Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser closing?

Whether it plays out for 3 days or 3 hours, it's still not the kind of experience that really screams Star Wars. Price alone wasn't the only reason why this idea failed. It failed because of the premise on which it was built was a faulty one.

Scavenger hunts with your smart phone, watching actors lightsaber duel, and sitting in a Cantina themed bar with overpriced drinks doesn't strike me as an "immersive" Star Wars theme park experience. Again, most of the things you can "do" on this experience are passive activities which require almost no effort. The best way to achieve an immersive experience from your guests is to create activities that require active engagement. Just like a toy that "plays itself" and requires almost no effort by the child to use their imagination and they sit and watch it, where a cardboard box offers more potential if a child is willing to engage it with their mind.

Even Star Tours with it's virtual missions feels more akin to the adventures seen in the movies. You could create virtual rides, have large scale laser tag between the Alliance/ Resistance and the Empire/First Order, using Star Wars themed "weapons" and have guests side with one group and "fight" each other or hire actors to play the villains and have guests "fight" them. Even creating games of skill, like lightsaber training with an actor or animatronic robot combatant, or some sort of recreation of a speeder chase, or flying an X-Wing in a dogfight is still far more in line with the adventure spirit of Star Wars than merely sitting in a themed environment. Lucasfilm has the funding and resources to literally build experiences like this, so it's not like it's out of the realm of possibility. Now they're being forced to reasses and revamp this effort. I see posts in one of the threads here for these incredible fan made prop collections and themed home theaters and to me this cruise sounded like spending a weekend sleeping in one of those where the host had a few party games to keep people entertained, all the while claiming it was immersive because of the props lining the walls.

Star Wars. Wars. The name itself doesn't conjure up images of luxury. The spirit of this thing is adventure, excitement and daring escapes. The aesthetic is covered in dirt and grime. It's messy and melodramatic in it's storytelling. Just thinking of a cruise and being entertained is not the experience I think most people would expect. And then there's the price....
 
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It's not just star wars but in general Disney lost reality of what the common working stiff can and will spend on a vacation. Whomever thought something like this was a "good idea" even prior to 2020 has no comprehension of paycheck to paycheck living. Disney had become a bleed you dry entity decades ago. Now with its talons dug in people feel it, they may deny it, but profits are down and the decimal points are all heading down. To big to fail is Disney moniker as of late but keep pumping out garbage all around and not change to bring back the masses then we'll see how far that fall actually it. Going by the little I've seen of upcoming "projects" Disney star wars is indeed dead. The writing was on the wall while this hotel was still being designed.
 
Just out of curiosity, I checked prices of other Disneyworld hotels during the last weekend before the Star Wars hotel is closed. Found a room for a family of 4 at the Saratoga Springs for $430 a night. Add taxes and resort fees and let's call it roughly $1,000 for both nights. If we say rooms in the Star Wars hotel are roughly the same value as other Disney resort hotels, then you're paying $5,000 or $1,250 per family member for the actual experience (plus food and drinks). That's just not a good value.
 
It's not just star wars but in general Disney lost reality of what the common working stiff can and will spend on a vacation. Whomever thought something like this was a "good idea" even prior to 2020 has no comprehension of paycheck to paycheck living. Disney had become a bleed you dry entity decades ago.
I've been traveling to the WDW resort for 50 years. I've done multiple conferences there. I've seen the changes come and go, the best and the worst. And there is still a lot of "good" that remains. The DVC (timeshare) resorts are a stand-out. The behind the scenes tours are definitely worth the extra $$. And if you are willing to spend that extra $$, there are top tier dining experiences available everywhere; my wife and I splurged for dining at Victoria&Albert's many years ago, and it was exquisite. My wife practically ran up on stage when they asked her to "volunteer" for the closing act at the Hoop-Dee-Doo dinner show.

But the Galactic Starcruiser was never intended for the SW fan masses. While it was advertised to all, It was specifically designed for the upper middle class and wealthy with disposable income. Think of it as the equivalent of the Ritz Carlton luxury hotel. They are not marketing to me or the average Walmart/Target shopper. Oh, they'll gladly take my money (with a smile) but we are not their target audience. This was intended to be an exclusive, extra $$$ experience. One that by almost every review was unique, exciting, bespoke... and still a failure.
 
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If I had $6,000 for a vacation, and the wife and kids, I would go to Hawaii or something. I'm as big of a SW fan as anyone, but that's ridiculous. I saw a few Youtubers who said that it might have been a little better if it was OT and not Sequel based, but even if the actual OT actors were playing their characters I wouldn't spend that. If I won the lottery tomorrow that would still be at the bottom of places I would go for a vacation.
 
