What Went Wrong with Disney’s Star Wars Hotel?
One year ago this week, Walt Disney World made the surprise announcement that it would be permanently closing Galactic Starcruiser, its “Star Wars hotel.” This came amidst struggles filling ‘voyages’ despite discounting, but was nevertheless surprising that it happened so fast.
The closure of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser itself was not a shock–we predicted that as a high-probably outcome even prior to it even opening–but the abrupt manner after only a little over a year of operations was. Surely, we thought, Disney would attempt to pivot once the initial wave of hardcore fans and affluent enthusiasts got their fix.
Nope. Instead, Walt Disney World announced the Starcruiser would make its final voyages by the end of the fiscal year, taking accelerated depreciation of a whopping $300 million. On the plus side, I guess, Disney did manage to sell out the final voyages in fast fashion as the hardcore fanbase that had quickly formed around Starcruiser–and those who thought they had more time to wait for discounts or whatever–rushed to book spots on the remaining months of voyages.
The struggles of Starcruiser are well-documented. We’ve written a number of articles about it over the years. It was a fascinating and troubled topic even pre-closure. Many fans absolutely adored it, whereas others loved to hate it. Starcruiser crashing and burning so spectacularly after under 2 years of operations has only added to the mystique. It will be deconstructed for far longer than it was constructed and operational.
In the grand scheme of the Star Wars and Disney fandoms, very few people had the opportunity to experience it. We’ve previously remarked about how there were dozens–if not hundreds–of YouTube videos about the Star Wars hotel that were watched by exponentially more people than ever stayed at Starcruiser.
One such video just dropped within the last week, and is singularly responsible for renewed interest in the doomed project:
“The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel” by Jenny Nicholson has already racked up nearly 5 million views with roughly 30,000 comments. It has “broken containment” from the Star Wars and Disneyspheres into the broader internet. I’ve had several people ask for my thoughts on it–from regular readers to non-Disney normies (that’s how you know it’s a big deal).
Aside from a scattering of clips I’ve seen on social media, I have not watched it. The video is roughly 4 hours long, which is like a weeklong viewing affair when translated to being a new parent working around the demands of a baby. (I can’t even watch a 2 hour movie without breaking it into multiple viewings.)
I’ve heard the video is incredibly thorough and well-done, and a lot of people whose opinions I trust have said it’s well worth watching and is actually concise because it’s so dense with information. So I can’t really recommend it, per se, but I also haven’t read Anna Karenina and am similarly confident that’s good content despite my lack of firsthand knowledge.
Nevertheless, I can’t open social media without seeing arguments about the video…and people keep asking for my opinions on it…so I’ll offer some indirect, roundabout thoughts on Starcruiser that (hopefully? maybe?) will suffice. Obviously, that’s not the same, but the alternative is writing my “response” in 3 years when I have free time, and I feel like the moment will have passed by then.
Most of the questions I’ve received about the Starcruiser and/or that video have been variations of this post’s title. (The rest have been super-specific stuff, many revolving around “influencer culture,” for lack of a better term.) Spoiler: I don’t have an answer to the titular question because there is no single thing that went wrong with Galactic Starcruiser. It was pretty much everything.
The main problem, of course, was the price. Not to belabor the point here, as the overwhelming majority of discourse about Starcruiser has revolved around the prohibitive pricing. This was patently obvious to just about everyone from the beginning, and one of the biggest reasons why so many fans cheered for its failure. (For more thoughts on this expensive pricing, see Is Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser Worth the High Cost?)
Basically, Walt Disney World had something that was awesome and envelope-pushing, but had astronomical operating costs and even higher price points for guests. The end result is something highly exclusionary that reduced a potentially large consumer pool into a very small one.
The margins on Starcruiser were not nearly as healthy as many fans assumed at first. Yes, the price was high, but the operating costs were staggering due to the high number of frontline Cast Members and performers, as well as the low number of rooms. It was basically a math problem, and I’m still shocked that Disney greenlit Starcruiser knowing it would be so expensive (for them) to run and require high occupancy rates.
