Save Up to $700 on 2-Night Disney World Resort Stays + Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser Voyages
Walt Disney World is offering the first general public discount on combined resort hotel stays and Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser voyages. This post shares the details of the special offers, best dates to save the most money, plus sample pricing, commentary, analysis & other info. (Updated January 20, 2023.)
This is actually the fifth discount offer that Walt Disney World has released thus far in 2023. That’s on top of the special offers that were released last October for Spring 2023 travel dates, with an end result that 9 discounts are currently available. (Walt Disney World’s special offer page lists 14 different promos; some of those are things like ‘free shipping on shopDisney’ or military discounts that are offered every year.)
Suffice to say, there are many more discounts available than at the same time last year. If you’re looking for primary general public promos, there’s the “Free” Disney Dining Card Deal, which runs for the late summer through September 2023. For those traveling sooner, check out the up to 25% off room deal for Spring & Summer 2023. With that said, here are official details about the new Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser special offer…
Save up to $700 on a 2-night stay at select Disney Resort hotels when you book a select Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser voyage from February 5 through September 30, 2023 — valid for stays immediately before or after your voyage.
With this special offer, you can extend your adventure — and pair a Walt Disney World Resort hotel stay with an experience that’s truly out of this galaxy. This offer is valid for the resorts listed below. View the chart to explore savings:
Purchase of a Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser vacation package is required. The number of Resort hotel rooms allocated for this offer is limited. Offer not valid on select voyages—including those on the following dates:
- February 16, 18 and 22
- March 12 and 14
- April 3, 7, 9, 11 and 13
- May 3 and 17
- June 12 and 16
- July 24
- August 9, 15, 19, 21 and 23
Savings based on the non-discounted price for the same Resort hotel room. Resort hotel stay must occur on dates immediately before or after the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser voyage, but does not need to be on consecutive nights.
A maximum of 2 nights in a Resort hotel room maybe be booked with this offer. Cancelling the reservation for Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser will result in the cancellation of the Resort hotel stay and any applicable cancellation fees will apply. All Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser package components are only valid during the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser voyage and cannot be redeemed during the Resort hotel stay.
We’ll start with brief discount analysis before turning to commentary about Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. The positive here is that this is actually, at least in theory, an actual discount. That’s more than can be said for the first Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser “discount” released for Disney Vacation Club members.
In fairness (I guess?), those DVC point offers typically are a poor value proposition, yet members do them anyway for whatever reason. So offering a “deal” in name only is about par for the course there.
I’d have to call to price out this promo for up to $700 off combined hotel stays and Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser at Walt Disney World, and there’s no way on earth that’s going to happen. Instead, I’ll just make some assumptions about what the discount should be based on known pricing.
In quickly perusing rate charts, it appears to me that the best place for taking advantage of this offer is Coronado Springs Resort. Even though it offers the lowest per night savings, it also has the cheapest rack rates–and the spread is larger on those than it is on the amount per night off. Note that I’m quicking skimming 2023 rate charts published last summer–it’s entirely possible pricing is slightly different when applied to packages booked today. Nevertheless, this should still be generally true.
Walt Disney World only publishes the rack rates for Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser during the lowest point of the 2023 off-season, when it’s lowest price is $4,809 per voyage with 2 guests in a cabin. This actually is sufficient data for my purposes, as I always assess these discounts based on their best possible prices.
This makes my target dates for the trip the “Value 2” season, which occurs through August and September 2023 at Walt Disney World. For reasons beyond me, some of those August dates are blocked out at Galactic Starcruiser, so we’ll just arbitrarily choose some dates in September. Doesn’t much matter.
The above chart shows rack rates for a standard room at Coronado Springs Resort during those months. For the best pricing, let’s choose the $265 dates. Two of those, plus the $4,809 voyage aboard Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser for a party of 2 comes out to $5,339 before tax.
Subtract $300 for this deal, and the total drops to $5,039. That amounts to about 6% off. Keep in mind that this is about as good as this deal is going to get. This is a flat-rate amount off, so larger parties will pay more for Starcruiser without seeing a corresponding increase in their savings–thereby reducing the percentage off.