I've been traveling to the WDW resort for 50 years. I've done multiple conferences there. I've seen the changes in come and go, the best and the worst. And there is still a lot of "good" that remains. The DVC (timeshare) resorts are a stand-out. The behind the scenes tours are definitely worth the extra $$. And if you are willing to spend that extra $$, there are top tier dining experiences available everywhere; my wife and I splurged for dining at Victoria&Albert's many years ago, and it was exquisite. My wife practically ran up on stage when they asked her to "volunteer" for the closing act at the Hoop-Dee-Doo dinner show.

But the Galactic Starcruiser was never intended for the SW fan masses. While it was advertised to all, It was specifically designed for the upper middle class and wealthy with disposable income. Think of it as the equivalent of the Ritz Carlton luxury hotel. They are not marketing to me or the average Walmart/Target shopper. Oh, they'll gladly take my money (with a smile) but we are not their target audience. This was intended to be an exclusive, extra $$$ experience. One that by almost every review was unique, exciting, bespoke... and still a failure.
Very true, except that people stay at the Ritz Carlton because they can. And those that stay there have a wide variety of tastes.

So, take the Ritz Carlton and reduce it's potential customer base by those who are major Star Wars fans who are willing to limit their stays to 2 days, and, well, it doesn't take an accounting degree to realize that isn't going to work out very well. You take a family of 4 to Disney World, it still is going to wind up costing you a lot. Maybe a thousand bucks a day. Taking that family to the star cruiser literally adds like 5K to that price. That brings me back to the first point - Ritz Carlton customer based reduced to people who are major star wars fans. Not a recipe for success. To succeed, you have to be accessible to a much wider range of incomes - even at 100 rooms a night.

I don't recall anyone saying it sucked or was anything less than a very good experience really. They still have lines for the rides in Galaxy's Edge. The issue clearly seems to have been the price. Look at it this way:

18 months, figure that amounts to roughly 78 weeks, 3 'departures' a week works out to 234 total departures, at 100 rooms a trip, that's 23,400 rooms. They didn't sell them all, they're closing it so they maybe sold what? Half? 11,700? Between them Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood studios bring in what? 500k people a day? maybe more? And this supposedly great place couldn't book enough rooms to stay open. That speaks volumes.
 
I can't imagine that the Starcruiser's financial math ever came close to looking good.

Either Disney always knew it was gonna be a short-term deal or else they were hoping it would serve as a loss leader (maybe they hoped it would boost the public's grand total enthusiasm for Galaxy's Edge enough to outweigh its direct losses.)


Another alternative is that they didn't research the financial case well enough to spot the problem. And/or they didn't believe the numbers telling them things they didn't want to hear.

I would have expected them to be more sensible than this. But I also expected them to be more sensible than to focus the whole theme park on the sequel trilogy. And I expected them not to try to make a sequel trilogy without having a storyline figured out. And I expected them not to do an Indiana Jones movie that tries to upstage him with another character . . . . :rolleyes:
 
I can't imagine that the Starcruiser's financial math ever came close to looking good.

Either Disney always knew it was gonna be a short-term deal or else they were hoping it would serve as a loss leader (maybe they hoped it would boost the public's grand total enthusiasm for Galaxy's Edge enough to outweigh its direct losses.)


Another alternative is that they didn't research the financial case well enough to spot the problem. And/or they didn't believe the numbers telling them things they didn't want to hear.

I would have expected them to be more sensible than this. But I also expected them to be more sensible than to focus the whole theme park on the sequel trilogy. And I expected them not to try to make a sequel trilogy without having a storyline figured out. And I expected them not to do an Indiana Jones movie that tries to upstage him with another character . . . . :rolleyes:

And looking at online videos, I think the venue was too small. In every way. From the dining area. atrium, small satellite areas for "training" to the rooms themselves. It's like they held back with the scale of the design space.
 
This never really hd a chance though. Way too expensive.

First, Disney prices are outrageous as is. I would like to go to a regular Disney park once in a while but given the dosh I would need to drop, Im saving for a special occasion only.

Second, it sounds like a bad customer experience for what you are getting. Its a luxury hotel + mystery theater + theme park visit in one but does all half-hazardly for its price tag.

In terms of hotel, Ive heard that the beds and rooms are a little small. Not an issue in general but if you are dropping 5k and have the choice between Ritz or a Disney resort and this, the others seem like better options.

As a mystery theater, I think the idea was honestly good (multiple paths for multiple visits) but that price point is too rich. From reviews by youtubers (who probably went for free or at a heavy discount); they said they enjoyed the experience but its too expensive for a revisit.