Some fans still don’t seem to believe this, which is odd to me. If the only thing Disney needed to do for Starcruiser to be a success was lower prices…they would’ve lowered prices! It’s not like they wanted the thing to fail and to take the tax writedown. Disney would’ve been much better off had Starcruiser succeeded and actually made money.
This is just one of several ways Disney boxed themselves in with Starcruiser and didn’t have much room to pivot. Another example of this is the character choices and setting–as with the land itself, it’s fair to say there probably would’ve been more interest if Darth Vader and other familiar characters and environments were featured. The whole thing made more sense as a “wish fulfillment” experience that would’ve let adults relieve fond memories of formative films from their childhoods.
Then there’s the niche nature of the experience. Starcruiser was a live-action role-playing game and interactive entertainment kinda endeavor–and one that required multiple days to experience. The time and nature of the experience were two big barriers to entry, with the high cost being the third of the trifecta. We heard from so many Star Wars and Disney fans who were curious about Starcruiser and could’ve afforded it as a splurge, but ultimately couldn’t justify the risk of their vacation time for an unknown concept that they might’ve not enjoyed. Hard to blame ’em!
Another issue was the marketing of Starcruiser, with the company having a difficult time conveying what it was (and wasn’t). What most affluent consumers able to afford Starcruiser’s prices actually wanted was a boutique hotel set in the Star Wars universe, but that’s not what it delivered. (On a related note, here’s Why Walt Disney World Will NOT Reimagine Starcruiser Into a Star Wars Hotel.)
This is just a partial list of what went wrong with Starcruiser. (There’s a certain 4 hour video you can watch that I assume offers a deeper dive into all of this and more.) I would’ve loved to see Disney at least try to pivot, but I can also understand not throwing good money after bad. Starcruiser was booking to half-capacity a year after it opened.
While it’s easy to Monday morning quarterback and assert they should’ve done X or Y differently, and that would’ve fixed everything, I’m skeptical that would’ve been the case. The problems were more fundamental and multifaceted. In actuality, I suspect its original creation would’ve had to play out differently for the outcome to differ. (Still, I wish they would’ve tried day trips to the Halcyon.)
I’ve also been asked my thoughts on the video itself–and have seen a lot more of “The Discourse” in the last week on social media. Let’s start with the title, “The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel.” It’s weird to me to see people arguing about whether Starcruiser was a failure.
From my perspective, this point is well-settled. Given that the Star Wars hotel closed and Disney took a massive $300 million writedown on it, of course it failed. Going out of business is incontrovertible evidence of failure. So I’m not interested in relitigating this question. If Starcruiser succeeded, you could still book voyages on it.
I guess you could argue that it was actually a creative triumph or the true success was the friends we made along the way. All of that seems like a stretch. Creatives don’t operate in a vacuum, and even if the experience was fantastic for a select number of guests, the bottom line is that it wasn’t booked enough to remain in business.
Again, it resulted in a $300 million loss for Disney. Let that sink in, because it means the bare minimum that Disney sunk on this project was $300 million. It’s possible that Starcruiser lost even more, but they’ve recycled some of the assets and didn’t take a writedown on those. I know Disney has become so adept at losing money with movies and Disney+ that it might seem like Monopoly money at this point, but that’s real money. Imagine losing your wallet full of $300. Would you excitedly tell your spouse about this great success, or feel upset about it?
The fact that something perceived so positively by many/most of those who experienced it still had to close isn’t exactly the ringing endorsement that some fans believe it is. I don’t think that makes it better–it makes it worse! “We had this great thing people loved but it lost a ton of money and also was seldom fully booked until we announced its closure” isn’t something to brag about.
To be abundantly clear, this doesn’t undermine your enjoyment of Starcruiser and passion people still have for it. It doesn’t invalidate the work Imagineers and so many other talented Cast Members undertook to bring it to live, and breathe life into it. There are a lot of people who have (very understandably!) grown attached to Starcruiser, the people who inhabited its spaces, the stories they experienced, and friends they made along the way. That is great–I loved it, too!
But I also don’t need a label of “success” to be the enduring legacy of the project. And I know that, no matter what I or anyone else says, that absolutely will not be how Starcruiser is remembered. It’ll be as a costly and colossal flop that Disney pulled the plug on less than two years after it opened. That doesn’t undermine anyone’s memories. I happen to love the movies Mulholland Drive and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (Sarah says I shouldn’t admit to that) despite both flopping–a fact about which I never think while watching them!