It should go without saying, but this is not a good bundled discount when compared to Walt Disney World’s room-only deals or even the free dining card…or really anything. Assuming my math is correct (bold assumption), there are probably more scenarios where the savings are in the 3-5% off range than 6% off.
However, there is the reality that this is the first real discount on Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. The aforementioned special offers do not apply to it, so they’re not really analogous. If you remove the full price Starcruiser and compare the deals on a resort to resort basis, this discount is far superior for a 2-night hotel stay v. a 2-night hotel stay. The difference is the extremely large asterisk that a ~$5,000 or more Starcruiser stay is required for eligibility.
More analysis probably is not necessary. Those who were previously priced out of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser most likely are still priced out. From my perspective, this doesn’t really move the needle enough to make it attractive or reasonable, except for those who were truly on the fence, and planned on also doing a stay at one of the eligible resorts.
By contrast, if you already have a Starcruiser voyage booked–or were planning on booking something that falls within these parameters–this is your only special offer, and thus the best. Basically, this is a “good” deal for those individuals, but it shouldn’t incentivize new bookings, because the same is not true for just about anyone else.
For those who “checked out” on Galactic Starcruiser after the high prices were released, we’ll quickly bring you up to speed. This is unlike anything Walt Disney World has ever done, an amalgamation of various entertainment, eating, and other offerings. It’s not really comparable to a theme park visit or traditional hotel stay.
Think of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser more like a cruise on land–as the name suggests–with all-inclusive (mostly) food & drinks and comparable programming. As a threshold matter, you should determine whether this is good fit for your party by reading our spoiler-free Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser Review.
The nature of the experience alone will eliminate many families visiting Walt Disney World. Then there’s the aforementioned pricing, which makes it a total non-starter for many others–and explains a lot of the issues that’ll be discussed here (and what led to the discounting, in the first place).
We paid $6,634.32 for a party of 4–or $1,658.58 per person. For more thoughts on this expensive pricing, see Is Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser Worth the High Cost? With international travel costing less and offering more due to favorable exchange rates, I’m now even less inclined to do Starcruiser again than I was back when that was written.
For those who haven’t been paying attention more recently, voyages aboard Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser have now been released through Fall 2023. Aside from Presidents’ Day weekend, there isn’t a single date sold out in the next several months.
Availability does start to get spotty in July and August, but I have a very hard time believing all of those August dates are actually sold out. It’s unlikely that nearer dates that are busy (Spring Break & Easter) would somehow be less popular than the early Fall 2023 off-season. It does not pass the smell test.
Keep in mind that people generally book vacations–especially expensive ones like this–about 6 months in advance. Most people aren’t taking multi-thousand dollar vacations on a whim. It’s probably concerning to the company that this new experience with incredibly limited capacity already is not filling up.
In the past, we’ve ‘defended’ this to a degree, noting that availability fluctuates a lot, and reminded readers that one reservation can be the difference between “sold out” and “available.” In short, all it takes is one cancellation or even a modification to different dates to go from available to not available.
This would still be a good point if that were what was happening with 2023 Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser bookings. It is not, though. We have heard credible reports that occupancy has been anemic recently–with many voyages well below full capacity. It’s impossible to say whether that’s the case with forward-looking bookings, but between the wide open calendar and likelihood that this gets less popular, not more popular, over time…we can only surmise that things are already bleak. This is just one of a few problems we’ve heard about with the Starcruiser, but the only one that is pertinent to this post.
One explanation for August 2023 is that it won’t operate on all dates and is already going into “seasonal” mode. That would be a bombshell if true, and I don’t have anything to corroborate that. Still, reducing the frequency of voyages in the off-season does strike me as the most plausible explanation–especially in light of other issues.
With that said, I don’t want to get all conspiratorial. It’s also possible that refurbishments are occurring between voyages or that Imagineering is working on a new storyline to entice repeat visits. The former is plausible, but the latter strikes me as throwing good money after bad. One more likely scenario is that Disney is planning to debut ‘day trips’ in between 2-night voyages, and those dates are blocked out until that “new adventure” is officially announced. Offering that would be my pivot, as I think a lot of the script could be rewritten for 8-hour experiences that would be very attractive to some fans and significantly cheaper. (There is no way to turn this into a regular hotel, so that is not the play.)
