looks severely damaged.

As the group was in the corridor, a drone appeared to move towards the group, but turned instead to examine an LCARS computer panel. Starfleet Commander Markus told the group that he posed no threat at the moment, then the door the officer was standing in front of opened and a drone pulled him into a turbolift as he screamed and yelled at the group to save themselves. At the opposite end of the room was Commander Ross on an elevated station. He proceeded to try and open the next door, but instead shot the panel with his phaser as the drone that was examining the computer console moved towards the group. That drone was eliminated, but as the door to the shuttle opened, an unseen drone pulled the officer up from the ceiling as he screamed.

The Borg Queen in her chamber

The group then entered a room that purported to be the holding area of an escape vessel. Everyone picked up "safety glasses" (3D goggles) and sat down. The shuttle took off from the station, but was pulled inside the Borg cube. The front of the shuttle was blown open (utilizing 3D effects) and bird-like cybernetic lifeforms approached, scanning the ship and passengers. Elkins instructed Flemming to remain with the passengers as he attempted to fend them off inside the cube. As he fired at the creatures, two drones transported to his position and transported him away. Small Borg probes entered the shuttle and sprayed the group with nanoprobes. They wriggled under the skin (by way of motion prods under the seats) as the Borg Queen appeared. She began lecturing about the perfection of the Borg Collective and demanded the surrender of the group's inhibitions and instructed them to join the hive mind.

The Doctor admonishing the captured group to hold out

As the nanoprobes took hold, you were subjected to a hallucination of the Collective from the point of view of drones, moving through the cube. You entered an assimilation chamber and saw Lt. Elkins undergoing assimilation . At that moment, The Doctor projected himself into the hallucination, telling the group to fight it. " You are resistant to assimilation! Fight it! We're coming for you, help is on the... " He then cut out. The group, now out of the hallucination, listened to the Queen as she began lecturing, purporting that no one had ever resisted assimilation. Then, another communication entered the ship and a familiar female voice said, " Maybe it's time we even the sides. " The Queen looked abashed. " Janeway ! " she screamed.

USS Voyager to the rescue...

Admiral Kathryn Janeway appeared on two side viewscreens as you saw Voyager burst through the far side of the cube and begin to approach the audience's shuttle. Janeway began to addresses the Queen: " Stand aside, I've come to take these people home. " " In a moment, this cube and everything in it will be incinerated . " the Queen said. Janeway skeptically fired back, " You'd sacrifice an entire cube to destroy us? " " You're a fool Janeway, there will always be more drones! " the Queen yelled. "Voyager and these unique individuals will be a more significant loss! " " We're not losing anyone. " Janeway confidently said. She then asked, " Doctor? "

The Doctor then materialized on a platform near the front of the shuttle, informing the pilot that shield frequencies had been altered allowing the shuttle to raise its defenses. " This is useless! " The Queen yelled. " You're all trapped! " " Don't be too sure " Janeway said, as Voyager fired phasers on the Queen's position. She appeared to beam out before she could be destroyed. Janeway then ordered, " Fire quantum torpedoes! " Voyager obliged, as The Doctor held off the remaining nanoprobes with a hand phaser in time for the force field on the shuttle's bow to be activated. Janeway then beamed The Doctor to Voyager and left the cube in shambles as she locked her tractor beam on the group's shuttle, and the group was then treated to the magnificent explosion of the Borg cube as it was defeated by the Federation. " Savor your victory! " the Queen yelled. " We will meet again! "

Returning to Copernicus Station

On the way back to Copernicus Station, The Doctor appeared and addressed the audience. " We did it! What a remarkable encounter! Oh, the papers I'll be able to publish! Of course I'll need several weeks with all of you back at Copernicus for observation! " As The Doctor laughed, Admiral Janeway chimed in. " Doctor? I think they've been through enough, thank you. " The Doctor dropped his shoulders in sadness and obliged, " Yes, admiral " as he dematerialized.

As the shuttle docked back at Copernicus Station, Janeway spoke to the audience one final time: " Congratulations. You resisted the Borg with the one thing the Queen can never assimilate: the Human spirit. So long as we have that, resistance is never futile. " The theme to the Voyager television show then played, and everyone was directed to exit to the right. [18]

• As with the Experience story that was eventually called Klingon Encounter , this script was penned by a Star Trek veteran, Voyager writer Lisa Klink .
• Since the production of the television franchise was still up and running at the time in the form of Star Trek: Enterprise , many of its production staffers served on the making of the film for the ride; these also included senior staffers such as Producer Dave Rossi , and, again, Visual Effects Producer Dan Curry as well as Production Designer Herman Zimmerman among others. Most of the regular production staff were however not officially credited. Director Ty Granoroli however, was new to the Star Trek franchise. ( VOY Season 7 DVD -special feature, "The Making of Borg Invasion 4D")
• This is the first Star Trek production to have ever been shot digitally.
• Many of the Borg featured in the film (as opposed to the attraction live crew performing as such) were played by performers who had already done so for Star Trek: First Contact (or for the respective Star Trek: Voyager television episodes); " It was a most joyful reunion, " Alice Krige , who reprised her role as the Borg Queen, declared tongue-in-cheek. When presented with the first 3D footage of her close-up scenes, Krige admitted to being flabbergasted by her own in-your-face performance. ( VOY Season 7 DVD special feature, "The Making of Borg Invasion 4D")
• Many Borg set pieces used in the film were surviving pieces from First Contact , after having been recycled themselves for use in Voyager . For the set construction, Production Designer Zimmerman reprised the same role (though remaining uncredited) he had on the live-action television and movies productions for this outing. ( VOY Season 7 DVD -special feature, "The Making of Borg Invasion 4D")