I’ve said this before, but Starcruiser reminds me of the Adventurers Club–but with childhood love of Star Wars and a massive barrier to entry in the price. Both were also immersive experiences that involved a degree of role-playing, or at least had an in-group dynamic. People formed friendships and forged strong bonds through both.
Many fans found their adopted “families” at both, and the closures hit certain people hard. In the case of Adventurers Club, the diehards held out hope for years that it would return–clinging to every bit of speculation, rumors, and/or wishful thinking. It was painful to watch, even secondhand.
It’s probably fair to say that the same thing is already happening with Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, which is why so many people are taking this video–or anything negative–personally. It’s perceived not as a critique of the creative and business decisions of a multi-billion corporation, but an attack on family. It is personal. (Not for me. I really liked Starcruiser, but not that much.)
I understand why it’s happening, but it still seems misguided to me to pick apart this video, trying to poke holes in the arguments. Even without watching it in full, I’m glad it exists. And this is without knowing whether I’d agree or disagree with the substance of the video.
In fact, I probably would not agree with some of the specific critiques given that we really enjoyed Starcruiser and she didn’t. (Our full Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser Review is mostly positive.) But that doesn’t much matter–she can’t invalidate my experience just like I can’t invalidate hers.
It’s not just us, either. There are dozens upon dozens of glowingly positive reviews for Starcruiser all over the internet. And not just from bloggers, vloggers, influencers, etc. Countless average guests considered it the best thing they’d ever done at Walt Disney World. It had one of the highest guest satisfaction scores at Walt Disney World of all-time.
I suppose you could say every one of these people is biased or suffered a mass hallucination after catching Gaya’s gaze. Or there’s the more straightforward explanation…a lot of people who did Starcruiser really liked it?
From what I gather, Jenny’s voyage was a comedy of errors and issues that Disney declined to fix–or did so belatedly. I’ve also seen comments suggesting she did X or Y the “wrong” way, which strikes me as patently absurd and dismissive. Given the price point, the service and attention to detail should’ve been immaculate.
Sadly, this is nothing new or unique. We heard from others who either had negative experiences or for whom Starcruiser didn’t “click.” Although secondhand, there are anecdotes of guests not realizing what they had signed up for and having a disappointing time. To be clear, this was not our experience–ours was amazing and Disney firing on all cylinders at the highest caliber. But we are not everyone.
One thing that is/was key is distinguishing between the terms expensive and luxury when describing Starcruiser. Something can cost a lot of money–as this did–without being luxurious–as this was not. This is a common thread with Walt Disney World. We’ve pointed out time and time again that Disney cannot hold a candle to real world luxury hoteliers, which is why they outsourced that to Four Seasons several years ago. Disney mostly does themed resorts, not luxurious ones.
The specifics here don’t really matter, anyway, since the thing in question is dead and gone, so it’s not like my review can persuade anyone to do Starcruiser or vice-versa. At this point, everything written or recorded about Starcruiser is essentially a postmortem on the project, with much of it serving as a cautionary tale or a prism for commentary on Disney as a whole.
And that’s why I’m glad “The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel” video exists. Because–at least from a couple clips that I’ve seen–it essentially views Starcruiser as a symptom of a larger and systemic problem. The company’s proclivity for treating Walt Disney World like its cash cow–nickel and diming guests, charging more and offering less.
We’ve been critical of the company, with Is Disney Ruining Its Reputation? and Disney’s Reputation Falls Further covering the company’s self-inflicted brand damage and loss of goodwill in the last several years. That has happened, at least in part, because Walt Disney World is charging more and offering less as compared to 2019.
Starcruiser is seen as the culmination of this, which was precisely why there was so much schadenfreude among Disney fans about its failure. Fans cheered for Starcruiser’s downfall not necessarily because it was bad in isolation, but because it was the biggest and boldest exemplar of a problematic trend. The most expensive upcharge at a time of ever-increasing upcharges. Starcruiser opened at the height of that, in the darkest days during the Chapek era when everything was being cut…except prices.