January 20, 2023 Update: After publishing this yesterday, several readers reached out to us who either had their own Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser voyages cancelled by Disney or who saw others report the same on social media. After reviewing the dates and details, it appears that every single date that is currently unavailable in July or August 2023 is not sold out–it’s a cancelled voyage.
Disney is reportedly calling guests affected by the cancellations and offering to move them to adjacent voyages at a 50% discount. In some cases, guests are also being offered a per night credit (that’s dependent upon the circumstances). Cast Members have not offered an explanation for the cancellations, other than that the Starcruiser is “unavailable for booking” those dates.
This does not conclusively prove that Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser is going seasonal due to lack of demand, but it suggests some sort of shenanigans are occurring. For one thing, if demand were high, it wouldn’t be possible to simply move all of the displaced guests into adjacent voyages. For another thing, if this were a planned refurbishment, it likely would’ve been scheduled in advance so Disney didn’t have to dish out room credits and 50% discounts as guest recovery.
Something is up, we’re just not quite sure what…yet.
That brings us to the other half of this that’s worth addressing, which is the potential failure of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. There are a lot of Walt Disney World fans who are actively cheering for the downhall of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. I suspect there are a range of reasons for this, from schadenfreude to spillover from unrelated guest-unfriendly decisions to generalized frustrations about Disney’s handling of Star Wars to perceptions of pricing.
Some of aspects of this I “get” even if I don’t agree. It was dumb of Disney to make this so exclusionary, both in pricing and appeal. It’s also unfortunate that there isn’t a way to do an excursion to the Halcyon (or something of that sort) to make the experience both cheaper and more palatable. There are dozens of ways Disney could’ve approached this so it didn’t alienate so much of the audience. Yet they opted against all of that, and in a sense, will get what they deserve if Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser fails.
My issue is that there’s no good outcome for anyone at this point if Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser fails. If something like Genie+ or some other upcharge is rejected, that’s a good thing for guests. The company would be forced to backtrack on price increases, nickel and diming, or other cutbacks. Consumer pushback is perfectly healthy, and can result in improvements on those fronts or other offerings that can be easily changed.
That will not be the case with Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, which includes physical infrastructure that had over one hundred million dollars invested in it. Whatever “lesson” you think Disney will learn if this fails, I can assure you that won’t be the company’s actual conclusions. (I know that I’ve written this many times before, but it’s still worth reiterating.)
The takeaway won’t be that they’ve raised prices too much or lost touch with the middle class. It won’t be that people don’t want Disney’s version of Star Wars. It won’t be that they should build more rides instead of expensive accommodations. The company already has broader market research about all of that, and those decisions will continue forward without regard for a niche product’s reception.
The lesson they’ll learn is to play it safe instead of swinging for the fences. Instead of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, we’ll get another half-baked version of Toy Story Hotel. For better or worse, Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser is an envelope-pushing concept that gave Imagineering tremendous creative freedom. This is one of the biggest risks that the company has let Imagineering take in a long time.
Imagineering created something outside the box that offered full immersion, interactivity, entertainment, and personalization in a highly-themed environment. If Galactic Starcruiser fails, the conclusion is going to be that guests don’t want immersion, interactivity, entertainment, personalization, or highly-themed environments. Presumably, those are things most people reading this do want, just not in this way or at this price point.
While I doubt the company will ever admit it, I would hazard a guess that Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser has already been deemed a failure internally. Its booking is convoluted and resource-intensive. Its operations are convoluted and resource intensive. It has generated a cottage industry of negative YouTube videos and think pieces lambasting the concept…pretty much since it was first announced. All of that for only 100 rooms. Even if they were selling out nightly at full price, that’s not a ton of revenue in the grand scheme of the Walt Disney Company…and it has had to endure a lot of headaches and bad publicity for that revenue.