Filming the Admiral Janeway scenes in October 2002

• First unit photography with the principal cast was done in the autumn of 2002, over a year after Voyager had wrapped, and with Kate Mulgrew , reprising her Janeway character as admiral, she had just previously played in Star Trek Nemesis . Hers were the first scenes shot in October for the film. ( VOY Season 7 DVD -special feature, "The Making of Borg Invasion 4D")
• As former Foundation Imaging – the visual effects company that had provided these for three Star Trek television productions – Visual Effects Supervisor Adam Lebowitz , now serving in a similar function at Threshold Digital Research Labs, had access to the digital database of previously used CGI live-action production starship studio models , and several of these were – mostly as scenic backdrops in the opening and closing scenes – featured in the film, the most noticeable ones being obviously those of the Borg cube and USS Voyager . Since Voyager was slated to make a dramatic, very large screen entry in the film, the digital model had to be re- rendered at Threshold at a far higher resolution than had been necessary for the small television screens, a task Lebowitz and Lee Stringer (also formerly of Foundation) themselves performed, as they already had intimate working experience with the model for Star Trek: Voyager . [19]
• The CGI models for the Olympia shuttle and Copernicus Station, on the other hand, were newly-constructed by Doug Drexler , though for the longest of times he was not aware of it; when he posted a by him constructed CGI shuttle on his blog in 2009, he, after first incorrectly believing it was merely a rejected build for the title sequence of Enterprise , only could remember that he " (...) was building the model in the art department when I got the word that Foundation had already begun their version, so it was never completed. " This indicated that it was nevertheless built for the first season of the new series, as Foundation Imaging only worked on that season before the company went out of business. His blog participants almost immediately recognized the shuttle as having been featured in the the Borg ride four years later, much to Drexler's glee, " That's the great thing about blogging with you guys! It makes me remember! Yes! I do believe it was used as the Olympia . I think I turned this over to Threshold, along with a starbase model. Was there a starbase in the story? " [20] (X) And indeed there was, also immediately identified by blog participants as having been featured in the ride, when Drexler posted that model a short time later. [21] (X) As it turned out, Drexler was at the time requested to turn over his models to Threshold for use in the ride. Unaware of that latter fact, but thinking nothing further of it, Drexler dutifully complied by handing over his, what he believed, Enterprise rejects. At Threshold the models were completed under the supervision of Drexler's former Foundation superior Lebowitz, and featured as the Olympia and Copernicus Station. By posting the two models, it had even helped the designer of both, John Eaves , to have his memory jogged, " I just found the art work for this one!!! I forgot What we were doing this for but so loved the modeling you did on it and that crazy tikki faced space station!!! " [22] (X)
• The Borg Queen chamber was in part constructed by Digital Modeler Fabio Passaro , employed at the time at Threshold. Passaro recalled, " I was commissioned to create a part of the Borg Chamber used in the ride. The scene consisted of nearly 3 million polygons or so and was built to strict outside dimensions although I was asked to detail the inside of the chamber to my own tastes but in fitting with the Borg theme. " [23]
• Ty Granoroli
• Eric Braun as Security officer
• Jade Carter as Lt. Elkins/Assimilated Borg drone
• John Jurgens as Borg drone
• Alice Krige as the Borg Queen
• Kate Mulgrew as Admiral Kathryn Janeway
• Robert Picardo as The Doctor
• Joseph Will as a Chief security officer
• Bill Blair as Borg drone 6 of 9
• Mark Major as Borg drone
• Tom Miller as Borg drone
• Louis Ortiz as Borg drone
• Keith Rayve as Borg drone
• Pablo Soriano as Borg drone
• Linda Danet – Associate Producer
• George Johnsen – Producer
• Patrick Peach – Co-Producer
• Alison Savitch – Producer
• Douglas Yellin – Executive Producer
• Dennis McCarthy
• Peter Anderson
• Vince Pace – Director of Photography
• Jonathan A. Carlson
• David DeLeon – Makeup Supervisor
• Patrick Peach – Unit Production Manager
• Greg Zekowski – First Assistant Director
• Megan Oliver – Painter
• Ken Peterson – Property Master
• Larry Nemecek – Property Consultant (Copernicus Lab)
• Michael Darren – Sound Designer/Sound Re-recording Mixer
• James Fielden – Sound Effects Editor/Sound Re-recording Mixer
• Courtney Goodin – Sound Mixer
• George Johnsen – Sound Re-recording Mixer
• Matt Corrigan – Special Effects Technician
• Roger Kelton – Special Effects Technician
• Thomas Banner – Digital Artist
• Brent Burpee – Systems Engineer
• Jim Carbonetti – 3DBlast, Inc. : Compositing Supervisor/Stereoscopic Supervisor
• Toni Pace Carstensen – Visual Effects Producer
• Loressa Clisby – Digital Artist
• Julie Groll – Visual Effects Coordinator
• George Johnsen – Visual Effects Chief Technology Officer
• David Kenneth – Visual Effects Producer
• Joseph J. Lawson – Visual Effects Artist
• Adam 'Mojo' Lebowitz – Threshold Digital Research Labs : Visual Effects Supervisor (2002-2003)
• Josh McGuire – Threshold Digital Research Labs: Digital Effects Artist
• Garrett McKerlie – Digital Artist
• Dennis Michel – Digital Artist
• Greg Nelson – Lead Compositor
• Fabio Passaro – Threshold Digital Research Labs: Digital Effects Artist
• Daniel Ritchie – Digital Effects Artist
• Malcolm A.S. Sim – Digital Artist
• Lee Stringer – Threshold Digital Research Labs: Digital Artist
• Eric Braun – Stunt Performer
• Anthony Gregori – Grip
• Andrew Korner – Electrician
• Fran Murphy – Key Costumer
• Dennis McCarthy – Conductor
• James Anderson – Assistant to Director
• Mary Anne Seward – Script Supervisor
• Dan Curry – Visual Effects Producer
• Doug Drexler – Digital Modeler
• John Eaves – Concept Designer
• Charles Myers – Executive Producer
• Michael Okuda – Supervising Scenic Artist
• Dave Rossi – Producer
• Cassandra Ulinski – Assistant to George Johnsen
• Michael Westmore – Supervising Makeup Designer
• Herman Zimmerman – Consulting Production Designer
• Paramount Pictures (all media)
• 3DBlast Inc.
• Threshold Digital Research Labs

C. Clayton Blackwell, Charles O'Neill, and Vernon Ray Wilmer Jr. have IMDb cast credits as "Science officer", "Starfleet officer", and "Borg drone 7", respectively; this is formally incorrect, however, as they were part of the stage live performance crew, and not part of the film. Likewise several production staffers and companies are only associated with the attraction and not the film.

