Star Trek Convention, Day Five: The Voyager Crew

Leonard Nimoy came out to thunderous applause, and the room was more packed than ever before. He talked mainly about the new movie -- "it's looking quite wonderful" -- and wanted to introduce us to the new Spock, Zachary Quinto. After half an hour, they both came out together and chatted with each other before taking questions.

"The movie is called 'Star Trek,'" Zachary answered. It had been a question I had been wondering about as well. He also added, "It's hard to watch the original series and those characters and not fall in love with them."

The tribute to Voyager was the last programming of the day. We didn't have Ethan Phillips, who didn't make it due to a family emergency, but Garrett Wang (Harry Kim) came back and sat in on the group after they started. So we had Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway), Tim Russ (Tuvok), Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris), and Robert Picardo (the hologram doctor) on stage. It was one of the funniest hours I've ever spent as they all recalled filming the series and what stupid things they'd do at the 20th hour of filming. At the end, Kate summed it all up rather emotionally: "Without your particular kind of love... you're terrific. Thank you very much."

We attended the last auction, knowing we'd never bid on the 30' by 50' banners and things like that, but we had fun watching. We then walked to Benihana's for dinner for our 7:30 reservation. They immediately seated us and we were off into a new type of adventure. With mai tais.

That night we took a look, but Quark's Bar was too crowded to get into. So we played at the Star Trek game for a long while. I am now an Ensign with 25 medals. Debbie is a Crewman with 5 medals.


The next morning we had one thing in mind: We will stand in line, whatever it takes, to go on the two Star Trek: The Experience rides, take in the museum, and sit at Quark's Bar for a meal. The rides weren't open when the Promenade shops were, so we shopped... some more. I bought some more little trinkets, and had two quarters mashed into Star Trek things.

Then we got in line to buy tickets. The doctor who's a Ferengi came up to us and chatted and we took his photo, and he called us "hu-mon" a couple of times. "Don't touch the ears," he told one woman. No problem.

We got in the Borg line, as the Klingon line, they told us, had broken down. While we waited and looked at the Klingon female models in the display case, the young man in back of us told us that he was driving a shipment back to Seattle, but when he heard that the Experience was closing, he had to stop. He bought a used ticket outside (that was good for a year) to the rides, and wanted to know about them. "I get to be on the bridge?!" he said excitedly, even after I told him that the Klingon ride is old technology and rather fuzzy.

We enjoyed the Borg ride, but when we saw how long the Quark's Bar ride was, we agreed to get in line for lunch and we'd do the Klingon ride later. While in line, I took a photo of a guy being sketched (cartoonish sketch, putting him into a Star Trek uniform), and he gave me his email address so that I could send him the photo later.

They seated us in the bar area, and the waitress seemed overwhelmed. At the end of our stay, she had given our check to the wrong party, and was out $10. (We made up for it with our abundant tip, recognizing that she's out of a job in two weeks.)

As we were about to leave, Max Grodenchik was brought into the bar and sat at a booth next to us with a young woman. Debbie waved to him, so he came over to chat with us. We talked about his Quizno's commercial and how we promise to eat the sandwiches when we see the commercial.