Ryan’s ABBAMAIL Columns

In the late hours of September 1, 2008 I received an e-mail from a close friend linking me to a news story about the closure of Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton. It hit me with a strong sense of sadness as Star Trek: The Experience has been a prominent feature of all my trips to Las Vegas in the last ten years. I didn’t know about the closure and doing a search for articles found that the closure was announced around the end of June and that the final day of operation would be September 1st, 2008. Well by the time I became aware of it, the final evening and closing party was already close to done, and I’m disheartened that I never got a chance to make one last trip to Las Vegas to have one of the infamous “Warp Core Breach” drinks, my all time favorite alcoholic beverage before the closure.

It seems that the reason for the closure is not that the attraction wasn’t popular enough, it’s had a steady stream of business, maybe not rapturous levels of business but certainly strong enough to support the continued operation of the property. What seems to have done it in was the inability of the three involved parties to find a satisfactory resolution to the renewal of the contract. The three parties involved are Paramount/CBS, the current owners of the Star Trek Franchise, Cedar Fair, the operator of the attraction (also runs parks like Knott’s Berry Farm, and Cedar Point), and Colony Capital, the owners of the Las Vegas Hilton. Some news reports have suggested that Colony Capital was the biggest hold out and some critics said Colony Capital has been eyeing the space that Star Trek: The Experience has been in since it bought the property from Caesars Entertainment shortly before Caesars was bought out by Harrah’s Entertainment.

As the original agreement basically had the attraction where it was like a retail outlet renting shop space without sharing any of its revenue with the hotel, it seems that that could be the main reason why Colony Capital was holding out and feeling they could better fill the space with something that would generate more revenue for them. One vocal critic has been Robert Picardo, who played the holographic doctor on Star Trek: Voyager as well as reprising the role for the Borg Invasion 4-D attraction added to Star Trek: The Experience in 2004. Picardo is quoted for saying “The hotel changed hands, and [the new owners] have been eyeing that large amount of retail space lustfully for some time,” and “It breaks my heart a little bit to no longer be my own theme park ride. Once you have an action figure for years, there are only a few ways to go up, and being a theme park attraction is one of the only ones.”

In any case, the current contract expires at the end of December this year, but the reason for the closure now is so that Cedar Fair has enough time to clear out the attraction, return all the Star Trek props to Paramount, and return the empty space to Colony Capital. The decision to close has not been popular with Star Trek fans, which have long been known for launching campaigns to save both the original series and the last series, Star Trek: Enterprise. In addition to efforts to try and save the attraction, and ultimately not being able to, a boycott of the Las Vegas Hilton and whatever the space ultimately gets filled with has been called for, and lord knows, Star Trek fans can hold a grudge.

Some of the news articles suggested it is possible the attraction might move to another hotel closer to the Las Vegas strip, or even somewhere else outside of Las Vegas entirely, but nothing has been officially announced at the time of the closure. My hope is that they might see fit to install it at Cedar Fair’s Knott’s Berry Farm park as it could be part of an already popular attraction, and with Los Angeles being home to where Star Trek has been filmed in all its various incarnations, it seems like a natural choice. Ultimately, it’s up to Paramount/CBS and Cedar Fair, but I do hope they don’t choose to let Star Trek: The Experience fade away into a memory. To mark the closure of the attraction, a decommissioning ceremony was held in a similar tradition to how naval ships celebrate their transition from active duty to retirement.

For me, the attraction will always have its ties to my ABBA fandom, as my very first visit to Star Trek: The Experience was in July 1998, when I was driving to Calgary to meet with Graeme Read on his trek across the United States and Canada to meet people on his then relatively new mailing list, providing the first chance for many of the list members have gotten to meet someone from half-way around the globe that loves ABBA just as much, if not more, that we did at the time. I was wowed by the experience at the Star Trek: Experience, even somewhat annoyed by one of the waiters there who took the Trek part a little too seriously and wanted my “status report” on how the food was. I nearly hit the ceiling because he scared me to death sneaking up behind me and shouting out “Status Report!” I warmed up to his service after he told me that my Star Trek credit card would earn me a discount on the meal thereby satisfying my inner Ferengi. I also got a cool lenticular photo of myself on the transporter done where it creates the effect of myself beaming on and off the transporter pad from the Next Generation Enterprise. Unfortunately that was the only time I’d been there that they were offering those pictures for sale. I didn’t try any of the alcoholic drinks this time because I was getting back on the road to Calgary right away but I loved the “Warp Core Breach” when I had more time to spend at the attraction on my way home from Calgary.