We know that Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser is not selling out nightly at full price. Less than a year into this gamble, it’s already having a range of different problems, from demand to staffing. There are no easy fixes to any of this, due to the scale of the “hotel” and way it was constructed without key amenities. Obviously, the company isn’t going to issue a press release stating “Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser was a failure. We screwed up big time by building it, and not listening to the every whim of all-knowing fans.”
However, we’ll have a pretty good idea that Starcruiser isn’t living up to expectations if they reduce the number of voyages per month, introduce day passes, or change up the storyline. With that said, we really enjoyed our experience aboard the Halcyon. Once again, it is very taste-specific and not a luxury experience, but it may appeal to you. To read even more about it, consult our Guide to Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser Resort. Pretty much everything else you might want to know is there.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on Walt Disney World kind of discounting Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser? Will you be booking this special offer? What do you think is up with all of the blocked out August 2023 dates? Think Starcruiser is going seasonal, it’s a refurbishment, new story work, or day passes will be introduced? Would you prefer a more conventional hotel stay at a Star Wars-themed or decorated hotel? Do you agree or disagree with our advice and assessments? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
Even as someone who’s lukewarm on Star Wars, I think the entire Halcyon voyage sounds cool af and I’d love to try it. That being said, I’m in an offshoot group of the priced-out crew – it’s not that I’m priced out, per se, but rather that my discretionary spending allows me to go to WDW -OR- the Halcyon, but not both. Given the two options, and tossing runDisney race experiences (and associated costs) on top, WDW is going to win every time. All of which probably makes me the perfect target for a day pass option you mentioned, if that becomes a thing, but I don’t know what that would mean for the project as a whole…
Maybe I’ve misunderstood it, but it seems to me that to enjoy Starcruiser you need to enjoy role playing games, which I don’t, so the price isn’t the main barrier for me.
I’ve been on the fence about the Starcruiser since it opened. The operational costs are probably so high that they’ll NEVER be able to discount it enough to make a difference. At this point, I really think their BEST move would be to give up the “$6,000 Star Wars Hotel” business model, shorten the experience to about 2 hours, and turn it into the “$300 Star Wars Restaurant.”
Offer free booze at meals and then offer to rent the unoccupied rooms for another $3-500/hour.
Tom Bricker: How long did it take Disney to realize that The Disney Institute was a mistake and couldn’t last? The problem you’re not mentioning is that the multitude of Disney visitors repeat year after year. People move to the Orlando area to be near the parks. This Star Wars Hotel Role Play thing isn’t something one would be repeating. In general it’s a one and done and the cost makes it prohibitive to most visitors. It sounded neat and I do love Star Wars but it makes no sense. To be locked up inside for 2 days with 24 hours scheduling and your meals chosen for you, just make it a cruise and be done with it.
I wonder if some of this could be tied to the recession. They have been predicting the bottom dropping out on luxury travel for years. It might actually have less to do with Star Wars and more to do with people having less money to throw around. Plus the all the Putin is going to drag us WW3 predictions going around might also make people less inclined to cosplay the intergalactic wars. This hotel could be bad timing as much as anything. I have noticed a lot of very nice hotels offering discounts lately.
this isn’t luxury travel, it’s highly priced role playing. very different things. people who like to travel in style, and have the means to do so, like staying at Ritz Carltons, Grand Floridians etc. They like fine restaurants and amenities like swimming pools. Cost is not indicative of luxury.
While it’s a relatively small discount if you factor in the cost of the SWGC, the vast majority of people doing SWGC are also going to do a few days at regular Disney World as well. In that case it’s a substantially better deal than booking the WDW resort portion with a room only or free dining room discount. Recently, the best those deals have been are around 20-30% with the occasional 35%. With the Coronado Springs example, that adds up to about a 57% discount per night for those two nights. So while yes it’s a minuscule discount on the overall package, but still a much better deal than current room-only offers for the two nights at a regular resort.
