News Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser coming to Walt Disney World 2021

[Disstevefan1]

I would take a bullet for Jenny Nicholson.




EDITED to add: Just completed the four hour and five minute video and I think I'd take two bullets for her.

Starting with time stamp 3:48 (that's hour 3 and 48 minutes in) forward, she articulates some sentiments a lot of us have expressed with Disney and the Florida property in general but I think she does a particularly good job of using aspects of this trip to illustrate them..

This found its way into my recommendations. I watched it.

In my opinion, it was a fair and balanced report by a passionate LARPer who can obviously can afford the Starcruiser,

 

[MrPromey]

This found its way into my recommendations. I watched it.

In my opinion, it was a fair and balanced report by a passionate LARPer who can obviously can afford the Starcruiser,

I'd say she's just a passionate entertainment enthusiast in general (the majority of her videos are theme parks and movies) and a fairly serious Star Wars fan.

Here's a funny 2 minute video of her just freaking out over everything with her first experience on Rise where it's running in A mode and all the effects are working... so it's not like she's negatively biased.

You should check out her older videos - Most are an hour or less in length... though she has one on Evermore that's just about as long as this one and it's just as interesting in a train wreak sort of way.

Personally, I watch most stuff on 2x speed. I watch her on 1.25-1.5 because she'll throw blink-and-you-miss-it stuff in there and in this case, that whole bathroom scene is even more confusing if you don't hear the like three word setup for it.

 

[Disstevefan1]

I'd say she's just a passionate entertainment enthusiast in general (the majority of her videos are theme parks and movies) and a fairly serious Star Wars fan.

Here's a funny 2 minute video of her just freaking out over everything with her first experience on Rise where it's running in A mode and all the effects are working... so it's not like she's negatively biased.

You should check out her older videos - Most are an hour or less in length... though she has one on Evermore that's just about as long as this one and it's just as interesting in a train wreak sort of way.

Personally, I watch most stuff on 2x speed. I watch her on 1.25-1.5 because she'll throw blink-and-you-miss-it stuff in there and in this case, that whole bathroom scene is even more confusing if you don't hear the like three word setup for it.

That bathroom scene is part of a great YouTube video, that creator went on the Starcruiser and made a short movie on the Starcruiser, its very good. I will try to find the link,

 

[MrPromey]

That bathroom scene is part of a great YouTube video, that creator went on the Starcruiser and made a short movie on the Starcruiser, its very good. I will try to find the link,

Yeah, she should have put a link in the video description but he was one of the very first comments:



It was just funny because she queued it up completely dry and straight-faced without commentary and then after was like "so as you can see, the bathrooms were themed" and then moves right along like those few seconds weren't pure out-of-context insanity.

 

[Mickey's Pal]

I would take a bullet for Jenny Nicholson.




EDITED to add: Just completed the four hour and five minute video and I think I'd take two bullets for her.

Starting with time stamp 3:48 (that's hour 3 and 48 minutes in) forward, she articulates some sentiments a lot of us have expressed with Disney and the Florida property in general but I think she does a particularly good job of using aspects of this trip to illustrate them... and the Spirit Airline comparison near the beginning of the video feels spot on.

I have seen this myself and its a PERFECT EXAMPLE of why this thing was awful from someone who actually went to it.

 

[Mickey's Pal]

That bathroom scene is part of a great YouTube video, that creator went on the Starcruiser and made a short movie on the Starcruiser, its very good. I will try to find the link,

No. Brickey's video is not good. In anyway.

 

[Disstevefan1]

No. Brickey's video is not good. In anyway.

Agree to disagree. I thought it was good,

 

[MoonRakerSCM]

Had a long drive back from a job site today... and chose to listen to this while coasting down the 99.

Fantastic commentary and I loved hearing a level headed in-depth review of a personal experience.

As others have mentioned, her commentary on Disney's recent actions is spot on. Cheapening the product without a care... that will eventually catch up with them.

God I forgot how much they promised for Star wars Land...

 

[Mickey's Pal]

One of my favorite things she points out towards the end is something that has been said ad nauseum here on this thread especially- is that even though it is closed- everyone that went flat out LOVED IT and GOT IT and the cast was amazing and it was those who did not go on it - are the ones whom did not understand what it was. And she correctly says-that is FLAT OUT NOT TRUE. Anyone notice how all the hardcore supporters of the Star Wars Land Hotel have disappeared since she posted her DETAILED video of why this thing sucked which directly attacked the average defender's talking points??? She debunked them all- whether it be price- the experience- the cast interaction, etc. She debunked them all because she paid out of pocket for this mess and ALL THE USUAL DEFENDERS- You know who they are- are NOWHERE TO BE FOUND! Her video is better than any Defunctland video we could hope to get about this because it not only single handily shut up all the defenders but it made Disney soooo upset they are DESPERATLEY trying to find ways to get the video removed from social media. Jenny- my hats off to you!