Although we first covered the topic many years ago in Is Disney World Eroding Fan Goodwill?, the trend really accelerated post-pandemic during the pent-up demand “era” when Walt Disney World was doing record-breaking numbers regardless of the guest-unfriendly decisions and changes they made. (See also, Top 10 Guest Complaints About Walt Disney World and Walt Disney World Could Fix the Guest Experience by Improving These Things.)
From my perspective, there is way too much uncritical commentary of Disney. This site certainly doesn’t shy away from positivity when it’s warranted–but we also aren’t afraid to offer blunt and frank assessments when those are warranted. One of the reasons Disney Adults are the subject of so much derision (besides the fact that we’re super cool and everyone is jealous of us–clearly) is because there’s so much unflinching positivity or knee-jerk negativity in the community. (Critical commentary is distinct from negativity–you can be reflexively negative by complaining about any and everything without offering thoughtful and coherent critique.)
This is the main reason I’m most looking forward to watching the 4 hour Star Wars hotel video. I don’t really care about Starcruiser itself anymore–what’s done and gone is gone–it’s how the lessons learned (or not) by the company will be applied (or not) in the future at Walt Disney World that really matters to me.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on what went wrong with Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser? If you’ve watched “The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel,” what was your take on the video? Did you also experience the Star Wars hotel? Do you agree or disagree with its 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!
You can probably skip straight to the chapters “The Cast” and “Robbed” of Jenny’s video and get the gist of it. “Robbed” by itself is a homerun because it paints the “failure” culture expanding throughout the parks, not just to the Star Wars hotel.
It also reminded of what the CEO of Ryanair said a while back- no matter how bad the service, how late the planes are, how inconvenienced passengers are, they still come back. Except that he sells low cost. Disney sells Walt’s vision, not the garbage they foist on us today, at sky high prices.
We remember what Walt did, and that’s what we hope/think we’re buying, but today’s Disney CORPORATION dupes us with garbage, hoping we forgive and forget today, reminiscing about yesterday, getting less for more and more money.
What went wrong? Limited capacity and soooo overpriced. Concept and execution was great, just a very bad business model.
I actually did watch all of Jenny’s video (in a few different sittings!) I was interested in the fact that the main barrier to her having an enjoyable experience was that the technology didn’t work and so she wasn’t able to complete missions in the storyline she was most interested in. It seems that wasn’t your experience or a lot of people’s, but it also seems that it did happen to some other passengers. I can imagine how disappointing that would be—paying so much for this experience and then having to wait on the sidelines because you can’t figure out how to participate!
Also, I think they really overestimated how many people wanted to role play and interact with strangers for two days straight. Even if I was a millionaire I would not have done this, as that sounds like a nightmare to me! Approximately half the population is on the more introverted side and this is going to be a difficult experience for us, at any price.
I was actually surprised at how well all of the ‘moving pieces’ of the experience worked for us, as I absolutely wasn’t expecting that given my past experiences with Disney IT. Given the complexity, I was flabbergasted that it went flawlessly for us.
…And that’s also what makes me not the least bit surprised that it didn’t work well for others!
Number one problem is that it was not themed to actual Star Wars but Kathleen Kennedy Star Wars – the actors may be talented but my family has zero attachment to Rey or Kylo Ren – it was like building a Marvel Hotel and leaving out Iron Man and putting in Captain Marvel
I think Disney could’ve changed literally everything else about Starcruiser, but if they left the cost unchanged, it still would have closed. Maybe other changes would’ve bought it more time, but cost was the biggest problem.
It’s not like Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance has a problem with popularity.
It sounds like it could be really hit or miss whether someone had a good experience or a bad one, which is a big problem for the cost & commitment. I’m still disappointed it closed before I got to go…but I also don’t regret not going in 2022-2023. If it was still open when they got rid of Park Pass and brought back the DDP in 2024, I think I would have talked myself into it. I might not have liked it much, and I’m sure I would have thought it wasn’t worth the cost…but I think it was always going to be one of those short-lived oddities that still comes up 20-30 years later, so I would have liked to have seen it in person. Just not before 2024.
