Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser

[Happytycho]

As someone who has neither $6000 to burn nor a particularly strong interest in Star Wars, I've spent today amused by the internet reaction while saddened by the ridiculousness of Disney's influencer ecosystem and how modern Disney is only focused on attracting the wealthy.

Obviously I have some general thoughts on the experience, but they hardly feel worth posting when I'm nowhere near the top 1% of the top 1% that this experience and price point is being targeted at.

 

[Legacy]

I skimmed some videos to see how things looked and had some thoughts:

1) I'm honestly shocked that they've allowed this much video to be posted of the place. I was fortunate to get to see the Yoda thing - the videos on Twitter ruin it. One of my biggest tests of whether an attraction/show is good enough is "can you just watch a YouTube video of it and be good" and frankly, at this price point, the fact that you can now just watch videos of almost everything changes a lot. This is a big fail on Disney's part, as if they didn't understand the value of what they're selling. Maybe they figured that the public is just going to shoot videos of everything, but still.

2) I haven't read/watched everything, but I’m a little surprised people haven’t pointed out just how important the Play app is to the experience. Perhaps that’s because they’re actually getting paraded around? There really needs to be pre-arrival communication on that because otherwise you end up with things like that one girl with the fluffy hat on Twitter (the thread was posted here) being confused about scheduling. I don't have a Twitter account or else I'd DM her to say something, but a lot of the questions and confusion there could be solved with basic communication about when things will show up in the itinerary: a time for Oga's will show up, and you can change it. They will get her into the build-a-lightsaber thing if she wants. But at this price point it's on Disney for there to not be pre-arrival confusion.

3) I caught one person in the DisUnplugged video saying she was denied entry to something. That wasn’t the case for us (they were probably trying to avoid accidentally angering the wrong person - not me obviously, but you never know if you're denying the kid of an SVP or something) but people will need to either commit to splitting up and not all doing the same thing or playing off of one phone and saying that when you run into the door enforcement. Another point that needs to be communicated, but there's a weird "do you break character and tell people how things work or do you never ever break character" dynamic there.

4) Another thing that I don’t know will pop in reviews - this is the first experience in/around a theme park where English fluency is absolutely a necessity. You can go on rides and not understand the dialogue but still get the gist - if you don’t understand English here, the whole thing is pretty much toast.


I honestly think the LARP-ing bit with die out pretty quickly. The initial wave of hardcores will dress up, but it's going to settle into people in t-shorts and shorts. They'll still try to sell $150 outfits but ..... just no.

And regarding the relaxation.... I don't feel like I missed out on any of the "story" and had enough "down time" to the point that our drinks just showed up when we sat down in the lounge.

Glad to know you got to experience it, and thanks for the response about the down-time. It’s good to get that context as, typically on vacation, we rarely leave the hotel room unless we are doing something we are explicitly “there for.” Within the context of this, that would be the park and the big “show” moments. I don’t want to “be” anyone and, if I have to be, I want to be an oblivious Canto Bight vacationer. And if I could pay half the price to have that experience, my interest would increase immensely.

EDIT - Throw in some couple’s alien spa experience and I might be interested in a $4500 for two price point.

 

[Magic Feather]

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:
I fully expect the first thing to give to be pricing in ~5-6 months. Admittedly, a big part of me wonders though, because the last “massive borderline unrealistic price swing” Disney did (Poly Bungalows/Lodge Cabins) haven’t budged in price because the higher prices make it to where they can afford lower occupancy, but then again they also have DVC points.

This entire experience, while still a stretch financial, would at least feel mildly justifiable at ~1-2,000 cheaper. While still not an easy swing, if this was more in line with the pricing of the 3-4 night Bahamian cruises out of Canaveral, it would make way more sense. Maybe with a ~$500-$1000 premium on top of that due to lower capacity.

Also, the big thing guests are paying for is the story engine. That was insanely expensive to develop and is a not insignificant reason why this experience costs so much.

 

[Nick]

Re: Being able to see the building when you drive up....

They actually have a thematic story workaround that I didn't notice before. The building is supposed to act as a port the same way that a cruise ship port would. As for actually getting to space and on the Halcyon, the elevator you take at the "port" is supposed to take you into hyperspace and onto the ship.

So point being, it doesn't matter if you see the building (albeit it's not good show), because that warehouse that they built that actually houses the Starcruiser isn't the Starcruiser as far as the story goes. Like everything involved with this hotel/experience, you need to buy into it.

