Disney's Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser -- Spend $5k or more for a 2-night hotel stay in Florida?
Last year, Disney opened up a new attraction near Walt Disney World which was eagerly anticipated by Star Wars fans: Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser.
This was likely inspired by beloved 2020s Disney attraction Rise of the Rebellion. Rise is part indoor surface ride, part motion simulator ride, and part live-action performance, where you become one of the characters (a prisoner) in an original Star Wars story. The attraction is so popular that Disney charges $35 to use the Genie+ fastpass service on it, and people very happily pay it.
The problem with Rise, of course, is that it's just a Disney attraction where they cycle through thousands of guests per day. Therefore, the entire experience is over in about 18 minutes, including the pre-ride and pre-show.
What if the concept could be expanded, into an immersive, live-action Star Wars experience which lasts two days?
That was the concept of Disney's new Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser, which involves a 2-night hotel stay where you're "boarding a ship to space", and living the story complete with a ton of live actors, as well as "missions" you're given to complete.
The price tag? At best, it's $5000 for two people, but that's during the lowest season of August and September. At other times of the year, you can't get a room there without dropping $6k -- and that doesn't include the cost of flights, incidentals, alcohol, or tickets to Disney World itself. There are also some extra-cost activities, such as a lightsaber workshop.
Here's a very good review and description of it from The Verge, by a guy who got to go on an abridged version for free, as a preview for journalists: https://www.theverge.com/22949905/st...d-photos-price
Unfortunately, unlike Rise of the Resistance, the Galactic Starcruiser is not a ride. It's a weird, windowless hotel, transformed to be essentially a 2-day improv experience based upon Star Wars.
There are tons of characters roaming around -- both major ones you know, minor ones you forgot, and new characters created just for the attraction. You do have some control over what you do and where you go. When you roam around the "ship", the various characters talk to you and engage with you, and some invite you on "missions" and "adventures". However, you are never in full control in any of these missions, and in general you're a side character along for the ride, while the mission proceeds anyway. Apparently there are some alternate paths the missions can take depending upon what decisions guests make while on them, but the main structure is already pre-laid-out.
Food is included, but alcohol isn't, and apparently it's very expensive.
One big criticism, aside from the insanely high pricetag, involves the rooms. There's only 100 of them, yet somehow they are almost all tiny -- like an inside cabin on a cruise ship. This doesn't make sense to me. On cruise ships, space is at a premium, so they need to cram as much as possible into a finite area. However, Galactic Starcruiser sits in a building on expansive Disney property in Bay Lake, FL. Why couldn't they have simply built it bigger, and made the rooms a lot more spacious? The fact that there are no windows also adds to the claustrophobic feeling of the rooms. In fact, there are no windows anywhere on property, except for one outdoor area called "The Climate Simulator" for those who really feel they need fresh air.
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I'm surprised they don't offer free alcohol to people already paying $6k for a two night hotel stay. Maybe they want to discourage people getting too drunk? But I have to imagine that people already paying that much money will spend the money to get drunk, if that's what they want. Seems tacky to have an upcharge for anything, at such an expensive place.
Another problem is the fact that there's no motion involved in any of the "space" travel. Unlike Rise, where you really feel like you're going places, at Galactic Starcruiser, you're seeing space pass by on a screen, but not feeling anything actually move.
Some have described the whole thing as a 2-day improv or dinner theater experience.
Still, it could be cool if you're a Star Wars fan and want to try something different. But that price tag? Oy, vey. This Jew could never spend that type of money for something like this.
So how is it doing? Read on...