I think that Disney could’ve announced last year that it was closing at the end of *this* fiscal year and it still would’ve sold out every voyage between then and now…at full price, over the course of a year-plus. That’s how many people were waiting/on the fence.
I still think it would’ve run out of a supply of guests and failed eventually, but they probably could’ve milked the closure longer.
My guess is, if they had announced it was closing at the end of FY 2024, they probably would have sold out most dates…but they also would have gotten a much smaller tax write-off a year later. And the way 2023 was going for the company, they probably wanted that tax write-off ASAP.
Me and my boys are big Star Wars fans, even my wife likes Star Wars quite a lot. But this never appealed to us. 1) The cost. 2) it did not look like the Star Wars we love and know 3) our vacation time is limited and to dedicate a quarter of it pretending to be in “Star Wars” was never a viable option. That said, what a waste of money. The things that could have been done with the Star cruiser and Harmonious barges alone: a new Skyliner route, new monorail trains, a few or more much needed dark rides in Hollywood and Animal Kingdom, a night time parade (and cast members), a new Epcot land along with Spaceship Earth refurbishment, fix and update the Contemporary,…. The list goes on. But nobody can ever accuse Disney or not spending money. It’s just spent very unwisely, in hindsight of course.
“But nobody can ever accuse Disney or not spending money. It’s just spent very unwisely, in hindsight of course.”
Bingo.
I’ll leave it at this – it’s pretty telling that this late-capitalist monstrosity was the *only* thing that excited someone like Bob Chapek about Disney Parks. Good riddance.
I’m pretty certain that this was greenlit by Iger and company, not Chapek.
I actually think Chapek’s “legacy” with Starcruiser is a bit more mixed. Here’s what I wrote elsewhere:
On the one hand, Chapek deserves credit for championing an envelope-pushing product. He was head of DPEP when Starcruiser was announced, providing the resources and freedom that empowered Imagineering to create an innovative experience. His gamble on Starcruiser is probably the best rebuttal against his beancounter reputation.
On the other hand, perhaps this is a scenario where Chapek should have counted those beans a little better. That same creative latitude resulted in an ambitious but operationally-expensive experience, and one with a limited pool of potential guests. Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser’s failure was something that many saw coming, and it’s curious that this improbable and unsustainable experience ever came to fruition. (Fans love to knock the accountants, but there’d be no Walt without Roy; no Eisner without Wells. Starcruiser feels very much like a project gone off the rails because there was no check on the creatives worst whims and expensive impulses.)
We’re glad that we got to partake in this unique offering, and that Chapek allowed Imagineering to swing for the fences with Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. Conversely, we’re frustrated that nothing was done to pivot the product (definitely not Chapek’s fault) and we’re confused that proper market research seemingly was not performed in the first place to ensure long-term viability. Regardless, this is the first of multiple $100+ million Chapek initiatives to be abandoned.
I persnally think the problem was they got the product wrong. I think Disney could fairly easily sell a Star Wars themed hotel now in the deluxe category with 500-1000 rooms and the obligatory DVC extra bits and sell it at alightly higher then the current resort higher premiums and would make money on it. Especially if you had a star wars dinner show upcharge, the usual themed bars etc even if you didnt want to go full imersion and kept it to an art of Star Wars style hotel and keep some of the stuff for galaxies edge. If it didnt work you can always change it to something different. It also probably wouldnt put off to many regular guests who are happy with having the pools and such.
In some ways im really surprised they didnt do it that way and have some sort of Larp zone within the hotel where you do a story like the Star Cruiser over 3-4 hours a bit like a murder mystery zone and charge for it. The 5000+ dollar experience 100 room limited hotel just seems to not be the way to do it and make money.
I watched about half of Jenny’s video, but as it became bit by bit clearer that her experience was so different from mine I eventually lost interest: she was talking about something other than the Starcruiser I went on. Why? I don’t really know— she talks about parts of the experience not actually working while everything worked perfectly for me, but I think it’s more than that.
She says she went on it early in its short life while I went on it late. Perhaps that’s it: perhaps over time Disney was actually making subtle but important adjustments in response to guest feedback? The many bloggers would likely have missed that if it was happening, since it didn’t last long enough for them yo make a series of comparative visits. Anyway, I don’t know, I just know that a lot of what she described was subtly but definitely different from what I experienced, and I don’t think it was just a difference of perception.
