The Doctor's New Companion: Going to the Doctor Who Experience

This took place on November 24th.

This was the day I had been looking forward since ever since discovering that there WAS a Doctor Who Experience whilst in the states. So much excitement!!!

I went with two girls from Fance and one of those girl's flatmate who also enjoyed Doctor Who. We took the bus to the bay so that we could eat at the diner from the Impossible Astronaught episode (and also Hell Bent during Capaldi's run). It is the American diner supposedly located in Utah that they all got their letters sent to. Quality-wise, you couls tell it was located right near the water in Wales rather than America. It was distinctly not up to American standards. But haven't really had a burger here that was. But they told the pricing to one of the girls in dollars (instead of saying pounds), and so you could see the attempt!

But really I didn't come for the food. I came for the atmosphere. We were trying to work out where the original cast sat and the manager directed us to the spot. My butt sat where  Karen Gillian's butt sat. And where Matt Smith's butt slided across to get to the next seat over. Amazing. 

From Google Images

 There were photos from that episode framed all aloong the wall. The diner was clearly proud to host such excellent company. Cardiff itself is pretty much the set of Doctor Who. Even Cardiff castle has been in some episodes. Swansea too apparently has had it's fair share of clips in Doctor Who as well!

 To the non-nerd eye, it just looks like your standard diner. There are lots of these old fasioned American diners stateside as well. However, the number of them in the UK makes me wonder if people in the UK think that all of our diners look like this and don't realize that it is even a novelty for us Americans.

Doesn't get more American than this. But what's behind the door?

The TARDIS!!! (And what they don't tell you in the show is that the toilet is right next door to the right.)

Trying to send some Matt Smith vibes.

I felt that going to the diner was almost a Doctor Who experience in and of itself considering it was the set for two episodes (though only one of them was out at the time). But for us it was just the prequel to the real adventure (that was an easy walk away).

Right next to the building.

Getting closer!

*intense fangirling*

This was like Disneyland to me. Even before we entered the "experience," the entire outside was decorated with costumes and statues of creatures. Even A TARDIS! If there's one thing this exhibit had plenty of, it was TARDISes. We take our blue boxes seriously in this fandom.

And we have an affection for our monsters. Sure the weeping angels are scary as Hell on Earth, and make great Halloween costumes for this reason, but if we were presented with a plush one, certainly we would say it was cute. The same goes for the ruthless and savage Daleks.

Don't Blink

Check out that lego action on the red one!

As the time drew nearer to enter the "Gallifreyan Museum," we were ushered in a separate waiting room. They had encased parts of cybermen and other old parts of things. But as a true contribution of the old and glorious planet, they included the dress robes that would traditionally be worn.

The door to the room. <3

Cyberman has been deleated from existance.

Fancy robes for the time lords and ladies.

Now the next part did not allow photos or video recordings as they wanted to keep the experience fresh and spoiler free. I had expected just an exhibit with old sets and costumes. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was an actual "experiece" in the Doctor Who experience. The best way to descibe it, would be as a Disneyland ride that you walk through instead of ride through. Done in this mannor, you really do feel as if you are in an episode of Doctor Who!

I will try and describe my experience with the experience. Although there are no images (I followed the rules), if you want a truly fresh time and want to visit it yourself, read no further!

When you enter, it is supposed to be a museum of Gallifrey's history. You are given crystals to wear as they will allow you to interact with the museum. We are told to take a look around before they start the presentation, but there wasn't too much to see. Mainly our group huddled around excitedly. The presentation began shortly on the screen infront of us. It was a brief discussion of the history of gallifrey, followed by a discussion of the Doctor in all of his incarnations. The friendly Gallifreyan tour guide (sorry, museum curator) wanted us to be able to track the doctor, but everything went wrong from there.

This is where the adventure began. We were accidently transported onto the TARDIS and saw all of the glowing orbs within. But in order to get in, the museum essentially died as the screen separated to let us in. The museum and TARDIS were physically linked now. This challenged the doctor who was currently trying to escape some other foul alien, and so he did the impossible. He transported the TARDIS in the TARDIS in order to rescue us. The best bit happened then.

I helped fly the TARDIS.

Everyone on the guide grabbed a controller and helped to navigate through space before crash landing on a planet. The tour guide was apprehensive (gotta say, this was a top quality performer and seemed to really believe everything around him was real). He was't sure at first, but soon realizes...Skaro! Daleks surround us, but it's okay because they are dead and therefore inactive. In order to fix the TARDIS so that we could leave, we had to collect 3 crystals. The first one was in one of the dead Daleks. The curator asked for volunteers to get the crystal, but no one wanted to get near that dalek. And of course once he grabbed said crystal, that dalek (and the others) came back to life. It was quickly time to be ushered into the next room.