• This is the first all-digital motion picture to incorporate live-action and animation within a 3D cinema environment.
• This is the first multiple-angle 3D cinema production with 3D effects from the front, overhead and both right and left sides of the participant.
• This is the first world-wide attraction to use 2K digital cinema projection, which is twice as clear as other digital projection systems.
• The parallel German Star Trek: Borg Encounter attraction actually opened a month earlier than its American counterpart, on 12 February 2004, [24] [25] as part of a larger indoor science-fiction themed attraction in the "Space Center Bremen". [26] However, the attraction had already had to close its doors in September that year, in part due to being unable to make projected attendance figures, as the new large mall it inhabited, Space Park Bremen, failed to attract other tenants. [27] The costly overall attraction, of which Borg Encounter was only a part alongside several others stemming from other science fiction franchises ( Stargate SG-3000 ), as well as from real world spaceflight, ran for only six months, and its high-tech stages stood subsequently idle until ultimately dismantled in January 2008. [28] (X)
• Lt. Stevens
• Commander Markus (pulled into turbolift shaft by Borg)
• Commander Ross (pulled through roof by Borg)
• Lt. Flemming
• Charles Clayton Blackwell
• April Hebert [30]
• James "Jim" Hilton [31]
• Kimmie Kidd [32]
• Charles O'Neill [33]
• Vernon Ray Wilmer Jr. [34]
• Christopher Bell as "Borg Drone 2 of 16"
• Charles Kelley as "Borg Drone 5 of 16"
• Nicholas Kennedy as "Borg Drone 8 of 16"
• Damon A Shaw as "Borg Drone 13 of 16"
• Vernon Wilmer as " Borg drone 7 of 16 "
• Electrosonic: Show control, projection and audio-visual systems; both Las Vegas and Bremen venues. [35] (X)
• Matilda Entertainment : Production Company
• Space Park Bremen: Production Company
• Technifex Inc.: Special effects design and production, custom motion platform; both Las Vegas and Bremen venues. [36]

See also [ ]

• VOY Season 7 DVD -special feature, "The Making of Borg Invasion 4D"
• Star Trek Evolutions -special feature, "Borg Invasion 4D"

2379 ; assimilation ; Borg drone ; quantum torpedo ; Voyager , USS

External links [ ]

• Borg Invasion 4D at the Internet Movie Database
• Star Trek: Borg Encounter (X) at BremenSpaceCenter.de (X) (former German official site)

Star Trek The Experience Secrets Unveiled [ ]

Star Trek The Experience Secrets Unveiled was a paid, fully guided, behind-the-scenes look at the various productions that went into making The Experience . It was offered daily at limited times, so as not to interfere with other attractions, participants would wear wireless headsets and see how the many special effects were executed, the tour would occasionally pause while "backstage" to allow a production to continue. The tour would also walk around promenade to see how the production on characters costumes, make up, and character histories were developed – for example, actors playing Klingons were required to learn Klingonese , and actors playing Ferengi had to memorize the Rules of Acquisition . Upon completion, a customized certificate was presented to attendees, who also signed a guestbook.

The History of the Future Museum [ ]

The History of the Future Museum was the permanent exhibition part of the Experience and consisted of galleries with production items on display in glass cabinets. While many items were indeed production used (a notable one being the Picard family album ), there were also many commissioned and/or commercial replicas on display, such as Nomad or the Daedalus -class model , to beef out the exhibit, especially where Star Trek: The Original Series – though the exhibit was able to display production-used recreations from the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode " Trials and Tribble-ations ", produced nearly two years prior to its opening – was concerned, of which not many original production items were still in the possession of the franchise. The exhibit expanded when items from Voyager , Enterprise , Star Trek: Insurrection , and Star Trek Nemesis were added, which were either still, or not yet, in production when the attraction opened. Regular Star Trek production staffer Penny L. Juday served as the primary curator of the exhibit. ( Star Trek Generations (Special Edition) DVD special feature, "Picard's Family Album")

Some of the larger display pieces, such as the mannequins dressed in Star Trek attire, were part of a "roaming display", displayed at various points in time at various locations throughout the Experience .

Upon closure of the Experience , the exhibit continued to exist in spirit, if not physically, as the Star Trek The Exhibition traveling exhibit tour, which started its run three months prior to the closure of the Experience , with many display items subsequently moving over to that venue.

Live actors [ ]

The attraction was comprised of a rotating cast of actors. No actor was assigned to any particular part permanently, thereby being "Swing Actors" for either ride attraction, as live performer Charles Blackwell has dubbed themselves. [37] A partial exception were the Borg performers, as their Borg costumes and appliances were made to fit. But as not to be subjected all the time to the grueling makeup routine, sixteen Borg (plus an additional six with non-functional costumes and appliances for the restaurant exclusively), who were not employed all at once, were conceived for the ride, giving the actors the opportunity to play other roles as well. Listed below are those actors not yet mentioned above, and reiterated are those who had other performances aside from the Klingon and Borg rides.

• Lysander Abadia – Starfleet ( Borg Invasion , Klingon Encounter ) [38]
• Christopher Aguilar – Starfleet ( Borg Invasion , Klingon Encounter ) [39]
• Dustin Ardine – Lead Deck Officer [40]
• Gretchen Baker – Starfleet ( Borg Invasion , Klingon Encounter ), Ferengi character "Risca" (Quark's Bar and Restaurant) [41]
• Elizabeth Belcastro – Starfleet ( Borg Invasion , Klingon Encounter ) [42]
• Lisa Blake – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion ) [43]
• Gina Burgos – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion ) [44]
• Chad Boutte – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion )
• Cindy Cheney-Wykes – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter )
• Wendee Lee Curtis – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion )
• Tom Deishley – Klingon character "General Motog" (Quark's Bar and Restaurant)
• Eric Deloretta – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion )
• Eric Ford [45]
• Jerad Formby – Ferengi character "Quan" (Quark's Bar and Restaurant)
• Russell Giles – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion ) [46]
• Nancy Hardy – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion )
• Michael Hartnett – Borg Drone character 3 of 6 (Quark's Bar and Restaurant)
• April Hebert – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion ), Vulcan character "Professor T'pril" (Quark's Bar and Restaurant), Andorian character "Commander Tahryn" (Quark's Bar & Restaurant)
• Brad Hoover – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion )
• Patrick G. Keenan – Ferengi (Quark's Bar & Restaurant) [47]
• Brigid Kelly – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion ) [48]
• Markus Kublin – Klingon character "Commander Kurmas" (Quark's Bar and Restaurant)
• Melvin Ladera – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion )
• Monteford Light – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion )
• Kerry Loomis – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter [49] , Borg Invasion ), Romulan character "Loriq" (Quark's Bar and Restaurant) [50]
• David Lovan III – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion )
• Patricia "Patty" Madden-Waites – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion ) [51]
• Joann Naban-Bronson – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion )
• Richard Oden – Ferengi character "Rog'l" (Quark's Bar and Restaurant)
• Nicole Padberg – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion ) [52]
• Darren Pitura – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion )
• Chad Randall – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion ) [53]
• George Rieth – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion ), Vulcan character "Sovek" (Quark's Bar & Restaurant) [54]
• Diana Saunders – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion ) [55]
• D.P. Shapiro – Starfleet [56]
• Lynn Sterling – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter ), Klingon character "Major Kahlen" (Quark's Bar and Restaurant)
• Kerstan Szczepanski – Andorian character "K'Stran" (Quark's Bar and Restaurant)
• Mark Weitz – Klingon character "Commander Churoq" (Quark's Bar and Restaurant)
• Vernon Wilmer – Borg Drone character 7 of 16 ( Borg Invasion , Quark's Bar and Restaurant), Starfleet ( Borg Invasion ), Lt. "Pep" Streebeck (PR Events), Unofficial Historian for Star Trek: The Experience
• Cameron Wright – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter , Borg Invasion ), Bajoran character "Eron-Cam" (Quark's Bar and Restaurant) [57]
• Walter Wykes – Starfleet ( Klingon Encounter )