The bottom line is, I booked the Starcruiser with a lot of doubts that it could be worth the price, and deciding to do it only out of FOMO. Then I left the Starcruiser thinking “Wow. If it wasn’t closing, I’d gladly pay triple to do it again.” My best description of the experience to my friends was “Imagine Rise of the Resistance going on for two full days without ever breaking the immersion.” Clearly that’s not the way many guests would put it, but… oh well, there it is.
“Perhaps that’s it: perhaps over time Disney was actually making subtle but important adjustments in response to guest feedback?”
Guest satisfaction was very high from the outset, but it actually did increase over time. I don’t think that’s a matter of adjustments (although minor ones did occur). It’s more the team hitting their stride.
I’m honestly confused by people that loved Starcruiser writing off Jenny’s detailed cataloguing of the issues she had (and receipts of many others with similar complaints/confusion) as “that wasn’t my experience” – if your experience was great and you were invested in the hotel being a successful project I would think you’d care whether it was consistently great for others. It may be true that they made improvements as they went along, but that doesn’t excuse them failing to deliver to paying guests on what was advertised, particularly in terms of the “unique” aspects that were supposed to justify the cost – immersion, gameplay and interactivity. If she’d attended a free preview or heavily discounted soft opening that would be one thing, but it was on Disney to provide an experience worth the (extremely high) expense when it opened, or to recognize that they needed to make it up to people when they were still working the kinks out.
I’ve heard from a semi-reliable friend that the experience was initially budgeted out to amortize out over ten years but Disney decided they simply couldn’t wait and it had to make money immediately, probably due to, you know, everything. My main takeaway from the video was how poor of a gameplay experience it actually was – I feel like I would’ve been stressed and bored simultaneously. Disney sucks at gameplay and they’ve somehow gotten worse at it, which is a really embarrassing look for such a giant company.
The video is good. I skipped the chunks that didn’t interest me. You could probably just watch the last chapter and get most of the salient points. As somebody who has little stake in the current company, I’m more fascinated at the social impact of this video plus the Defunctland Fastpass video. Both of these videos are maybe the highest-profile hits to Disney’s reputation in the past 20 years and I’d be very concerned if I were inside the company. Shareholders don’t exist in a vacuum.
The gameplay element was simplistic. Some aspects were good, others were underwhelming for anyone who actually games. I think that’s part of the difficulty with a project like this–the storyline has to advance you/itself regardless of your input, while also being accessible to everyone from kids to hardcore gamers/LARPers.
I’m also fascinated by these videos ‘breaking containment’ to the broader public. We’re probably not that far away from Defunctland being discussed on CNBC or Bloomberg. (Seriously.)
One of the issues that has nagged me about Starcruiser that I don’t see mentioned all that much is that it didn’t look like an authentic STAR WARS experience. It looked like something from Star Trek mixed with The Fifth Element, not Star Wars. The Sequel trilogy setting didn’t help because it forced Starcruiser to lean into things that were a departure from what felt and looked like what Star Wars had been prior to the Disney era. While I agree that the price was ludicrous, the problem wasn’t that there aren’t enough affluent Star Wars fans, it’s that the number of affluent Star Wars fans who really like the sequel trilogy era is a whole lot smaller than the group that grew up with the original trilogy.
I know this falls squarely into the Monday morning quarterbacking line of thought but Disney has decades and decades of evidence that they are in the wish fulfillment business, giving guests the chance to step into the world and meet their favorite characters. But for whatever reason they have a big blind spot when it comes to Star Wars and they aren’t really doing this. It’s not Tatooine, it’s Bakuu, it’s not THE cantina, it’s “Oga’s” Cantina. I’m half surprised it’s really THE Millennium Falcon we get to fly, and not some other random lookalike ship. I’m pretty certain that if Starcruiser had been filled with familiar characters in a more familiar setting it wouldn’t have needed to close. .
I don’t even have a Megatron to use as an excuse and I had to break up the video into chunks … but I do highly recommend doing so. Jenny helpfully breaks it down into chapters (I think 17 of them!!!) so you can think of it like … 17 short podcast episodes about the Starcruiser, or something.