Another trip warranted an unusual ABBA connection, in that when I had finished the ride and was going to the Quark’s Bar and Restaurant to have a “Warp Core Breach” and some insanely overpriced food (as it tends to be in themed attractions), instead of the usual Star Trek music that had always been played in the bar every time I’ve ever been there except this one time, there was a wedding party going on in one section of the bar, and because of it, the usual music was being pre-empted in favor of more popular selections, so I entered the bar while none other than “Dancing Queen” was being played throughout the bar.

Also one of the first ABBAMAIL gatherings I organized that had an open invitation to any list members who might want to come was in Las Vegas with the main attraction, a visit to the bar at Quark’s. (Here’s a hint, it’s on the second gallery page for gatherings of fans who are Out & About). A photo from that event can be found here on ABBAMAIL.com for those adventurous enough to find it. This trip even had me reconnect with a friend I hadn’t seen or talked to in years at this point and we’ve been friends ever since.

When “Mamma Mia!” premiered at the Mandalay Bay resort, I was the unofficial organizer for places to eat and such, so naturally, our large group of ABBA fans was going to have to visit the bar for “Warp Core Breach” drinks and a meal. We even managed to get the two Klingons the bar employs to enhance the Star Trek Experience to pose in an ABBA pose. Considering one Klingon has long black hair and the other long white hair, it seemed to make it look like we had our very own Klingon versions of Agnetha and Frida. Be sure to check out my blog website at http://www.ryansincredibleworld.com if you wish to see the ABBA Klingons.

A subsequent trip when Grant Whittingham made a journey to the US, ensured that a road to Las Vegas from San Diego was also part of his adventure. Aside from a trip to the Madalay Bay’s production of “Mamma Mia!” a stop at the bar for the world famous “Warp Core Breach” was also a required visit. We were also joined by a guest from the Detroit area, so it was great fun to share the experience with great ABBA friends. It was on this occasion I got a photo in the captain’s chair. A fun experience in itself as there was a chance to take a good look at the recreation of the Next Generation bridge that you don’t get while visiting the bridge during the ride.

Well my final visit to Star Trek: The Experience was not expected to be my final visit, as I was often in Las Vegas several times a year. However, it’s been over two years since my last visit to Las Vegas and that trip, I wasn’t even staying in Las Vegas. I was staying in relatively nearby Laughlin, Nevada and had come to Vegas to see “Avenue Q” at the Wynn before it closed. The ticket was arranged for me through another ABBAMAIL friend so I do have him to thank for my being in Vegas that on what would be my last visit to Star Trek: The Experience.

Over the years I’ve seen many things come and go on the menu such as Pepsi when the place opened to Coke at the time of its closing. The price of the “Warp Core Breach” has gone up pretty much as badly if not worse than the price of gasoline, the drink started at $19.99 to $29.50 on the final menu. There’ve been many funny names to grace the menus such as “Ham-borg-ers” (hamburgers), “Holy Rings of Betazed” (onion rings), “The Wrap of Khan” (chicken wrap) to interesting drink names like “James Tea Kirk” (Long Island Iced Tea), and the “Riker-rita” (margarita). Even one of the desert items has an ABBA connection, the “Oo-Max” dessert takes its name from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation entitled “Ménage à Troi” written by Fred Bronson of Billboard, a well known ABBA fan. If you’d like to see the menu items at the time Star Trek: The Experience closed, there’s a downloadable version at http://www.startrekexp.com/ and you may want to visit it before the site goes down.

While most of my visits to Star Trek: The Experience has been on my own on various trips into Las Vegas, the staff has always been wonderful, making each visit special. Most of my visits skipped the ride and just involve a trip to the bar and restaurant. So to the many folks who’ve worked there over the years thank you for the memories and fun times that I will always associate with Star Trek: The Experience. Shame on Colony Capital for bringing an end to one of the best attractions in Las Vegas, I now have no reason to ever want to visit the Las Vegas Hilton again.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 1st, 2008 at 3:04 pm and is filed under Las Vegas, Star Trek. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.