Shortly before The Experience closed its doors, several of the actors took it upon themselves to record their behind-the-scenes experiences for posterity, as most of them had been working for years at the attraction. This they had to do surreptitiously, as management had expressly prohibited such activity. Long after the attraction had closed its doors, four "Actor's Perspectives" shorts were posted in the internet channel YouTube , three pertaining to the Klingon ride and one to the Borg ride. [58]

Tom Deishley, Jared Formby and Michael Harnett were featured in their respective roles in the VOY Season 1 DVD -special feature " Star Trek: The Experience ".

Live alien cast character backgrounds [ ]

Andorians [ ].

K'Stran Thral

Three of Six

Seven of Sixteen

Ferengi [ ]

Coin ("Quan")

Klingons [ ]

Romulans [ ]

Vulcans [ ]

Attraction managerial staff [ ]

• Chad Boutte – Paramount Parks: Operations Manager and Director of Marketing
• VOY Season 1 DVD - special feature , "Star Trek: The Experience"
• Star Trek: The Next Generation Motion Picture Collection (Blu-ray) bonus disc (aka " Star Trek Evolutions ") special features , "Farewell to Star Trek: The Experience", " Klingon Encounter " and " Borg Invasion 4D "
• Star Wars vs. Star Trek: The Rivalry Continues -special feature, "The Star Trek Experience"

Further reading [ ]

• "Star Trek: The Experience – Las Vegas Hilton", Kevin Dilmore , Star Trek: Communicator  issue 113 , August/September 1997, pp. 69-73
• "Star Trek: The Experience", Part 2, Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 3, Issue 4 , pp. 104-106
• Star Trek: The Experience at Wikipedia
• How Star Trek Came to Las Vegas at StarTrek.com
• The Tricorder Transmissions ; site exploring various Experience stage crew performers
• Star Trek: The Experience at Flickr.com ; large photo album shot by staffer after the attraction was permanently closed, but before being struck, featuring only attraction staffers
• Star Trek: The Experience 360 Virtual Tour
• Star Trek: My Experience (X) at blip.tv (X) ; Documentary series by stage performer Vernon Wilmer
• 1 USS Voyager (NCC-74656-A)
• 2 Daniels (Crewman)
• 3 Star Trek: Prodigy

The Next Generation in Star Trek Theme Park Rides

Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton

Note: Star Trek: The Experience closed in September 2008. You can read about the defunct attraction in the following review.

One of the world’s most detailed and engaging theme park attractions wasn’t in a theme park. Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton transported guests into the 24th century for a one-of-a-kind interactive adventure.

Star Trek meets Las Vegas ? You bet! As if the famous gaming capital wasn't otherworldly enough, the ambitious Experience blasted guests to a future alterna-universe that was utterly convincing. You would have sworn that you were beamed into a real-life Trek episode.

From start to finish, the level of commitment to the storytelling was truly astonishing. More than a motion simulator ride , The Experience was a 25-minute immersion into the Trek oeuvre, complete with live actors, multiple sets, shuttle bays, and Klingons. It was holodeck nirvana.

• Thrill Scale (0=Wimpy!, 10=Yikes!): 4
• Type: Motion-base simulator with highly immersive pre-show.
• Height restriction (minimum, in inches): 42
• Location: Las Vegas Hilton, just off the Strip.

The fun began in the Hilton’s North Tower. (By the way, the Las Vegas Hilton is now known as the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino.) At one end of the Space Quest casino (which, with its laser beams, giant video screens, and touch-sensitive slot machines was an attraction in itself), guests entered the History of the Future museum to the fanfare of various Star Trek theme songs.

A large scale model of the starship Enterprise hung from the ceiling. Props, costumes, video snippets, and other Trek drek from the television shows and movies filled the museum, which doubled as the queue for the attraction. With the displays, there was little risk of line boredom.

Yes, Participants Were Beamed Up

When it was time for crews to report for their missions, a uniformed guide escorted them to a holding area. The guide offered some standard simulator ride warnings and directed guests to watch monitors for more of the usual pre-boarding announcements.

Suddenly the monitors went blank, rays of light enveloped the guests, an unmistakable Trek transporter room sound filled the air, and the room became dark for a moment. When the lights came up, the room was transformed and visitors had been beamed aboard the USS Enterprise, circa the 24th century and Star Trek: The Next Generation .

It was a startling illusion, and the 21st-century guide helped maintain the fantasy by playing along. A breathless Enterprise officer greeted the group and explained that a gang of rogue villains sent Captain Picard back in time in exchange for the Vegas stowaways. The guests’ mission: Get back to the nickel slots where they belonged so that Captain Picard could return and say “Engage!” in his inimitable way. The officer whisked the group off to the bridge.

