Re: Has anyone been to STAR TREK™ THE EXHIBITION at the Mall of Americ
I haven't been the Mall of America version, but I have been to the Star Trek the Exhibition traveling exhibit twice, when it came through Phoenix on two separate occasions. I think between the two, it might be equivalent to what the Mall of America version is. The first exhibit was in December 2008(I think?) at the Arizona Science Center. The second time in September 2013 at the Arizona State Fair. Before seeing the two traveling exhibitions, I also saw Hilton Star Trek the Experience, back in June 2006, before it closed down for good. By far, my favorite was the Hilton Star Trek Experience, so I ended up judging both exhibitions by the Hilton Experience, but I really liked the AZ Science Center exhibit.
At the AZ Science center, it was a larger collection of the Star Trek The Exhibition, and featured the E-D bridge (you could pay to get your picture taken in the captains chair), the E-D sick bay, E-D engineering, and various props, costumes, manikins and uniforms (probably somewhere 1/2 to 2/3 of what the Hilton Experience had). In the AZ Science Center, it was multi level, so it took a good amount of time, and I believe many of the pieces and sets may even have been from Star Trek the Experience, but I don't know either way. In any event, I really enjoyed the exhibit.
The second traveling exhibit was a lot more underwhelming. It was hosted in a steel warehouse where the county 4-H is, so it smelled like sheep shit, even though it was clean. It had about half as many props and displays as the AZ Science center did. It had some props from Nemesis (the scorpion ship), the E-D sick bay, and it had the TOS Enterprise bridge, which was sad to see. It was beat up looking (probably from being taken apart and reassembled many times) and even had Spock's station on the wrong side of the bridge. The most annoying part was as you enter the exhibit, they con you into having your picture taken with a digital back drop with the Enterprise flying in the back ground, stating it was only $5, and tell you the picture will be printed when you leave and you can pay for it then. But when you leave, the cost jumps to $18. I paid it because my girlfriend and I liked the picture, but that was pretty underhanded, considering it cost us $25 to get in there in the first place. I am glad I didn't pay for a picture of me sitting in the captains chair, because that probably would have been even more. Since I had seen the first two, I felt I could have skipped that one.