If I ever did a SWGC trip, there would always be a regular WDW resort portion planned around it. One of the things that made me hesitant was the cost of SWGC AND a regular stay at WDW, just got too crazy, but if I could get more than half off for two nights and combine it with a 25-30% room-only discount for any additional nights, it definitely moves the needle a little bit. Basically I just wanted to point out that it’s still a very good discount if you were already planning on staying at a regular resort. It’s just not a very good discount on SWGC itself.
your hypthothesis is true, and I have it corroborated. Those August dates (along with some July and September) are canceled due to low booking. Guests who were booked have been moved to other dates at a very significant discount.
When this hotel first opened, I predicted it would eventually morph into a one-day experience. I still think that’s true. I’d pay for my family to experience a day or even half-day on this “starship”, but certainly not overnight in a windowless cabin.
I’m seeing reported on other sites that they have cancelled guest bookings in the Summer and offered them 50% price reductions to switch to other dates. It’s unconfirmed whether or not this is due to low bookings or if they want downtime for refurb, but it seems realistic this is due to low bookings.
I’m sad to hear this. I’m not in the core target for this, but did think it might be something we’d do one day.
Thanks for the heads up! Someone sent me some screenshots from a Facebook group right after I published this, indicating the same.
Doesn’t really change anything here. Whatever the underlying reason, it’s purely speculative at this point. Really hope someone at Disney is trying to figure out a “fix” beyond reducing voyage dates…
if it goes completely under, prices on everything else will go up to compensate. we don’t want that. best bet is to offer some cheaper alternatives to use the space to recoup the cost. will take them longer but better than losing it altogether and forcing other guests to pay for it.
I am with you that it is in no one’s best interest for this to fail. It is bewildering and saddening that Disney most certainly had the research (both on concept as well as IP), and yet this is the end result. I do not understand the consumer animosity towards it being SW other than any given person’s anger and/or disappointment that it is not their favorite IP. Even SW fans complaining don’t make much sense. Of course, you can never please everyone, so “haters” would happen regardless. What I do fully understand and agree with is the negativity around pricing. While we have the means to book, we have been reluctant given the mixed reviews and fluctuating quality of experience reports. Taking that into account plus the actual time spent “on board”, and the price becomes pretty hard to swallow unless money is truly no issue. It is also irritating to call for pricing and availability rather than search that on my own as I am trying to set an entire trip with other reservations that I can do online. Ultimately, Disney has put the hotel and themselves in this spot. They have some space to fix it, but I don’t see them making wiser choices. I see them looking at dollar signs above all else while missing obvious opportunities.
On a slightly different note, I’m guessing that hotel occupancy is still relatively high, even though we’re starting to see some discounts. I suppose that makes this more of an advertisement, directed at people who are willing to pay rack rates for some pretty expensive hotels?
I can’t come up with any other ideas to make this experience cheaper without cheapening the experience besides making one night versions. Anything else cuts out the night stay, which is a very serious problem at a resort.
I meant occupancy at OTHER WDW hotels, and using this announcement to advertise the Starcruiser experience. (I’m so sorry, I tried to edit my comment down before posting and that was the result.)
“I’d have to call to price out this promo for up to $700 off combined hotel stays and Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser at Walt Disney World, and there’s no way on earth that’s going to happen.“
Maybe it’s just me, but I kind of wonder how much not being able to book online has actually hurt attendance there. Maybe I’m just a stereotypical millennial, but the fact I can’t even price a hypothetical trip without calling them is a no go for me when I’m already on the fence about whether I would want to do it. It seems like unnecessary friction and even if it’s only stopping a handful of people from committing, that might still be significant give the relatively low capacity.
I agree about the need to call being an unnecessary impediment to booking. (The current cost makes it prohibitive for us, but even if a discount drops, the fact that I can’t check dates online, turns me off.)
We were on the fourth ever voyage last year. Nearly everyone was dressed up and guest excitement was palpable. A few weeks ago we were at Hollywood Studios and saw Starcruiser pins exclusively on plain-clothed people; nobody was doing missions on their phones and some had wandered far outside the confines of Batuu. We’re in no hurry to get back, save a VERY attractive returning guest offer or an announcement the experience is changing for the worse, but it seems like they’ve already lost their core demo and a trip even now just wouldn’t be the same. Half the enjoyment came from giggling about how there were two Lobots within our line of sight.
