STAR TREK Cruise VI

 

Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Seas

We've been on many cruises over the years. We've also attended many Star Trek conventions. But we've never been on a Star Trek cruise—mostly because they tend to leave from Florida. No excuses this year, though, as Star Trek's 6th annual cruise left February 24 from Los Angeles, sailing to Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta. We were onboard.

It's no secret that our favorite cruise line is Disney, so I couldn't help comparing this trip to past Disney cruises. The Star Trek vessel, Royal Caribbean's Navigator of the Seas, was similar to other large ships: veranda cabins, theater space, a large dining area for communal meals, as well as a separate cafeteria-style dining area (e.g., all-you-can-eat bacon for breakfast—what's not to love?). This is pretty much where similarities between a Disney and Star Trek cruise end, however. Unlike Disney, this ship had a casino and almost no child passengers—which was just as well, since bar service seemed to pop-up every five feet (ugh).

Ship promenade

Music was piped into the hallways and common areas, but instead of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and "Feed the Birds" by the Sherman Brothers, we heard theme songs from the various Star Trek series and movies, plus well-known dialogue and distinctive sound effects from the shows. Passengers were encouraged to decorate their cabin doors, like on other cruises. But instead of Mickey and Minnie, doors were festooned in photos of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, et al.

Passenger door

Ship signage

Me and Spock

And speaking of Kirk, our guest cruise captain was James T. Kirk, himself: William Shatner, who appeared at two fan events to answer questions. But unlike captain Mickey, who stays aboard entire Disney cruises, Shatner returned home as soon as the ship anchored in Mazatlan. Disappointing.

Shatner at a fan Q&A in the main theater

No Disney "bounding" here, of course, but many passengers did wear their finest Star Trek costumes and uniforms, according to each day's theme: e.g., Gorn pajama party, zombies, "Knights of the Holodeck," etc. Cosplaying culminated on night #6 with a costume contest that beat anything Disney cruises offer! Our minds boggled, wondering how some participants carried their costumes home.

Lady Gorn

Contest winners: birds? angels?

Meals on the Star Trek cruise were less structured than on Disney, which assigns tables and eating companions for the entire trip. Disney also provides entertainment during dinner—for example, performers and musical numbers from, say, the movie Tangled. Star Trek cruises are much less formal—no assigned seats or companions. And instead of entertainment, you might find yourself debating favorite show episodes with the stranger sitting next to you!

Eating one of many hot dogs on the pool deck

No "Broadway-style" musical shows either, like on Disney; but the Star Trek cruise did offer a wide assortment of cast interviews, panel discussions, and celebrity readings and performances. Our favorites were: a live reading of "The Devil in the Dark" (i.e., the Horta episode), performed by cast members from The Next Generation; a reading of the radio play "The Lost World;" the Gorn "Gong Show" (hysterically funny); and a musical revue by multi-talented Robert Picardo.

Deep Space 9 panel

Voyager panel

Gorn "Gong Show"

Finally, unlike Disney, which makes all their characters available to passengers for free all week long, photo ops and autograph sessions with Star Trek celebs are by appointment only and are very expensive. Luckily, running into my fave actors in the cafeteria or on the ship's elevators was good enough for me! 

Me and Deep Space 9 "showrunner" Ira Steven Behr (red t-shirt)

having a close encounter on the pool deck

Fans waiting on line to meet their favorite celebs

So, did we have fun? Yes, but were very happy to beam home once we returned to L.A. a week later. Every Star Trek fan should go on the cruise at least once. For us, though, it's back to Disney.

Topside at dawn

Anchored at Mazatlan

Docked in front of Walmart, Sam's Club and a mall at Puerto Vallarta (really?)

In case you forget what day it is, this elevator carpet strip is changed daily

The "pointy end" of our ship

Star trek: The Exhibit

Museum entrance poster

As reported elsewhere on this blog, I've been a Star Trek fan since the very first episode aired in 1966. Tim not so much, though after 35 years of marriage and countless ST conventions, etc., he has become "Trekkie adjacent." He even has favorite ST characters—notably the Gorn, a cheesy lizard-like bad guy whom Captain Kirk is forced to fight in the original series.

One of the events I was looking forward to, before the pandemic closed all museums and public venues, was a Star Trek exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center, just up the I-405 from where we live. Although, like everything else, the exhibit was canceled last year, it did open a few weeks ago for a short run until February 2022. Tim and I went last week, even though I already saw it several years ago at the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, where the exhibit originated. At least three new ST series have launched since then, so some of the displays have been updated. As you can see below, we had a great time at the Skirball and highly recommend all fans visit.

Me and my all-time favorite TV character, Mr. Spock

Real bridge console from the original starship Enterprise

Kirk's sexy uniform from "Mirror, Mirror"

Face-to-face with Tim's nemesis, the Gorn

Gorn detail (cheesy!)

