This page contains my account of the events on the ride itself at Star Trek: The Experience.

For effect, I decided to write this as a trek-style personal log in the pov as if everything was a surprise and that I was not aware of the existence of the Enterprise

After waiting for an extended time to enter a ride in a shuttlecraft simulator my plans were cut short. We were watching the standard safety video stating things such as "if you are pregnant or nursing go away" when suddenly everything went dark and there were blasts of air and sparkles all around me. When the lights arose again I found I was no longer in the entrance to the simulator, but instead was on a circular platform I later found out was known as a "Transporter Pad".

Someone in uniform who had pointy ears hit her chest and said "We have them, commander." She then informed me and those with me that we were no longer in the 21st century but rather in the 24th century aboard a starship traveling through space. The ship was known as the U.S.S. Enterprise. We were then escorted to a place called the Bridge which I assume is the command area of the ship as we in modern day call the area of a sailing ship that contains the steering wheel the Bridge.

There was a red band of light encircling the room at waist level that kept blinking, at some points in the band there were touchscreen displays that stated the words "Red Alert" and had various statistics on current happenings on the ship. From one of these statistics, I could tell that the vessel was almost 650 meters in length and was of the classification "Galaxy." It was good to know everyone eventually adopts the Metric system in the future as it is far more efficient than the American system of today.

I was able to see a couple of schematics of the vessel on a few of the displays in the rear of the bridge. The ship consisted of a large elliptical disk shape in the front, identified on the schematic as the "Saucer Section", a slender neck down from the disk and coming to 2 long slender stick-like objects in the rear identified on the display as "Warp Nacelles."

On to the room, the room was oval in shape, this makes sense considering according to the schematic the place we currently were was located on the very top of the Saucer Section and took on the same shape as the saucer section. In the center of the ceiling, I could see a small dome of what appeared to be glass above which I could see stars moving by at an incredibly fast rate. The back of the room, where I and my fellow riders from Vegas were standing, was raised above the remainder of the room, and behind us, there were 5 computer consoles with pull-out chairs. Two of them were identified as Science Stations, one as a "Mission Operations" console, an Environmental Control station, and an Engineering Station.

In front of this raised arch-like area is an arched console stretching along the entire length of the path in the rear that appeared to contain tactical controls. I was able to identify the phrase "Photon Torpedo" which appears to be a projectile weapon like our current-day torpedoes and missiles, and a control stating the word "Phaser" which seems to be similar in operation to laser beams of today, although everything on the bridge looked far more advanced than modern day controls. In the area immediately beyond this tactical arch, there were 3 chairs and a couple of side stools. The center of the 3 chairs had controls on the armrests and looked quite comfortable, made of brown leather.

A short distance in front of this central area were 2 more consoles with leather chairs. I couldn't tell much from where we were standing in the back but I did notice the word "Operations" on the left console and "CONN" on the right console. I assume that it was this right-side console that was the way to steer the ship because it also contained what appeared to be maps in small displays.

There were various displays on the walls as well as a large plaque, but I couldn't look around for long as soon our attention was directed to a large screen in the front of the Bridge. The view changed from stars wooshing towards us to an image of a bearded white man in a red uniform and a black man with what appeared to be a hair band over his eyes in a yellow uniform. The bearded man introduced himself as Commander William T. Riker and introduced his companion as Lieutenant Commander Geordi LaForge.

Commander Riker explained to us that we had been kidnapped from the past by a group of hostile aliens called Klingons.  He explained that the crew of the Enterprise was able to intercept the teleportation signal and bring us to the Enterprise instead of our destination of the Klingon Vessel.  He also explained that until the moment of our time travel, there was a gentleman by the name of Captain Jean-Luc Picard who sat in the center chair.  Apparently, the reason we were kidnapped was because one of us (and it was unclear who) was the direct ancestor of Captain Picard, and by bringing us to the Future, the Captain was prevented from ever being born.

Commander Riker and Lieutenant Commander LaForge explained that in order to preserve the timeline, we would have to be returned to the point in history from which we were taken so that the change in history would never have taken place.  LaForge explained that we would be escorted to something called a "shuttlecraft" where we would be piloted to the location of a portal in time that should lead back to the point in history from which we left.  LaForge said he would lead the way on another shuttle equipped for battle situations to protect our transport shuttle from the Aliens on our way.

We entered a pair of doors marked "Turbo Lift", which was apparently a type of voice-activated Elevator.  While we were on our way to a location called the "Shuttle Bay" the ship was rocked and jolted in various directions due to an attack by the Klingons, it at times became difficult to maintain my balance in the Turbo Lift.  Upon arrival in the Bay, it was pointed out that several ship systems had been damaged in the attack and they would be unable to properly depressurize the bay for take-off and would have to shoot the ShuttleBay Doors and be forced out by the quick decompression.  Realizing that the sudden destruction of the doors without repressurizing the bay would cause the air and everything else in the room to quickly be forced out into the vacuum of space I made extra special sure that my seat restraint was properly fastened.

The Shuttle could best be described as a passenger van without wheels.  The large door opened hatch style and all of our party could fit inside each with our own seats.  I ended up with a seat in the middle of the front row and had a very clear view of the flight.

When we fired on the shuttlebay door (which appeared to be like a large automatic garage door) we were swept outside very quickly.