So many of her points had me, a die-hard Disney and Star Wars fan AND big nerd/DND girlie who would have been into the gameplay of it all, nodding my head in agreement … especially toward the end of the video. In fact, she made a lot of points that had me going “YES Tom from DTB talks about this ALL THE TIME!!!!!!” Especially the section called “You were ROBBED” or something along those lines.
I really wanted to go on the Starcruiser, but after watching her video, I’m sort of glad I wasn’t able to justify it. I think its success would have made Disney even MORE confident in their aggressive, guest-unfriendly business practices that are slowly (or quickly) eroding decades of goodwill with fans like, well, us. Am I happy it failed? No. Like you’ve said in other posts, I want to see Imagineers encouraged to push the envelope. I feel terrible for the CMs and performers who put so much effort into this project and got the news of its closure moments before the media did. But Disney flew too close to the (twin) sun(s) on this one. I just hope they learn the right lessons from it. Lately, sadly, I’m not so confident that they will.
Omg wow okay what an essay, tysm for reading if you did but … in sum … worth watching!! If you like Defunctland, you’ll like this video!
“I think its success would have made Disney even MORE confident in their aggressive, guest-unfriendly business practices that are slowly (or quickly) eroding decades of goodwill with fans like, well, us.”
This is something I’ve debated (with myself) for the last year. Here’s how I ended the closure announcement post:
“However, this is not what the creative team behind the Starship Halcyon deserve, nor do the passionate performers who poured their hearts and souls into making these characters and the whole experience come alive. It’s also not what Star Wars or Walt Disney World fans deserve–and that includes those who have bashed it. There are so many fans who have done so out of justifiable frustration, but who would actually love the Starcruiser if given a chance to experience it.
Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser is actually awesome, innovative, and a leap forward for the world of interactive storytelling. Imagineering created something outside the box that offered full immersion, interactivity, entertainment, and personalization in a highly-themed environment. It’s an absolute shame that more fans will not get to experience this, and that Disney is now throwing away the millions of dollars in physical infrastructure and R&D by permanently closing Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser.
If this news makes you happy or gives you a sense of schadenfreude, that’s certainly your prerogative. However, if you think Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser closing is going to “teach Disney a lesson,” you are sadly mistaken. Unless the lesson that you want the company to learn is that they should be more risk-averse and push the creative envelope less, in which case: mission accomplished!”
I still think that’s largely true–that this was a big swing, and its failure makes Disney more risk-averse. On the other hand, would its success have emboldened them to focus more on upcharges, paywalls, etc? Maybe. I’m not fully convinced of that, though. Disney is seeing a pullback from consumers in a number of ways, so I don’t really think this “needed” fail for them to learn that. Then again, they probably should’ve known something similar about its viability before even greenlighting or launching the product. So who knows!
I am not really a Star Wars fan, but I think this is worth a read.
https://screenrant.com/star-wars-galactic-starcruiser-hotel-what-everyone-gets-wrong/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=topic%2Fdisneyparks
One reason that I think this video has gotten so much traction is that Jenny Nicholson put into words something that all of us have been feeling for a long time – that things are irrecoverably getting worse than they used to be but no one can really say why. Why ARE clothes worse quality than they were 10 years ago? Why do I have to pay $150 to take my family of 4 out to dinner when it used to be $80? Why are planes always, always dirty but the ticket prices are so expensive?
The Disney park experience is a great example of this because there are so many things you can point to about how things cost more but are worse: Genie+, the cake vs the chocolate bar at Pym’s Test Kitchen, the broken animatronics in the Enchanted Tiki Roo courtyard they haven’t bothered to fix (I’m a Disneyland person). Jenny breaks down well what the failure points are and why she suspects Disney made the choices they did – almost always to save money.
One thing she calls you out for in particular, Tom, is that people defend the Starcruiser with this claim: “It had one of the highest guest satisfaction scores at Walt Disney World of all-time.” But in her research, you are the only source of that claim. Can you tell us more about where you sourced it from, please?
Calls out?