The actors and sets made the attraction. They had a commanding presence, conveyed a lot of enthusiasm, and never broke character. Looking nifty in their Starfleet uniforms, some of them were busy on the bridge punching buttons and raising shields to avert enemy fire. For the approximately two-dozen guests that shared each Experience, eight performers interacted with them throughout the course of the attraction. That’s a high ratio and helped convey the realism of the attraction.

Where’s the Whoosh?

With its blinking lights, banks of screens, and other familiar touchstones, the bridge was a faithful reproduction. From the bridge, one of the officers led 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 opened and closed, they didn’t make that Trekian “whoosh” sound.

With the ship taking missile hits and frantic communications from the bridge broadcast in the turbolift, the ride to the shuttle bays was fraught with peril. Leaving the turbolift, the officer led the group through one of the Enterprise’s corridors.

The Enterprise officer gave shuttlecraft boarding and safety belt instructions and closed the hatch to send the crew back on its journey to the 21st century. Since motion simulators are ideally suited to mimic space travel , it was a great way to experience warp speed. The Star Trek simulator cabins had windows in front, above, and along their sides and used a domed screen to project an encompassing image. The simulator experience culminated with a precarious ride down the Las Vegas Strip and a big bang above the Hilton.

The ride ended with the obligatory shuffle through the gift shop. Pointy ears anyone? With all that excitement, guests surely worked up quite an appetite, so Quark's Bar and Grill offered items like Glop on a Stick and Klingon Kabob. The restaurant was crawling with Trekkies when it showed the latest Star Trek episode on its large-screen televisions.

The Borg Invaded Las Vegas

Next door to Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton was a second attraction, The Borg Invasion 4-D. It was based on the  Star Trek: Voyager television series. Instead of a motion simulator ride, The Borg Invasion was a 3-D movie with sensory effects (making it a “4-D” attraction). It closed when the Star Trek: The Experience closed at the Hilton.

Like Star Trek: The Experience, The Borg Invasion 4-D was not a standard theme park attraction, however. It also incorporated many live actors and engaged guests with a compelling, highly interactive pre-show.

If you are interested in learning more about the Star Trek attractions at the Las Vegas Hilton, check out the wonderful 27-minute documentary, “ The Final Frontier Of Star Trek: The Experience .” Created by Expedition Theme Park and available on YouTube, it includes footage from the actual attraction and also divulges how some of the effects were created (including the transporter room scene).

Other Star Trek Theme Park Attractions

For a short time, Universal Studios Florida offered The Star Trek Adventure. For an additional fee above the cost of admission to the park, it allowed guests to get in costume and act as Trek characters. Using green-screen technology, the guests were inserted into a brief scene based on the original Star Trek television show. Guests were given a VHS copy of their performance to take home. Interestingly, there are strong rumors that Universal Orlando is considering bringing the Star Trek franchise back as part of its planned fourth theme park.

From 2004 to 2007, the roller coaster currently known as Nighthawk at Carowinds in Charlotte, North Carolina was known as BORG Assimilator and incorporated a Star Trek theme. When Cedar Fair bought the Paramount Parks, it dropped all licensed Paramount names and themes, including Star Trek .

Visitors can still ride a themed coaster, Star Trek: Operation Enterprise, at Movie Park Germany in Bottrop. The launched coaster opened in 2017 and is based on Star Trek: The Next Generation .

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“Star Trek: The Experience” (1998-2008) at the Las Vegas Hilton; “Surely, the best of times…”

Star Trek: The Experience opened in January of 1998, during Star Trek’s 1990s heyday. Early 1998 was a time of Trek plenty… there were two Star Trek TV series in production ( “Deep Space Nine” and “Voyager” ), a forthcoming movie ( “Star Trek: Insurrection” ) and tons of merchandise, including the now semi-legendary toy line from licensee Playmates. I really wanted to go to the Experience in those days, but somehow never quite got around to it. For context, I live in southern California, so the drive to Las Vegas is typically under 4 hours away at maximum warp.

So, it was in 2001 and later in 2003 that my wife and I experienced ‘The Experience.’

2001 was a different era. I didn’t have a digital camera, so my pics from that visit are from an old 35mm Vivitar point-and-shoot. We went to Las Vegas again in 2003, this time staying at the Hilton. It was during this second visit that we got to enjoy the Experience at will, since it was ( literally ) an elevator ride down from our room.

The Experience was, for its day, as close to a fully immersive Star Trek environment as I’ve ever seen/felt in my lifetime. It was a much scaled-down, indoors version of what I imagine Disneyland’s forthcoming “Galaxy’s Edge” Star Wars attraction will be like when it opens later this month. Basically, visitors got to live Star Trek for as long as they wanted. It was the 24th century today .

Walking in through a multi-story entrance graced with a giant suspended model of the refit USS Enterprise (“Star Trek: The Motion Picture”), you were immediately met with multiple options; you could walk the Deep Space Nine-styled “Promenade,” eat at Quark’s bar & restaurant, visit the museum (with many screen-used Star Trek props/costumes), or take a simulated shuttlecraft ride at “The Klingon Encounter” (think Disneyland’s “Star Tours” but Trek-ified ).

The food at Quark’s was absolutely delicious, and you were met at your table by random Klingon, Ferengi and Romulan cosplayers who remained in character the entire time. I also remember some of the drink names on the menu, such as the “Warp Core Breach”; a large foaming glass vat of fruity booze that, while I didn’t try one personally, looked absolutely amazing.

Of course, being a Star Trek geek down to my bones ( “Bones!” ), I really geeked out seeing the museum… full of screen-used props, costumes, and other paraphernalia from Star Trek’s long history ( nearly 40 years at that time ).

There was Kirk’s wraparound tunic from the original series’ second season (I was surprised at how faded the once-vibrant green fabric had become), as well as the mutated “Nomad” space probe, and even a desk model of the starship USS Horizon, an older-class of 22nd century starship which we as a decoration in Benjamin Sisko’s office on “Deep Space Nine.”

The simulated shuttlecraft ride (aka “The Klingon Encounter”) was a real kick. Waiting in line to board the simulator, you’d scale a gradually elevating walkway lined with various exhibit pieces which detailed the ‘history of the future.’ All the while, beautifully edited Star Trek footage from the movies & TV series played on large overhead monitors.

As you made your way to the upper boarding level, you also got a much better view of the large starship Voyager, Enterprise-D and Klingon Bird-of-Prey models which hung suspended from a starry ceiling beneath the main dome of the rotunda. These ‘miniatures’ were huge…in the neighborhood of 20 ft. long (approximately 6 meters).