Tim shimmying through a Jeffries tube

Kirk's nemesis Khan Soonien Singh, then (Ricardo Montalban) and now (Benedict Cumberbatch)

Model of the Enterprise from Star Trek: the Next Generation (ST:TNG)

Lt. Commander Data, ST:TNG android

ST:TNG Klingon costume

Star Trek: Discovery Klingon costume

Vulcan salute: "Live Long and Prosper"

And, of course, had to buy souvenirs: Spock and Kirk tikis!

Air and Space Museum

Chuck Yeager's Bell X-1

After chatting all morning  with lobbyists, Tim and I decided to spend our last afternoon in D.C. at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum. Unfortunately the museum is currently under renovation, so the exhibits seemed rather haphazard—Neil Armstrong's space suit, for instance, was part of the Wright brothers display (huh?). Nevertheless, it's always exciting to be around rockets and historic airplanes.

 

Spirit of St. Louis flying over the Apollo Lunar Module

 

Skylab B, which was never launched into space

 

 Tail-end of Apollo command module

docking with USSR Soyuz 

 

Neil Armstrong's moon-landing space suit

 

And historic airplanes, too—Lockheed 5B Vega, Amelia

Earhart's favorite 

Most exciting, however, was seeing the actual 11-foot-long model of the starship Enterprise used in the opening credits of the original Star Trek series. Painstakingly restored, the model, which used to unceremoniously hang in the museum's gift shop, now has its own display, lighting up three times a day at 11AM, 1PM, and 3PM. We were, of course, there!

 

 Refurbished Enterprise

 

View from the rear

 

Unadorned backside, which was never filmed

All lit up!

Happy Trekkie!

Titan Missile Museum

Nuclear holocaust was a distant but very real threat for those us growing up in the 1950s/60s. We practiced ducking-and-covering when citywide air-raid sirens were tested once a month. We were also intrigued by rumors of people building bomb shelters in their backyards. Ever looming nuclear war was just part of everyday life. However, as I grow older and learn more about the U.S.'s Cold War with the Soviet Union, I marvel at how we even survived that period.

Tim and I usually travel to Arizona every other year to see baseball spring training. While there, we like to take in some of the local attractions, such as the Pima Air Museum & Boneyard or the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. This year we decided to visit the Titan Missile Museum, site of the last remaining nuclear missile on "alert" from 1963 until 1987. 

Located outside Tucson, about two hours from our hotel in Tempe, this unassuming museum is home to one of the 54 nuclear missile launch sites that used to operate in Arizona, Kansas and Arkansas. Housed underground, the mega-ton Titan IIs, which were also used to propel Gemini capsules and their astronauts into space, could be airborne within a minute of receiving launch orders. Once detonated, the missile's nuclear warhead would kill everything within a 900-mile radius. But as our tour guides kept emphasizing, the main purpose of the missile program was to deter enemies from launching their own missiles. Luckily the ploy worked, leaving just one unarmed missile site to serve today as a museum and important cautionary history lesson.

Museum entrance

Visitors enter the site through a small building that contains a gift shop and excellent exhibit of Cold War artifacts. The hour-long tours of the missile silo start with a 15-minute video, orienting the group to what they're about to see. The group then goes outside, where a tour guide leads everyone to a set of concrete stairs heading underground.

Impossible to tell there's a mega-ton missile under this

unassuming landscape

Stairs heading underground

The launch site itself actually consists of three areas, connected by long hallways: living quarters and launch control (left), decontamination area (center), and missile silo (right), as illustrated below (click on image to enlarge). Once underground, our guide led us to the control room, where what now looks to be ancient (i.e., early 1960s) equipment used to monitor the missile and await launch orders. Crews of four worked in 24-hour shifts.

Detailed illustration of the underground site

One of many door button panels to enter the inner sanctum

State-of-the-art equipment in early 1960s

The red locker held the launch codes, requiring two people to access—

note the two locks on the locker

From there, we walked down a long corridor, passing the decontamination area and into the silo, where the (now de-nuked) Titan II still stands. The silo was built as two 150-foot-deep concentric cylinders: the outer ring measuring 55 ft. wide; the other, called the "launch duct," 26 ft. wide. Walls are 8 ft. thick. Though not allowed to go inside the cylinders, we were able to peer at the missile through two glass windows. Seeing the Titan II in such close proximity was absolutely breathtaking—not so much as a weapon of war, but more as a vehicle for space exploration, which I love.

Tim walking down the long corridor

Decontamination suits

Emergency shower if exposed to radiation—Karen Silkwood, anyone?

First sight of the missile's main body

De-nuked nosecone

Above ground again, we were encouraged to look at the missile through an observation window created specifically for tourists. And there it was, still standing in its underground silo, waiting for orders to wreak havoc on the world. Chilling, but a fascinating reminder of why no one should have the power to launch mass destruction. 

Looking down on the missile from the observation deck

By the way, if you're a Star Trek fan, you may recognize the Titan II and its silo from the movie First Contact, where savvy scientists turn a deactivated missile into the first "warp drive" spaceship. Yay!