How Disney Might Replace the Galactic Starcruiser
Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser has closed forever.
History will remember the so-called Star Wars Hotel as an abject failure, whether that’s an accurate statement or not.
Disney officials sound introspective rather than upset or ashamed of the experience.
Recently, Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro indicated that something would follow the Star Wars Hotel.
So, what could replace Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser? Let’s examine a few possibilities.
A Modified Experience
We’ll start with two possibilities that would require the least amount of work to bring into reality.
Feasibly, Disney could modify the Galactic Starcruiser experience to solve a couple of problems.
Photo: Disney
I don’t need to remind you that many guests recoiled at the notion of paying more than $1,000 per night to live out a Star Wars adventure.
Star Wars fans weren’t against the idea per se. They just recognized that the cost of a three-day visit here cost about the same as a couple of months of housing expenses.
Photo: Disney
Sure, playing with a lightsaber is fun, but having a roof over your head is a bit more important.
One of the primary reasons Disney priced the experience so high stemmed from casting.
Photo by Matt Roseboom
Management needed to find performers capable of playing a role for multiple days. Also, the story required several of these cast members.
Obviously, that sort of project gets expensive quickly. So, Disney passed along the cost to consumers, who eventually said, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Photo: Disney
Disney could ostensibly reopen the Star Wars Hotel without most of the performances and instead focus on interactive adventures.
The new version wouldn’t be anywhere near as good, but it’d still provide Star Wars enthusiasts with an outlet for their fandom.
Credit: Kent Phillips, photographer/Disney
From Disney’s perspective, plenty of guests paid a premium for Galactic Starcruiser. A cheaper version should do that much better.
Disney would still sell the premise of the Star Wars Hotel. It would just dial back improvisational and show elements.
A Cheaper Experience
(David Roark, photographer)
This thought process ties into the last one. Disney could turn the events at Galactic Starcruiser into more of an upscale experience.
Specifically, guests could pay to spend a couple of hours at Galactic Starcruiser.
(Kent Phillips photographer)
During this visit, they could do lightsaber training and possibly catch a show or eat a meal.
By removing the overwhelming majority of name characters, Disney could save a fortune on operational costs.
Photo: Disney
Meanwhile, guests would get a taste of the Galactic Starcruiser experience – which scored exceptionally well on surveys – for a fraction of the price.
This idea has a chance to work. We know that guests pay $100 for the right to build a droid or $250 to design a lightsaber.
(Disney/Lucasfilm Ltd.)
I’m not even a Star Wars fan, yet I’ve done both of these things…and enjoyed them.
Wouldn’t hundreds of people pay hundreds of dollars each day to perform lightsaber training? I’d have to think yes.
Credit: Disney
The only concern involves whether Disney could earn enough money to justify the upkeep of a large facility.
While Galactic Starcruiser falls into the boutique hotel category due to its 100 rooms, that’s still a large building.
Whatever Disney does with the space must turn a solid profit. I dunno whether a part-time experience could do that.
The math works differently in operating Savi’s Workshop, a single shop, versus a portion of a hotel building.
Also, I must admit this idea is floating dangerously close to the failed DisneyQuest/NBA Experience premise for a large space.
At the moment, fair or not, Galactic Starcruiser comes with the stink of failure. Its replacement needs to succeed.
Credit: Disney
Should a second offering fail in this space, Disney would probably need to demolish the building and start from scratch.
Everyone would perceive the place as cursed, just as many do with DisneyQuest.
A Different Experience
Photo: Disney
Here’s where I think Disney is heading with the redesign.
I suspect that Disney wants to take what it has learned from Galactic Starcruiser and build something better.
Photo: Disney
We’re talking about a phoenix rising from the ashes here, and that statement might even border on literal.
Until recently, Galactic Starcruiser utilized a science fiction theme. However, fan surveys have indicated massive demand for a Disney Villains theme park.