 

[TheGentTrent]

What the F....why can't you "upgrade" on the ship....and wait why are their extra costs? It's 1,200 bucks per night...nothing should cost extra. God I want this to fail sooooooo hard

I understand the schadenfreude here given the price point and Disney's current cost-cutting approach, but I'd really hate to see this crash and burn. I always appreciate it when a company swings for the fences on concepts and if this ends up bombing, it's going to mean more hard-working, middle-class employees out of work.

Keep what works and fix what doesn't (and by all accounts, there is plenty of both based upon initial reactions).

 

[Jerroddragon]

I understand the schadenfreude here given the price point and Disney's current cost-cutting approach, but I'd really hate to see this crash and burn. I always appreciate it when a company swings for the fences on concepts and if this ends up bombing, it's going to mean more hard-working, middle-class employees out of work.

Keep what works and fix what doesn't (and by all accounts, there is plenty of both based upon initial reactions).

At least from what I've seen this is a cash grab...I see nothing here that is unique, moves the industry or technology forward this to me feels like a way to make money and that's it. I put a few pages back about making a hotel that moves and lets you visit different planets by moving the station on a huge carousel of Progress machine....now that would be swinging for the fences. Hell even if you could go with your friends to a "planet" behind the hotel with laser guns and do a rebel mission then maybe thats them trying but this...its bare minimum.

One lightsaber battle (under 3 mins), the jedi training which while cool should be apart of the building a light saber attraction in that parks, and a singing show along with a bunch of basic games that remind me of Super Nintendo World...but instead of costing like 100-200 bucks a person (along with being at a theme park) this is like ten times the cost.

If im missing something let me know...but I'm just not impressed its what I thought it would be....my question on most attractions on if they are good or not is would Walt approve and no way he'd let this slide, ROTS he's be like hell yeah but this no its not even close to the best they can do.
I feel bad for the people who made this but....until leadership listenings to the fans and Imagineers they are doomed to fail here and there more and I get it most fans will buy anything but this is too high end to get the fans who go to the parks every weekend

 

[Nick]

I don't think anyone has posted a video (or even photos yet) so this is what a one bedroom, dubbed Galaxy Class Suites, looks like:


For those who may be wondering what an itinerary is like for this:

 

[Tyr12]

Another thing that I don’t know will pop in reviews - this is the first experience in/around a theme park where English fluency is absolutely a necessity. You can go on rides and not understand the dialogue but still get the gist - if you don’t understand English here, the whole thing is pretty much toast.

HHN Osaka had an immersive upcharge called Hotel Albert that explicitly required Japanese fluency, for similar reasons. That's the only other example I can think of.

 

[Imperius]

The Disney subreddit is not impressed.

 

[quinnmac000]

HHN Osaka had an immersive upcharge called Hotel Albert that explicitly required Japanese fluency, for similar reasons. That's the only other example I can think of.

This is not a fault of Disney or USJ.

Because a its basic improv theater in which the actors need to stay on a general script with a few changes here and there to react and respond to you. Any company would have to have an insane level of staff to ensure they could provide language support for every single major language in the world and the hiring pool for actors also would limited as the actors would all have to be polyglots to some degree.

 

[Jerroddragon]

It's funny how quick the impression has gone from "there's going to be nothing to do" to "there's too much to do."

Presentation of this is going to be difficult. It is NOT a hotel, and that's what a lot of people assumed. It is a LARP experience where you are going to be expected to keep up. There's not enough areas to just ignore it and chill out. The one's who expect/want the "Star Wars Grand Floridian" are going to be the loudest screamers on this.

It's good that there's a lot to do, but the multiple storylines is going to be a problem. "Oh you got to see the Yoda projection? I just got to lock up some stormtroopers." They really needed it set up so you could do all of the storylines. The amount of repeat business to see all of the storylines this is going to get is going to be almost nil. But clearly 2 days isn't enough to do all of the storylines they plotted out. An extra day with one not going to Batuu *might* be a fix for that, but that becomes a problem with not having enough lounge/tune out areas on the ship. Alternating half the guest's Batuu day might help some, but people aren't going to be able to focus on this for 3 days. In that respect the 2 day experience is probably right, but that takes us back to having "too much to do".

There's plenty of people hating on this just to hate on it. Either it's because it's Disney, it's not what they wanted, or whatever. They would have hated it no matter what. I give them about the same amount of credit as the vloggers who got the free stay and won't tell what they really think.