And as a opportunity to visit the parks, way too scheduled. You are on a set schedule and the time allocated is to really visit Galaxy’s Edge and go on the rides once each (I think you get priority) and some shopping. Yeah GE itself is pretty mediocre but I feel there are people who want to “live in the ship” but still just have fun in the parks.

Also, I think in terms of price comparison, a one week Disney cruise was cheaper than the stay at this hotel/mystery theater. It was just way too expensive.

I get that Disney is focusing on the super rich portion of the fanbase and essentially “microtransactioning” the heck out of its park guests with stuff like Genie Plus but its not like the Disney Parks really provide an experience that is unreplicable in other parks now (thanks to parks cutting costs). Universal looks more appealing with its range of IPs, Harry Potter, and now Super Nintendo land. In terms of rides more “domestic” parks like Six Flags, Ceder Rapids, or FujiQ take the cake with more impressive rides (tallest coaster, fastest coaster, scariest haunted house, etc.).
 
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Disney is becoming overpriced as it is. It costs a literal fortune to go there, and that's just the hotel room. Never mind the additions like food, and everything else. Guess people just weren't keen on getting a mortgage to stay in a spaceship themed hotel for a couple of days.
 
The concept just never even remotely appealed to me.
Me either. I consider myself as big a Star Wars fan as anyone and I found nothing appealing about it. The basic flaw is that a "cruise" simulation doesn't lend itself to what Star Wars is. And what is Star Wars? It's a swashbuckling adventure series. And how do you simulate swashbuckling adventure? Well...you can't. Certainly not on a leisurely "cruise" anyway. The closest you get is that fight at the end of the stay with Rey and Kylo. So, watching other people do Star Warsy stuff. No thanks.

Heck, even if you put me in place of Rey and Vader in place of Kylo and let us have a mock fight, it'd still be a plastic blade sparring session and frankly I stopped playing pretend a long time ago in a childhood far, far away.

Rides are fun and walking around a theme park is enjoyable but, unless you can toss me into the actual Star Wars universe, I'm not interested in larping.

You know what might work (and I stress the word might)? This concept but with Star Trek:

-You spend most of your time on a "ship".
-You embark on a land excursion.
-You interact conversationally with various characters.
-It has a bridge simulator.

Still not something I'd personally be interested in outside of possibly a dinner theater experience but, for those that like to larp maybe it could work as a two-night venture.
 
I'm glad I got to go to Disney World back in the early and late 1980s (I went to Epcot back in February 2023). A 5-day pass had park hopper and no expiration included for no extra charge. The water parks were ALSO INCLUDED for the first week or two after using the first day on the pass (now THAT was a good deal!) Magic Journeys in 3D. No fast pass rip-off lines (that now require a smart phone to even get in line for Guardians of the Galaxy coaster). EPCOT was about a future community, not movie rides (although the Guardians coaster was pretty cool and the German buffet and bier garten was still fun).... I could go on. Disney used to be great. Now they're this somewhat hypocritical dichotomy between ridiculous overt greed and "wokeness" (the two aren't really compatible on the surface at least).

Poor Walt's head is rolling over in his liquid nitrogen tank.... ;)
 
I'm glad I got to go to Disney World back in the early and late 1980s (I went to Epcot back in February 2023). A 5-day pass had park hopper and no expiration included for no extra charge. The water parks were ALSO INCLUDED for the first week or two after using the first day on the pass (now THAT was a good deal!) Magic Journeys in 3D. No fast pass rip-off lines (that now require a smart phone to even get in line for Guardians of the Galaxy coaster). EPCOT was about a future community, not movie rides (although the Guardians coaster was pretty cool and the German buffet and bier garten was still fun).... I could go on. Disney used to be great. Now they're this somewhat hypocritical dichotomy between ridiculous overt greed and "wokeness" (the two aren't really compatible on the surface at least).

Poor Walt's head is rolling over in his liquid nitrogen tank.... ;)

I agree, even with the rose colored glasses of nostalgia, WDW was "better" in many ways, decades ago.

Walt Disney's death certificate shows that he was cremated just two days after his passing, a total of 34 days after his lung cancer was discovered.

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Interesting rabbit trail here: His only wife, Lillian Bounds Disney, remarried in 1969, 4 years after Walt's death. She was widowed a second time when her husband John L. Truyens died 12 years later in 1981. She herself died at age 98 in 1997 from a stroke. Yet her remains were interred with Walt, not John. This has always struck me as a little "odd", but I guess it was a family decision and probably not hers.
 
I'm hard pressed to find anyone I know who actually went. And I'm surrounded by people who love Disney, Star Wars and make a butt-load of money.
 
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