After seeing daleks, a graveyard wasn't too comforting. Especially when it was infested by weeping angels. We split up to hunt for the crystal, wilst the ones around our necks glowed (as they had since the start of the attack). There were a lot of feels as I passed Amy and Rory's tombstone and some confusion when I passed Clara's. But Clara has been alive and dead so many times, that I discounted it. Though I did wonder if she had died in the episode I had not watched. I debated the possibility of them being that fast. Bt it was only last weekend, so likely it was referring to the first Clara we met in the snow. This was the first time that I was actually terrified of the monsters around me. Tombstones, flashing lights on the angel's faces as they cried, and a general fear of the creepiest monsters on the show actually had me frightened.

The crystal was found and plucked by one of the members on our guide. I actually was sad to leage despite the fear ad the fear made me feel a little more like I was actually there. Living in the doctor's world. Only one more crystal left to find. This time we went to I.M. Foreman's Junkyard on the 23rd of November in 1963. The Doctor said that this date was familiar to him. I didn't understand the reference as apparently it is from Classic Who, which I have sadly not seen yet. Still, when the crystal was located, I volunteered to retrieve it. Afterwards, the three crystals had to be placed in simultaniously in order to fix the TARDIS and save the day. Yeah. I'm that badass. :P

Afterwards, the Doctor (Peter Capaldi version, in case you were wondering), who had been helping us this whole time, congradulated us. The curator took our crystals from our necks, and then we were free to explore the exhibition. There were two stories. The first one was a little more exploratory with a couple of interior TARDIS sets and designed more like television scenes. This blog will get a lot more picture heavy from here on out as I think it is better to show the exhibition rather than descibe it.

The entrance. First thing we saw as we left the "experience" portion.

One of the original TARDIS interiors.

I found some Daleks. I am surprisingly calm despite them being lethal killers.

A set recreation. I don't recognize it, and so I suspect it dates back to Classic Who, as so much of the stuff does.

Another, fuller look at the classic Who TARDIS interior.

Little memoribilia and props from Classic Who. I should really watch those old episodes...

Triple TARDIS action. Can you spot all three?

TARDIS and K-9

I adore this robot dog so much.

The best TARDIS interior for the best Doctor.

I can be his new companion!!!!!

Weird old and decrepid chair in the TARDIS.

 

The best group photo ever!

The outside of the TARDIS, strategically placed right next to the interior.
It really is bigger on the inside!

A green screen.

View of the lower half of the exhibit from the stairs.

 The upstairs was less dedicated to recreating scenes and showing us the settings and more like your classic museum. There were the outfits on manequins, replicas of the monsters, etc. Again, I will use pictures rather than words to describe it.

Lots of the monsters were on display.
This is just a small section.

In the middle, the Silence have taken the TARDIS

Just as creepy and strange as the episode.

The Face of Boe! Captain Jack has aged well.

Daleks aren't the prettiest on the inside.

There was a whole section dedicated to how Cybermen have evolved over the years.

Companion outfit. Recognize them? :)

The best costume.

Three heros. They had all the classic who ones as well.

You never forget your first doctor.

 

Capaldi's Doctor, being the recent incarnation, had the fancy display.

This creature of nightmare's from Capaldi's run with Clara.

From the episode "Listen"

Still a thing of nightmares. From the tenth doctor's run.

There was a section where real choreographer's on TV showed you how to walk like a few of the different
monsters that appear on the show.

Impersonating a scarecrow after my lesson.

Getting attacked by a Dalek!

Me with David's costume from Water on Mars and many other things.

There was a large board with a bunch of fun things on it.

Like this.

The saddest part of the day.

At least there was a cool mural at the end.

And what kind of fans would we be if we didn't also raid the shop? I had purchased the merchandise ticket which got me a Doctor Who Experience shirt and some other cool stuff. But there were still a couple of things I wanted to pick up at the store. Like a keychain for my growing collection.

This TV played a lot of clips from the show. We all chimed in together in order to sing the "Wake Up" song from "The Rings of Akhaten." Fanny, one of the girls from France, even had Matt Smith's lines memorized. It seemed clear what her favorite episode was.

Notice the Sherlock DVDs randomly being the only non-Doctor Who thing in a Doctor Who
Experience gift shop. We got some good laughs from that.

 Once we restrained ourselves from buying the whole store and walked out with just a small chunk of it, we took some last pictures with the character stickers on the wall.

 

And once we were back at the entrance/exit, we took one last TARDIS picture.

Trying to send some Tennant vibes.

Once we got out, we pondered whether or not we made the right decision, as we had when we entered. After all, this was RIGHT NEXT TO the Doctor Who experience. And wouldn't it have been so much more fun?

Looks like so much fun.

 One of our members felt a little sick by the end, so we decided to end the day at what is largest mall I have ever seen. St. David's. We did look at a couple of stores, but mainly just went for Costa coffee.

Black Forest hot chocolates were my life during Christmas. Why can't they be a year-round beverage?!

It was one of the best days I had had in a very long time and I couldn't keep the smile off my face during the whole trip. It was one of those moments where I was reminded in part why I was doing this. Seeing amazing things with people from all over the world.