The price is obviously insane. That's going to blunt any good this might be. That's the lens everyone is viewing it though and it's a fair criticism. This is going to be absolutely eviscerated by paying guests. A lot will be because it's not what they expected. It's not a $3,000 a night hotel. There will be plenty of great reviews too, but a lot of that will be trying to justify to themself how much they paid. Overall though, I wouldn't want to be at GS on this deal. Those people are going to get murdered.

I'm not sure what the right price point would be. You can't compare it to any hotel. You aren't paying for a room. You are paying for a 2 day story experience. I can't think of anything like this to make a fair comparison. I think half the current price and people wouldn't be complaining as much, but that almost seems "too cheap" when compared to the rest of Disney's overpriced offerings. Hell, just the meals for a family of 4 on this probably is $500-$1,000 in Disney restaurants. I think expanding it to 3 nights at a $4-5k total price is getting closer, but that runs into the other problems. You have to disregard the "I wouldn't pay $300 for this" crowd. Some people aren't going to be in to this at all. Honestly, I have no interest in this. I'm a Star Wars guy, but I'm not extroverted enough to do an experience like this, so even free I'm out. But I can at least try to be objective about what they have going.

I'm a huge Star Wars fan and you literally for 500 bucks could not interest me in this.

I would love if this was LARPing, where they sent you out on mission and you got to shoot droids/storm troopers, hack terminals to get into places and maybe having a way to come back to continue your story. This is literally eat food (I dont care if food costs a lot at Disney doesn't make it worth it), watch meh shows, sleep in a boring room, and do activities that seem to me boring and not that impressive.
The lightsaber training looks fun but that's one part of this....will some enjoy it sure but I'm not hating on it just because even if the price was lower it's just not worth my time. Like you could travel to another country for a little more money and do something that is worth your time. Money is one thing but wasting your time which is also a limited resource and people forget that.

I don't doubt kids can have fun with this and will make the best videos...but kids also can't pay for this its free to them and as someone who was once a kid who only wanted to go to Disneyland/theme parks for vacations I can tell you can waste plenty of time as kid no problem because you have no idea how many better thing their are in the world.

 

[Magic Feather]

I would love if this was LARPing, where they sent you out on mission and you got to shoot droids/storm troopers, hack terminals to get into places and maybe having a way to come back to continue your story.

You do know that, shooting aside, this is exactly what the bulk of the Starcruiser is, right? Sure Space Bingo and Space Electric Slide exist, but they act as more set dressing (prove that the setting is a space cruise) around which the real story takes place. Most guests talked about skipping most of the cruise like activities in lieu of story based experiences.

 

[HandsomePete]

You do know that, shooting aside, this is exactly what the bulk of the Starcruiser is, right? Sure Space Bingo and Space Electric Slide exist, but they act as more set dressing (prove that the setting is a space cruise) around which the real story takes place. Most guests talked about skipping most of the cruise like activities in lieu of story based experiences.

I almost said it but I knew I'd get called a shill for it, but I have yet to see a review that doesn't appear inorganic compared to what it is.

hack terminals to get into places

That's like a very small piece of what you have to do to get into places.

 

[rhino4evr]

The 3 hour DIS video basically cleared up most of my questions. It appears there is plenty of things going on, and it seems like a 3 day dinner theater. I could see the appeal here if people want to interact with cast members and play along , but I’m fairly introverted , and I’m not sure I’d get the most of this. I would also prefer to just go on other rides in the park then do those scavenger hunts on Batuu.
If I’m envious of any of this, it’s the cool food and beverage options people get to experience.

 

[Parkscope Joe]

I understand the schadenfreude here given the price point and Disney's current cost-cutting approach, but I'd really hate to see this crash and burn. I always appreciate it when a company swings for the fences on concepts and if this ends up bombing, it's going to mean more hard-working, middle-class employees out of work.

Keep what works and fix what doesn't (and by all accounts, there is plenty of both based upon initial reactions).

If the Imagineers, both publicly and puppet twitter accounts, weren’t pushing this as the future of themed entertainment I wouldn’t care. But if this is what they think the future is, not rides and shows, but five to six figure interactive dinner theater then not only does Starcruser need to burn they also need to expel creative and executives.

 

[Magic Feather]

If the Imagineers, both publicly and puppet twitter accounts, weren’t pushing this as the future of themed entertainment I wouldn’t care. But if this is what they think the future is, not rides and shows, but five to six figure interactive dinner theater then not only does Starcruser need to burn they also need to expel creative and executives.