Credit: Disney
Disney could just as easily fill that current void by creating a Villains Hotel experience instead. It’d simply sub out sci-fi for fantasy.
Presumably, management would remove the show elements that cost a fortune with Galactic Starcruiser.
In their place, costumed cast members would parade around and interact with guests, making the whole affair one prolonged character greeting.
Before you question the appeal of that strategy, I’ll politely remind you that Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party offers something similar.
Photo: Disney
Guests pay more than $100 to spend a few hours in the parks. Then, they stand in line for a significant portion of that time to meet Disney Villains.
In fact, people like that event so much that Disney After Hours introduced a Villains version. It’s basically the Halloween Party outside of the Halloween season.
That event often sells out. Basically, Disney cannot satisfy the appetite of fans for Villains interactions.
The worry about DisneyQuest/NBA Experience applies here as well, though.
A Villains hotel/experience may prove too close in tone to Galactic Starcruiser and thereby never get a fair chance to succeed on its own.
A Basic Experience
Photo: Disney
At its core, the Star Wars Hotel is…a hotel.
At some point along the way, everyone kinda lost sight of that fact, especially Disney strategists.
Somebody somewhere knew it was a terrible idea to build a hotel without windows in the rooms or a pool for recreation.
You can find the dingiest hotel in the seediest part of town, and it’ll still have a pool. No, you shouldn’t swim in it, but that’s beside the point.
Even dive motels come with windows that let you see outside, too. It’s the only way you can tell whether the police have found you hiding out there.
Photo: DIsney
Seriously, nobody willingly stays in a hotel without windows or a pool. Society has a word for a place like that. It’s called a prison.
Disney built that very thing and then asked guests to pay thousands of dollars to stay there. It’s a stranger social test than the Standford Prison Experiment.
Photo: Attractions Magazine
Disney legitimately tested the limits of fandom (and disposable income).
What Walt Disney World could always use is more hotel space.
Since this place already comes with a Star Wars theme, Disney could use that premise as a baseline.
(Matt Stroshane, photographer)
The Star Wars Hotel could become a Value (or Moderate?) Tier resort with a solid location relatively close to Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Disney could even keep the shuttle service that used to carry guests to and from the park if the finances worked out.
Photo:(Matt Stroshane, photographer)
Yes, the rooms would need to include windows, and the hotel grounds would add a pool.
Other than those trifling matters, a Star Wars Hotel without the bells and whistles strikes me as the most logical choice.
No, that’s not the sexy option, but Disney already tried that. It REALLY didn’t work.
Photo: MickeyBlog
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Feature Photo: Disney
This article has a couple incorrect premises to it. Addressing the latter one first, this was never “at its core” a hotel. It was an immersive adventure that you just happem to have a place to take some short sleep periods.
But the big misconception in this and other articles is that the principle cast were expensive. The advertized rates on the audition notices were under $19/hour. They were present 8 hours each day from around 3PM to before 11PM. Add a couple hours for makeup and costuming and call it 20 hours per voyage. Exagerating upwards to include the stormtroppers and there were roughly a dozen principle cast. The math comes out to a total principle cast cost of about $4500 per voyage. Call it $6000 per voyage to count tax amd benefits overhead and that means a single cabin paid for the entire principle cast. Removing them doesn’t do much to change the cost of the star cruiser operations.
Hi Ed. Thank you for the thoughtful feedback. I’m not joking when I say that I’ve spent endless hours trying to crack the math on Galactic Starcruiser. In speaking with people involved and researching other published reports on this data, a recurring theme is the unusually high staffing expenses. I didn’t go into detail in this piece since it’s a side issue, but something to keep in mind here is that you’re saying “a dozen principle cast.” For a hotel with 100 rooms, we’re talking about 250 occupants on many dates. Factoring in multiple shifts and regular staff like housekeeping and restaurant workers, Disney is employing a disproportionately large number of workers relative to guests. It adds up, even with the guests paying a higher rate. A replacement location will need to cut staffing expenses somehow.