I cannot possibly be the only source of that claim–it was a statement released by Disney when Starcruiser closed. To my recollection, Josh D’Amaro also repeated it in an interview shortly thereafter. Or maybe Iger during an earnings call?
Maybe she means that I’m the source of the claim pre-closure? In which case, I had been told that by people associated with Starcruiser. But that was confirmed by Disney on the date that Starcruiser’s closure was announced.
Yes, she said on Twitter (do I have to call it X?) that you seem to be the originsl or at least first source of the claim, back in March 2023. https://x.com/JennyENicholson/status/1794030583829647701
Full disclosure: I’m not Star Wars fan and I did not visit the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. I expected it to fail simply because of the huge price tag and the reports of low attendance after it initially opened. I will watch the full video as soon as I get a chance.
Maybe there just wasn’t enough crossover between über-wealthy Disney fans and similarly loaded Star Wars fans. The company expected early visitors’ raves to get out to luxury-experience aficionados in sufficient numbers to keep their cutting-edge project flying, but that didn’t happen and when the Starcruiser’s engines gave out for good, Captain Marvel didn’t show up this time. Tough break.
Excellent point as usual Tom. No doubt the ridiculous cost was the largest impediment to success but I think Disney also massively overestimated the degree to which the average adult is interested in LARPing. From the get-go we had zero interest. Sure, we’re just marginal Star Wars fans, but even a Harry Potter LARPing hotel would be a non-starter for us (and we LOVE Harry Potter). Would it be cool to stay in a well-themed Harry Potter hotel? Sure, but if the full experience required wearing robes, carrying wands, and creating a fictional identity…that’s a hard pass for me. I’m nerdy enough to read this blog religiously but LARPing is a bridge too far. I’m not questioning the sanity of those that enjoy that, but I think I’m representative of the average adult who wants to enjoy their entertainment in a somewhat more passive way.
I often wonder whether Disney management is completely devoid of people with common sense. As you noted, this was pretty much a certain failure from the get go.
Your comment is a perfect example of the marketing issues they faced. Honing in on just this one area of difficulty and misfire, it really was whatever a guest wanted to make it. We had people who did body paint, colored contacts, wigs, detailed costumes and people in basketball shorts and nascar shirts. If you didn’t want to participate in the role playing portions, there was almost always something else happening like a game or cocktail experience. Obviously certain parts, like the dinner show, were “inescapable”, but they also didn’t really require you to directly participate. All of this is to say, the difficulty and failure in marketing such a unique experience is staggering. Plus it happened in the broader midst of a passionate divide among those who jumped all in cannonball style to those wanting it to fail spectacularly, often for reasons unrelated to the actual experience itself. Marketing-wise, Disney couldn’t overcome their own shortcomings in the most basic ways. I would argue they didn’t even try. They thought the thing would sell itself, leaving zero chance of being the loudest, clearest voice in a world awash in social media.
I think both of these comments could be true?
1) There does not exist a market to sustain a LARPing hotel in the long term, regardless of its theme or IP.
2) The marketing didn’t do a great job of selling this and was drowned out by criticism.
Personally, I tend to think fans put too much emphasis on #2. Disney’s marketing could’ve been better, sure, but how much would that have moved the needle even if marketing were absolutely flawless? I think there’s an inherent challenge of marketing a concept like this in order to maximize appeal while minimizing its qualities that might alienate more casual guests. There’s a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking the marketing, but I think it’s easier said than done–that’s a really tough needle to thread.
Not to mention, the price point and it being Star Wars all but ensured the discourse would be negative, overshadowing the official marketing and positive word-of-mouth.
What went wrong is what DW is hurtling toward right now-a prohibitively expensive, dollar-chasing theme park for a very small percentage of the population. As DW serves an ever-shrinking audience, with fewer and fewer rides, the experience will, eventually, hit a tipping point where families just say nah, I can get more from my money than standing in queues that mean you only ride a couple of rides each day.
We can afford it, and are trying to justify a trip, but so far the changes since our last trip have really dampened our enthusiasm.
Our kids and we are choosing other experiences.
Even on a smaller scale it would probably be a niche group that would experience. Something more like an interactive dinner show would of probably been best with unique entertainment and good offerings.
Food not good lol