From a purely creative side, I’m strongly inclined to agree that this is the “next frontier” of themed entertainment. There’s only so much you can do in a theme park setting that enables you to simultaneously be impressed, forge connections, and churn through over 1500 people every hour. Dare I say that Rise managed to perfect that premise inside of a (relatively) high capacity attraction.

Starcruiser comes from the opposite angle, of what happens when you give people more time and more effects on a story. This is obviously something that you couldn’t stick in a park where there are 20 other things guests want to do before they leave, so instead it’s isolated. The base premise is really interesting and one that (in my opinion) nobody should be rooting for to fail.

But… there isn’t just the creative side; there is also the business side, which soured so many people (myself included) on this experience. While I can *somewhat* see where they are coming from on price (in terms of limited capacity and recouping R&D), I really wish they would have gone another route. In my personal ideal world, we get a second starcruiser plopped right next to this one, with a different ship and slightly different storyline, which helps to further justify the R&D costs and also manages to up supply and enable costs to come down a little bit. Unfortunately, for that to even be in the realm of possibility, this one has to be a success which, thanks to the business side souring people on it, looks iffy.

 

[rhino4evr]

Is a future expansion with an outdoor area / pool even plausible ? Not sure if there is space for it.
I said this before , but an “Endor” excursion with a forest battle while you are swimming / sunbathing could be a real winner. Considering you take a “transport” they could even put it further off premises .

 

[Alicia]

Is a future expansion with an outdoor area / pool even plausible ? Not sure if there is space for it.
I said this before , but an “Endor” excursion with a forest battle while you are swimming / sunbathing could be a real winner. Considering you take a “transport” they could even put it further off premises .

The last thing this thing needs is a pool. Any leisure experience where you can’t stop what you’re doing to chase a story thread seems off the table with this insane venture. Other than chilling at the bar, I can’t imagine being able to just sit and relax for any amount of time, nor would I want to, if it’s possible I’m missing important story elements going on.

This experience isn’t long enough to just chill. And getting changed, going to the pool, enjoying myself, drying off, showering, and getting changed again is far too much time to waste on something you’re paying more than $50 an hour to experience.

 

[fryoj]

The last thing this thing needs is a pool. Any leisure experience where you can’t stop what you’re doing to chase a story thread seems off the table with this insane venture. Other than chilling at the bar, I can’t imagine being able to just sit and relax for any amount of time, nor would I want to, if it’s possible I’m missing important story elements going on.

This experience isn’t long enough to just chill. And getting changed, going to the pool, enjoying myself, drying off, showering, and getting changed again is far too much time to waste on something you’re paying more than $50 an hour to experience.

I agree on this not needing a pool as long as everyone buys in. However, having a pool for the kids who can't concentrate on the activities, and the adults who don't want to participate wouldn't be the worst idea in the world. But spending the money to put a pool in for those who aren't into this seems counter productive.

 

[OrlandoGuy]

Alright, after watching some videos without worrying about whether or not the vloggers could afford it, I actually have legitimate thoughts and opinions believe it or not.

I’ll be honest…this is something I could afford. However, I don’t think I would—it’s not about the price but the execution. The activities seem contrived and the story elements seem cringy. This isn’t my idea of three days well-spent.

With that being said, there IS potential here. Whoever said this could work as a dinner or lunchtime experience…genius. But I also think there are little tidbits in the foundation here to be something successful. The whole time watching this, I couldn’t help but think “if this was set in Hogwarts this would be amazing.” Star Wars is ultimately about characters and putting customers central to the story doesn’t work because so much is based around the “Skywalker lineage.”

If you were to take this idea of a full-fledged interactive vacation and applied it toward an IP that is more location-centric or environment-friendly, I think you’d have a winner. As it stands, Star Wars doesn’t have a recognizable aesthetic beyond desert slums. The design here feels forced and doesn’t lend itself toward something people should want to immerse themselves in.

Disney COULD have done this well—there are a lot of details in the design that reflect their cruise ships, and obviously the ships have proven to be a successful model for a successful vacation. I really just think Disney misunderstands what made Star Wars successful—it’s not the setting, it’s the story, and that’s very specific to a particular group of characters. To be fair, George Lucas himself messed this up too so it is what it is.

If this took place in Hogwarts or something, I think it would be great. The pieces are here and I think Imagineering overall did a good job and for what this is, I believe the price is justified given the R&D put into this. It’s surprisingly the IP that’s the issue. I do hope it’s successful, not for Disney’s sake but for the hope that a company with the rights to an IP that would actually lend itself to something like this will have the confidence to take a shot.