Once you boarded the shuttle (with far more seats than its TV counterpart) you strapped yourself in for a simulated ride from the Las Vegas strip right up into outer space. Once in ‘space,’ your shuttle got rocked and buffeted by enemy Klingon fire in the starry skies above Las Vegas, with Commander Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and the USS Enterprise coming to the rescue!

Before ‘returning to Earth’, you got to visit the USS Enterprise-D bridge (many Trek-themed weddings took place there), which was a near photo-perfect recreation of the set from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1987-1994), save for a few anachronistic 21st century “Exit” signs.

The gift shop was off the Promenade, across from Quark’s restaurant, near a simulated “replimat’ station that looked exactly like the replimats found on the Deep Space Nine space station. They were also covered with random, scattered “tribbles” ( from the classic Trek episode, “The Trouble With Tribbles” and its “Deep Space Nine” sequel “Trials and Tribble-ations” ). While my wife loved the tribbles, my nerdy self was struck by the attention to detail . There was alien signage (in native Bajoran , for example), as well as many little Star Trek in-jokes scattered here and there. Almost everywhere you looked within the confines of The Experience you only saw 24th century Star Trek. It was nerdvana .

We never got to enjoy the Borg 4-D ride , which was installed in 2004, about a year after our last visit. “Star Trek: Voyager” star Robert Picardo (the ship’s Emergency Medical Hologram doctor) recorded a video for the attraction, and I would’ve loved to have seen it, but sadly the Experience ultimately folded in 2008, a mere decade after it opened.

The Star Trek Experience at the Hilton was somewhat expensive. Las Vegas is typically expensive, to be fair. However, for a longtime Trekkie like myself, it was Trek mecca . While my wife and I did see the other sights along the Vegas strip during our visits (the Bellagio, the Venetian, Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, etc), I did manage to spend a lot of quality time immersing myself in all-things Trek for a couple of days, and I loved every minute of it.

These days, the closest one can come to recapturing the Star Trek Experience is the annual Star Trek convention at the Rio hotel, which is the largest annual Star Trek convention in the United States. While I enjoy that particular convention very much, it lacks the fully immersive quality that the Experience had. To its credit, the Rio certainly decorates for its annual Star Trek convention, but it’s only superficial; you never once forget that you are in a hotel in Las Vegas. From 1998-2008, the Vegas Hilton had a whole section of itself transformed into a 24th century Star Trek reality. The Star Trek Experience was truly a labor of love.

In 2007, there were rumors that the Experience was closing shop, as the cancellation of the TV series “Enterprise” (2001-2005) and the low box office of 2002’s “Star Trek: Nemesis” seemed to signify a dip in Star Trek’s overall popularity. There was talk of a possible reprieve for the Experience at Las Vegas’ Neonopolis Mall, where it was hoped it’d reopen in time for the 2009 release of J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” movie. Sadly, interest in finding a new home for the Experience foundered, and the license for the exhibit was allowed to expire. JJ Abrams’ “Star Trek” movie premiered to great critical and commercial success, but the Star Trek Experience was no longer there to commemorate it.

11 years after the Experience closed and a good 16 years since I last saw it, I still miss it very much whenever I’m in Vegas. The only tangible reminders of that I still have of it are my photos (which I digitally scanned for this piece) as well as a DVD I bought of “I, Mudd” & “The Trouble With Tribbles” in the gift shop (this was back when Star Trek episodes were being released only two episodes per single DVD). Of course, there are also my memories of the Experience, which I’m hoping to preserve with this ‘log entry’.

To quote Spock (the late Leonard Nimoy) from 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”, the Star Trek Experience at Las Vegas’ Hilton was “Surely, the best of times.”

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I was lucky enough to go thru the experience in November 2000. It was breathtaking and they had it designed to feel like civilians had wandered aboard the real ship. The ST:NG uniforms were clearly Hollywood quality & the actors were spot on.

I remember eating in Quarks Bar and shopping in a souvenir store. I did NOT have a camera. 😡

Wow, this looks brilliant. I remember reading out the Experience when it started. Looks like you had a brilliant time, must have been so awesome to see all the space ship models and costumes!

It was so much fun. I still miss seeing it whenever I’m in Las Vegas…

I bet, must’ve have been so brilliant! 🙂

Thank you for sharing all these neat pictures.

My pleasure. I just wish I had a better camera in those days.

I would have loved this. I wonder what they did with all the props and memorabilia?

I think some of the props wound up at auctions. Many of them I’ve seen show up at the Vegas Star Trek convention at the Rio.

As for those items made specifically for the Experience, I wish I knew. Good question!

• Pingback: Stardate: February 16th, 2008. “Star Trek: The Exhibition” in Long Beach, California… – Musings of a Middle-Aged Geek

Standing in line for one of their shows, a Klingon came by and shared some “Klingon humor” (jokes delivered in droll Klingon monotone). Happen to remember any?

Yikes! That was a while back. Sorry. I do have a slightly better memory of the Ferengi waiter who came by our table and went into a sad little spiel about how a lack of latinum in his tips.

Well now, that reminds me I do remember one. (Not the best of his jokes, but involved Ferengi.)

Q: What is better than ten dead Ferengi in a box? A: One dead Ferengi… in TEN boxes! HAH Hah hah…. 🙄😝

Dude, what an AWESOME post. I’m not even a deep down Trekker-nerd-type, and I got some goosebumps looking at this. I regret never getting down to the Hilton to experience it. Sadly, I’ve heard that all the different pieces of this exhibit have been scattered in all directions, after a failed plan to re-locate it.

Yet another reason why your documentation of this long-gone exhibit is such a rare thing, and is an extremely valuable resource to many different kinds of folks.

We will be featuring and linking to this page in the near future on our Las Vegas history project’s website. http://www.LostVegas.us

Wow, thanks for the kind words, and I’m so glad you enjoyed the post. 🙏

Half the fun of experiencing such a thing is the ability to share that experience with others, especially when it no longer exists.

Reblogged this on Musings of a Middle-Aged Geek and commented:

My apologies for not having new Star Trek content for September 8th, aka “Star Trek Day,” but at the risk of “airing a rerun,” I’d like to take this opportunity to revisit the amazing, sadly long-defunct “Star Trek: The Experience,” which formerly inhabited the Las Vegas Hilton hotel for ten years (1998-2008). I had the opportunity to visit the Experience twice, and I’d like to re-share my memories from those visits for this Star Trek Day.