We enjoyed our voyage on Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser. We made sure to enjoy it early on as I can feel it either won’t last or will be severely changed from how they rolled it out. I remember doing a cost analysis from a guest standpoint of how much you end up paying for the Star Wars content vs the same dates at a place like Grand Floridian, Contemporary, or Polynesian. From my standpoint, and I am no expert, but I figured you pay about 1200 dollars for the Star Wars content as a guest. I took in account meal prices, nights, park admission, Lightning Lane, parking etc. Me being the Star Wars fan I am, decided to go for it. My caution to people is you should first off like Star Wars, and second be willing to lean into the story. This is not a relaxing vacation at all. Being local also helped us since we didn’t have to fly here or even book a room. From an operation standpoint I can’t even imagine how much they are paying to run Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser.
My family and I would absolutely love doing it . We love Cosplay, but the price is just ridiculous. I truly wonder what the breakeven price is. If it’s less than 50% of what they’re charging, they could cut the price and have it be a success.
“This is just one of a few problems we’ve heard about with the Starcruiser…”
I can understand for not elaborating on this, but would be curious to hear :-).
I guess it’s because it’s so “boutique” and has so few rooms but the pricing for this cruise on land still blows me away. I’ve been pricing out a Disney cruise for the first week of December next year. I know it’s essentially apples to oranges, but it’s the best comparison I’ve got. Cruise ships are not inexpensive to build, maintain and operate either and they also include food. Granted you have 4k guests vs. 100, but the cost for roughly twice the time (e.g. 4 nights) is roughly 40% of the cost for the star cruiser. I just have never seen the value proposition for most families of 3 or 4, and don’t know how they really thought this was sustainable.
Also 100% agree with you that if this fails it will result in the incorrect lessons being learned.
I can’t elaborate, sorry.
I’m honestly surprised one of the big Disney news sites hasn’t reported on it. What I know has been floating around CM circles for months, and has only gotten worse in the last couple of weeks. It’s going to get out sooner or later…but not via me. (None of it is shocking or particularly huge news–just things told to me in confidence that I can’t repeat.)
I am absolutely the target demographic for the Starcruiser, a big Disney fan who is an even bigger Star Wars fan who is fortunate to have the disposable income necessary for this experience. And I loved my time on the Halcyon last April. But even for me, after it was over, I questioned its repeatability (especially at that price point). And so I haven’t booked it again, and currently don’t plan to. I don’t know what the fix for that is, changing the storyline would presumably require a huge monetary investment. I agree completely that it would be a tragedy for such a uniquely ambitious concept for the company to fail.
The Starcruiser really is an incredible experience, that becomes relatively reasonable when you split it out between four or five guests. But it can be very difficult to find four of five guests who want to do this and have 1500 ready to go. That, and as much as I am literally fanatical about the Starcruiser? After having done it twice I’m not sure what I’d do if I went back a third time. There are still some encounters and experiences I haven’t had, but I know what they are and won’t get that legitimate feeling of surprise and discovery at triggering them. So…even if they entice repeat voyages, there’s only so much they’ll be able to get. (That said, if I could like…*live* there, I totally would.)
In my favorite scenario, I would want to see them break the Starcruiser options down into three categories: day trips with a quick story line, the two-night voyages they have now, and a longer three or four-night voyage with a more relaxed pace and two days in Batuu. This would give the actors different scenarios to keep things fresh, and would also give guests reasons to come back and try different things to get different storylines without having to change really any of the infrastructure or characters. Plus, then all demographics would have an experience that is accessible to them. Also, on the longer voyages, maybe add a bounty hunter character to the ship, so there’s a new ‘neutral’ path and a way to integrate the MagicBand+ game.
Interestingly, when I was searching for hotel rooms a week ago, the Starcruiser popped up in the list of ones I could have changed my reservation to. I didn’t select it at the time since I was shopping for something else, but it makes me wonder if they’re not working to make it more easily bookable on the website. I haven’t been able to see it since, so it was also possibly just a glitch.
“In my favorite scenario, I would want to see them break the Starcruiser options down into three categories: day trips with a quick story line, the two-night voyages they have now, and a longer three or four-night voyage with a more relaxed pace and two days in Batuu.”
