Star Trek 4: The Cruise Home

or
What Does God Need with a Cruise Ship?

Anne & I recently returned from going on a Star Trek-themed cruise to the Caribbean. Here are some anecdotes and photos:

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• One of the celebrity guests was Kenneth Mitchell, who has played several Klingon characters on Star Trek: Discovery. He recently announced that he has Lou Gehrig’s Stephen Hawking’s Disease and is using a wheelchair, so it was even more impressive to see him belt out a properly pronounced and grammatically correct Klingon phrase on the first day of the cruise.
• For our first dinner on the cruise, Anne & I were seated with a couple who won their cruise tickets from a Star Trek Las Vegas Convention. Soon, another pair of people were brought to our table and seated, and after doing a double-take, I realized that I knew who the man seated across from me was – it was Andrew Looney, creator of the card game Fluxx!
• The various bars on the cruise ship were re-themed to be Star Trek-related. We frequently saw Morn, seated at the Cheers-style Qapla’ bar!
• There was a museum on-board, of props from various Star Trek shows, including the “Daughter” painting from Star Trek: Picard.
• We got our photos taken with several celebrities
• When we stopped at St Thomas, there were a lot of iguanas hanging out on the rocks.
• It was pretty cool watching the latest episode of Star Trek: Picard in a theater with hundreds of other Star Trek fans:
  • [SPOILERS ALERT FOR THE ST:PICARD EPISODE NEPENTHE]
  • Before the episode was presented, there was a video introduction that Jonathan del Arco (who played the ex-Borg Hugh) recorded while he was on the ship with us. During the episode, Hugh was killed!!! And after the episode was shown, there was a follow-up interview with Jonathan, discussing the death.
  • Bonus cool: In that episode, Riker & Troi’s kids were both shown to be fans of conlangs (the son’s is named Thad, and the daughter’s shirt says ‘Sex Pistols’ in Klingon)
  • [END SPOILERS ALERT]
• There were plenty of cool costumes at all the theme night parties
• The 12th floor of the cruise ship had one of those Rube Goldberg-esque golf ball perpetual motion machines like there used to be at the Franklin Institute
• One of the events on the cruise: the celebrity actors dubbed/riffed over TOS episode Charlie X, MST3K-style. I’m not sure if it was apropos homage or in bad taste, but the actor who played Charlie X had died 3 months earlier.
• We got a bunch of fun Star Trek cruise swag – a poster, hat, backpack, lanyard, and thermos.
• On the last day of the cruise, the ship was re-decorated for the following week’s 80’s Cruise.
• At the ship’s gift shop, I bought a replica Horga’hn statuette. I already had one at home, but the one I bought on the cruise has a secret compartment to hold a replica Tox Uthat crystal, as shown in the episode Captain’s Holiday. On flight back home from Miami after the cruise, TSA flagged the Horga’hn – apparently smuggling a quantum phase inhibitor isn’t permitted aboard 21st century aircraft.