I hope you’ll enjoy this look back at a Star Trek heyday, when Trekkies like myself could warp over to Las Vegas for what was essentially a contained Star Trek theme park deep inside of a Las Vegas casino.

Enjoy the memories. Live long and prosper!

• Pingback: “Star Trek: The Experience” (1998-2008) at the Las Vegas Hilton; “Surely, the best of times…” – Musings of a Middle-Aged Geek

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Published May 19, 2020

How Star Trek Came to Las Vegas

Unsurprisingly, it was a huge gamble.

StarTrek.com

CW: After the closure of Star Trek: The Experience in 2008, Gary Goddard was accused of sexual misconduct by 8 actors in 2017.

In early 1998, the “coolest thing to happen to Star Trek since the Enterprise-E ” (at least according to the Desert News ) opened in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Las Vegas Hilton. Star Trek: The Experience was an expansive, 65,000-square foot space that included a walk-through exhibit of props and costumes, a simulator thrill ride, and an immersive shopping and dining area populated by aliens and other intergalactic visitors. It embraced the various series’ optimistic outlook on the future, combining, at one point, storylines from The Next Generation , Voyager , and Deep Space Nine eras, and offered a unique experience that was just as thrilling for die-hard fans as it was for average tourists less steeped in the lore. While Star Trek: The Experience closed its doors in 2008, it remains beloved (and deeply missed) by those that visited and the staff that populated the attraction. And, true to form, the tale of how Star Trek landed in Las Vegas offers the kind of twists and turns that you could only expect from your favorite space saga.

STLV 2019: That's a Wrap

First Contact

Initially, Star Trek was going to come to Las Vegas in a very different form. In the early 1990s a consortium of businesses wanted to inject fresh life into the ailing downtown area, which had been all but overcome by the new hotels and resorts on the strip. A call was put out for submissions. “Their requirements were, they wanted a project of such magnitude that it would draw back the business from the strip. That’s an almost impossible task,” said Gary Goddard, a former Imagineer whose company Landmark Entertainment entered the competition. Their pitch? “What if we built the Starship Enterprise , full-size?”

Since some of the stipulations of the project were that it couldn’t be a hotel or casino, since the financiers of the eventual project were the hotels and the casinos downtown, the Enterprise would instead feature an attraction, a restaurant (utilizing translucent glass that could transition from a view of downtown Las Vegas to space and back again), and a walking tour of the ship. They brought in Kenny Ball, one of the chief engineers of EPCOT, to deliver an engineering analysis (they had to take into account Vegas’ heavy winds when designing the iconic upper disc area of the ship). “To say the least, it ignited everyone down there. The competition was suddenly put on hold because they wanted to know if we could do this,” Goddard said. He then went about securing the rights from Paramount with the caveat that the final word on the project would come from the studio. The consortium of downtown casinos and hotels approved the project’s budget and the mayor had signed off on the project. “This was really a done deal,” Goddard said.

That is, of course, until the big meeting, full of Paramount executives (who were supportive of the project) and the mayor of Las Vegas. That was the moment when Paramount President Stanley Jaffe decided to shut it all down. Jaffe was concerned that, if the project wasn’t a success, it would be there forever, a looming monument to his big mistake. "He turned it down in that meeting,” Goddard remembered. “It died in one day, in Stanley Jaffe’s office.” In its place was built the Fremont Street Experience, perhaps best known for Viva Vision, a domed video-screen “canopy” that stretches over the street. Still, the dream for Star Trek in Las Vegas lingered in Goddard’s mind.

The Undiscovered Country

“A year or two” after his ambitious Star Trek Enterprise attraction was canceled, Goddard, who was then in the peak of his career, having completed work on two beloved attractions (Universal’s T2-3D and The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man), received a phone call.  “The president of the Las Vegas Hilton was a huge Star Trek fan and he had a need. Hilton is off the strip and Hilton had a double or triple challenge because they had to get people to make the decision to get off the strip and go to their casino. He thought Star Trek might be the way,” Goddard said. Hilton entered into discussions with Paramount, who at the time were operating a number of theme parks where they basically affixed Paramount IP to classic roller coasters (like the Wayne’s World -themed The Hurler at Paramount's Carowind in North Carolina). This was something completely different.

When they hired Goddard, Paramount had a loose idea about what the attraction would be. “They asked us to come onboard and they had worked out a basic concept. They basically wanted to beam people aboard, that was their idea, and an adventure ensues,” Goddard said. And out of this skeletal concept, a sprawling project would unfurl that combined a walk-through attraction, massive museum that highlighted the Star Trek timeline, and immersive themed retail and dining corridor. They were boldly going.

The Voyage Home

Once you got your ticket at The Experience, you were directed towards the History of the Future. This was an idea that Goddard came up with to combine two distinct (and hugely necessary) aspects of Star Trek : The Experience – the need for a queue for the attraction and a desire to highlight the amazing history and mythology surrounding Star Trek lore. The idea of “artifacts” kept coming up, but they would be unusable in the attraction since it was supposed to be real, not a museum or showroom. Instead, these artifacts (which included miniatures used in the production of the shows, screen-worn costumes and prop weapons) could be moved to the pre-show and exist before the story really started. “That wasn’t in the original concept. We thought we’d use it to bring people into the Star Trek mythology,” Goddard explained. They even had an ingenious way of telling the story of Star Trek : start it in real life. “Someone had the idea of, what if we start with NASA and the space program and ease into the Federation,” Goddard said.

After getting through the queue/museum, you wound up in a small room where it looked like you were about to board a vehicle not unlike other motion-based simulators at other theme parks. (Goddard said this bit was meant to be intentionally cheesy.) At the moment when you thought you had spent your hard-earned money getting on another predictable ride, the lights would flicker and you would look around and you were on a really-for-real starship, the Enterprise-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation . If anyone has seen videos of the attraction online or experienced it yourself, you know what a dazzling effect this was. People still talk about it. And it was something that was hugely important to Goddard and his team.

“I knew if you don’t get the beam up right, the whole thing was going to be lame,” Goddard said. It was the first thing he and his team set out to work on after securing the gig to do Star Trek : The Experience – and you can tell. It’s a stunner. They contacted a NASA scientist who told the Landmark crew that your orientation is based on “peripheral vision.” That’s when they knew that they had to swap out everything to make the effect convincing.