What you describe is probably how this should’ve been designed in the first place, giving a range of options and price-points to make this more accessible and with a wider range of appeal.
My concern at this point is that developing a longer 3 or 4-night option would be costly and not broaden the audience in a meaningful way. Yet, I could see exactly that happening if they make the mistake of only viewing guest satisfaction surveys of the limited number of people who have done Starcruiser–and not the exponentially higher number who did not book it due to cost or whatever.
The feedback I’ve gotten from my friends was definitely that it was too short of an experience, so I think you’re right in terms of survey data possibly driving them towards a longer option. It takes a few hours for a guest to really sink into the environment, and by the time they were catching on and really giving it their all – the voyage wrapped up. I don’t think they’d need to do a massive amount of restructuring for it, though – just some slightly different plot elements, spending more time with the actors, and maybe actually getting to *meet* Kylo Ren. It felt so odd that I could interact with him on Batuu but not on the cruiser. Still, if they go that direction I hope they only have like…one or two of the long voyages per month, maybe five or six short voyages, and then a ton of day-trips.
Also unrelated, but I’m super-thrilled to be in the background of one of your pictures. I have such fond memories of that voyage and seeing it just brings me right back…
I love Star Wars! I grew up on the originals. I loved the concept of this hotel from the beginning. However, I have not booked it because it is just far too expensive, especially for just 2 days. If I could get a better price, I would definitely go for it. I do think a day trip is a good idea. Also, correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t the park open when you go to Batuu? I think that having all of Batuu to the Halcyon guests for a period of time, kind of like an After Hours event, would be a good idea, too. I mean without charging extra… I think this could be successful, but Disney has got to stop alienating people! Not only do I love Star Wars, but I am a HUGE Walt Disney fan. I prefer the classics. I have many “Disney” dreams, but it is so alienating, so disappointing to be priced out of a dream. Disney is supposed to remind us that dreams CAN come true. It should inspire and uplift us to make our own dreams come true. I do not begrudge them making a profit, but they need to seriously think about their pricing habits.
“I do think a day trip is a good idea. Also, correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t the park open when you go to Batuu? I think that having all of Batuu to the Halcyon guests for a period of time, kind of like an After Hours event, would be a good idea, too. I mean without charging extra…”
The problem is that doing that would push up the cost really quickly.
I think the best pivot is finding ways to make this more accessible, not less. Doing a condensed, 1-day storyline is something that would broaden the appeal of Starcruiser, and let Iger/D’Amaro take another “we’re listening to guest feedback on pricing” win.
Valid point, Tom. A day trip seems to be the best option at this point.
Honestly, it saddens me that this is doing so poorly. As you point out, the most likely lesson Disney will learn from a failure of this resort is to play it safe, and that’s not what I want from them. At the same time, I am in the demographic that would really enjoy an experience like this but was somewhat priced out. It’s not that I absolutely cannot afford it, but it would take a fair amount of saving, and I got far more bang for my buck by going to France for the first time last fall (which I absolutely loved). It was always in my mind to do try to do it a year or two down the line, but it seems unlikely whatever this is in 2024 is massively scaled down from what was originally advertised/offered.
Pivoting to day voyages seems like probably the best compromise to preserve some of what is innovative about the Galactic Starcruiser while increasing usage. Even at something like $500/person for the day, I think there would be a lot more people willing/able to figure out a way to make that work financially.
“Pivoting to day voyages seems like probably the best compromise to preserve some of what is innovative about the Galactic Starcruiser while increasing usage. Even at something like $500/person for the day, I think there would be a lot more people willing/able to figure out a way to make that work financially.”
Doing this would actually open a lot of doors if it’s popular. It would also make sense for Imagineering and Lucasfilm to develop more storylines in this scenario, as the barrier to repeat visits is a lot lower if it’s a cheaper diversion as opposed to a standalone 2-night stay.
I’m still not optimistic about the future of the concept, but I really don’t want to see it fail. It would be great if they found a way to pivot and turn this concept into something accessible to more people–and making it more popular in the process. Win-win.