Travel & Coffee and Occasional Gas
If you want to see what really creative and innovative people do in SL there are literally thousands of places you can visit and explore. Some of those places are well known, while a vast majority of them are relatively (or completely) unknown. There are people who design and build amazing places, design entire Sims, or multiple Sims, but very few people know about those places. And then there are places that used to be well known but almost no one visits them anymore.
One such amazing place is the SS Galaxy: The Queen of the Sagittarian Sea. It was once, and maybe still is, the largest single build in Second Life®, spanning 3 Sim Regions. It is an enormous cruise ship that was at the time a very popular destination in SL.
Designed by virtual architect Bill Sterling in 2007, the SS Galaxy was and is an amazing creation! Fully 650 meters in length, 110 meters across, using over 32,000 prims, and 8 decks tall. It had a full staff, a mall, and lots of activities. The ship was 3 Sims long, and there were 2 additional Sims that were part of the SS Galaxy land.
It was an ambitious enterprise - and a truly amazing experience for those who visited and stayed in the heyday of the SS Galaxy.
The ship was closed down in 2015. It was eventually (albeit reluctantly) taken over by Linden Lab and converted to, what they called, a museum. It is preservation: It remains mostly the same as it was before LL took it over. It would have just disappeared from the Grid but there was such a great outcry by SL users at the time, that LL decided to take it over and preserve it. Not take it over as an ongoing business, but to preserve it, as it was.
The SS Galaxy was closed for several reasons, chief among them being repeated "griefing" attacks. Part of the actual ship was damaged in one such attack. That damage had to be repaired, and the Sim where the damage occurred needed to be "rolled-back" to a previously saved Sim state. It was quite the gossip of the day back in 2015. Linden Lab was not very helpful to the Sim owner concerning the griefing issues and Sim rollbacks, so I think the most compelling reason for the owner to close up the ship was the realization that Linden Lab didn't consider his ship a special case.
For 8 years the SS Galaxy "sailed" the seas of SL, never moving, but moving the hearts and minds of many SLers. At the time of its closing, it had dozens of long-term residents and staff, and a fully loaded schedule of planned events and activities.
Linden Lab did not continue the business, which is completely understandable. That they agreed to keep it preserved on the Grid for all of these years is commendable - but I suspect they keep it there mostly because they simply forgot about it.
There are tons of Linden "we forgot that was there" places all over the Grid. Tons! I know. I've seen them. Many times. *laughs*
Linden Lab did move the SS Galaxy from where they had originally moved it to in 2015 over to the western coast of the Bellisseria continent in 2020. They dropped anchor there and went back to forgetting about it again.
The SS Galaxy is still an experience to explore. It is so nice to see how people took the effort and the time to design and build an amazing prim-based ship of that tremendous and almost crazy size! It was amazing and incredible at the time it was created, and it remains an impressive construct even in this day and age of Mesh everything.
Most of the residential cabins are empty of furniture, or only have partial furnishings. The majority of the event spaces and rooms are still furnished, however. The little dance club is still there, the wedding venue, the ballroom, the spa. Things still work in a great many of the areas. The elevators work, the dance balls work, the food tables have food, and the swan rides and the Mini-Golf, those work too. Some things are gone, like the zipline ride and the skeet shooting, but you can still use the pool, the exercise equipment, and the water tube slide.
[At the Gym / Sauna / Spa]
[The Domed Wedding Pavillion]
[Mini-Golf on Deck]
The SS Galaxy is a place you can actually still do things. It is worth exploring on a lazy day out. You can spend hours wandering down the ship hallways, looking in every room, seeing the differences in cabin sizes, and running around on deck. Take a dip in the pool. Slide down the water chute. Dance a while in the ballroom or the boiler room club down in the bowels of the ship. For sure try your hand at a few holes of mini golf!
I do recommend taking a friend or your partner if you are going to explore the long hallways of this ship. I do, because it can be a little eerie, a tad disconcerting, or perhaps even scary for some of you cats out there. When I did it alone my mind filled with remembrances from movies past, specifically The Shining. I fully expected to turn a corner and see two little girls standing there, waiting for me to... hmm... I guess run away.
*coughs*
The SS Galaxy: [SLURL] * [InSL]
I hope that you will take the time to visit this amazing ship and see all the wonders that used to be wonders in SL. The sheer effort and expense and time it took to create the SS Galaxy warrants your admiration, and at least a little of your attention. See it while you can, because it could very well not be there one day. Like in all things in real life, and in our Second Life too, it can all change or disappear without notice. Time flies, and sometimes it sinks too. Enjoy it while you can.
Best of luck, and best of times, and my best regards,
Markham Weatherwax
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