When asked to explain how the moment was accomplished, Goddard explained: “The massive ceiling above you is moving out completely. While it’s out, other walls are moving in and when that’s done another ceiling is passing in over the top. And the top lights up and the bottom lights up. It’s tons of scenery moving very rapidly with an infrared system.” The motion generated by moving all that scenery was a kind of whoosh, created by the vacuum of air. Initially the technicians wanted to streamline the conversation and get rid of the air. Goddard said to leave it in. It really made you feel like you were being transported. Even today, he seems proud of the effect. “Everyone tried to figure out how we did it,” Goddard said.

From there, the story (written by Rene Echevarria and Ken Biler and supervised by Rick Berman) unfolded: one of you is the early descendant of Next Generation hero Picard. Commander Riker (a very game Jonathan Frakes) explains that evil Klingons are using a temporal rift to snuff out Picard’s ancestors. He tells you to get onto a shuttle with Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) and get out of the way of the temporal rift,. On the way to the shuttle, the turbo-lift is attacked and you enter freefall (accomplished using lighting and sound effects and simulated motion). The shuttle attraction (initially dubbed Voyage Through Space and later called Klingon Encounter), a simulator ride not unlike other motion-based experiences, is nifty for many reasons, including the fact that the climax of the ride film has you careening through present day Las Vegas. “When this thing had been boarded and approved, I’d pointed out to them that there was no moment where we saw the Starship in all of its glory. So we found a spot as the shuttle takes off to look back at the Enterprise ,” Goddard said. “I added that. Rick Berman thought about it for a minute and just said, ‘Yeah, he’s right, we’ve got to see the ship.’ That was one of my main contributions in that area.”

At the end of the attraction Picard (Patrick Stewart) appears and addresses the group: "While only one of you is my ancestor, each of you hold that same opportunity for the future. Guard it well." Then you are emptied into the Deep Space Nine Promenade – a retail and dining area that included Zek’s Grand Emporium, the Admiral Collection, Moogie’s Trading Post and, of course, Quark’s Bar and Grill (where you can order the ‘Cheeseborger’ or the ‘Wrap of Khan’, and enjoy an adult beverage called ‘The Final Frontier’). At the time that it opened, the Desert News commented on the variety of offerings in the various stores: “The products range from $4 magnets to $12,000 Klingon uniforms, with everything from $35 Starfleet uniforms to $20 Starfleet teddy bears to $6 pins to $2,000 custom leather jackets in between.” But the best part of this area of Star Trek : The Experience, was that various alien races and Starfleet crew members would be walking around, interacting with guests.

“We worked very hard to sell them on an immersive experience, with characters, and everyone loved the idea,” Goddard said. Dale Dye, one of Hollywood’s best known military advisors, was called in to train the employees. “When those guys meet you, they are part of Starfleet – they walk and talk and move like they are in Starfleet,” Goddard said. “Those kind of details people do not appreciate.” If you were chugging a Romulan Ale next to a garrulous Ferengi and a stone-faced Federation officer, trust us, you could tell.

When Star Trek : The Experience was finally opened in 1998 it was greeted warmly by visitors and press. The Las Vegas Review-Journal called it “The most intriguing entertainment offering this side of the Neutral Zone.” It had seemingly succeeded in its impossible mission: to drive tourists away from the strip and to the Las Vegas Hilton.

In 2004 Star Trek : The Experience received a major renovation with the addition of Borg Invasion 4D, an immersive 3D experience with a greater emphasis on thrills and an almost haunted house vibe. The new attraction took place in the Star Trek: Voyager era, complete with appearances by Kate Mulgrew, Robert Picardo and Alice Krige as the terrifying Borg Queen. Goddard wasn’t directly involved in the new attraction’s film, but offered peer review before it went into production, citing a disconnect between the script that was written (for a motion simulator-style attraction like the original Klingon Encounter) and the physical parameters of the show building, which was designed for a 3D (“4D”) movie.

“There were a few flaws in the conceptual foundation,” Goddard said. “I don’t think it ever met the expectations of either Paramount or the audience.” Two years later in 2006, a behind-the-scenes tour called Secrets Unveiled was introduced and two years after that, the fate of all of Star Trek : The Experience was in doubt.

The Final Frontier

In 2008, it was announced that by the end of the year, Star Trek : The Experience would close. It’s unclear what exactly precipitated the closure, although a couple of years before, Paramount’s theme park division was sold to Cedar Fair. The timing is especially baffling when you consider that Star Trek : The Experience closed mere months before the next generation of fans would join the franchise with JJ Abrams’ Star Trek (2009 ).

A month after Star Trek : The Experience shut its doors with an honestly heart-tugging farewell done in the style of a naval decommissioning ceremony, the mayor of Las Vegas announced a new home for the experience: Neonopolis, a strip mall ironically located downtown, almost exactly where the original, full-size Enterprise was going to be built all those years before. Rohit Joshi had worked out a licensing agreement with Paramount and purchased all of the props and equipment from Star Trek : The Experience.

Goddard was actually approached about helping with the installation in Neonopolis. “We were going to help bring the whole attraction. But the reality of the attraction and the cost of it was much more than he imagined,” Goddard said. “And in the move a lot of stuff got destroyed.” By 2010 those same pieces Joshi had purchased were being quietly sold at auction. Amazingly, the logo for Star Trek : The Experience is still affixed to the outside of the Hilton. You can see the logo if you take the Las Vegas Monorail; it remains a glittery testament to the future that never was and the beloved attraction that now lives on in the hearts of countless visitors and crew members. As Picard would say of memory of visiting Star Trek : The Experience – “Guard it well."

Drew Taylor (he/him) is a freelance journalist working in Los Angeles and the author of “The Art of Onward.” Follow him on Twitter @DrewTailored

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Updated: June 26, 2024

The 40-plus year tradition of Creation Entertainment’s Trek-themed conventions continues in 2024 at The Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino for STLV: The 58-Year Mission on August 1-4, 2024! While we continue to build our program of 100-plus guest celebrities and non-stop partying for 2024, it’s time to remember what a great time it was this past summer – and to give you an idea of what to expect in 2024.  CLICK HERE  to see all the fun and excitement that was had!

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