 

[cjkeating]

Anyone notice how all the hardcore supporters of the Star Wars Land Hotel have disappeared since she posted her DETAILED video of why this thing sucked which directly attacked the average defender's talking points??? She debunked them all- whether it be price- the experience- the cast interaction, etc. She debunked them all because she paid out of pocket for this mess and ALL THE USUAL DEFENDERS- You know who they are- are NOWHERE TO BE FOUND!

I'm still here. I'll defend Starcruiser until the day I die as it was one of the best experiences of my life. I paid out of my own pocket and if it hadn't have closed I would have done the same again.

I just think everything that can be said about Starcruiser has been said. It's been shut for 9 months, there is nothing more to discuss.

 

[HoustonHorn]

I'm still here. I'll defend Starcruiser until the day I die as it was one of the best experiences of my life. I paid out of my own pocket and if it hadn't have closed I would have done the same again.

I just think everything that can be said about Starcruiser has been said. It's been shut for 9 months, there is nothing more to discuss.

I've watched 2:30 of the video so far. I'm not doubting anything the says, but we had a vastly different experience than she did. And no amount of gaslighting from a bunch of people on this board who never went can change that.

 

[Tha Realest]

I'm still here. I'll defend Starcruiser until the day I die as it was one of the best experiences of my life. I paid out of my own pocket and if it hadn't have closed I would have done the same again.

I just think everything that can be said about Starcruiser has been said. It's been shut for 9 months, there is nothing more to discuss.

The almost 5 million views in a week on a four-hour YT vlog suggests there is still an interest on exploring this mess, and a hunger for an authoritative post-mortem (which this seems to be). Its reach is hitting well beyond theme park websites or blogs; it’s being discussed and commented on by sites and people who rarely cover this sort of thing.

 

[MrPromey]

I've watched 2:30 of the video so far. I'm not doubting anything the says, but we had a vastly different experience than she did. And no amount of gaslighting from a bunch of people on this board who never went can change that.

And to me that illustrates how poorly set up the whole thing actually was.

I mean, Disney can't control the weather but during your excursion, if it was a sunny day, you probably wouldn't realize how crappy scanning those crates that they had total control of the placement and environment for was for someone paying for the same experience on a rainy day.

You might have been a little less bitter about the lack of payoff than someone wondering why they couldn't have placed them under some sort of cover.

Assuming the system they used to track things didn't break for you, you could have been having an amazing experience next to someone else where nothing was going right and you wouldn't even know it. You'd come off thinking you had nearly the exact experience they did and feeling like anyone who didn't think it was amazing was trolling or just crazy.

How many people did it break for?

We'll never know but even a 1% failure would be a disaster because it would mean that potentially someone on every "voyage" was paying crazy money for a broken experience.

If people didn't realize it wasn't working the way it should for them, Disney might not even know the number because if they (Disney) were aware something was wrong, one would have assumed someone would have manually stepped in to correct it behind the scenes in real-time without having to handle a guest complaint to prompt them.

I mean sure, maybe she was just a super-unlucky person who just happened to be one of the rare exceptions and it just so happened she was also a detail-oriented vlogger making it unlucky for Disney and this was a one in a million type of thing but she points out how people who shared that sentiment from their own experiences on Reddit were shouted down by others who didn't have problems so who really knows?

Pure speculation on my part but if Disney was consistently having trouble keeping things working behind the scenes 100% of the time for all guests in this kind of way, that may have been a major contributor to the abrupt shutdown and no apparent effort to rework it. No story element changes are going to fix that and it's difficult to charge what they're charging for an experience that guest could spend half or more of their trip on before realizing something isn't working like it should be.

If a guest needs to go to a counter to complain that their immersive experience isn't working, it's kind of too late, anyway, isn't it?

How do you recover their experience from that?

I could see something like that combined with declining bookings making them think the whole thing was basically a failed experiment and not worth the effort to try fixing if it was going to require major retooling of how the core system controlling it all worked, especially if they had the opportunity to take a write-down on it and get out before having to carry operations into their next financial year while trying to fix things.

I mean, would you want to roll the dice and pay the money to go if you knew there was a decent likelihood your experience could have ended up like hers? Especially with a company that would try to stonewall you on a $30 refund for a photo package they didn't actually provide?

What kind of "fix" would you expect from said company for a failed $6k experience?

I think what's actually most damaging for Disney about a postmortem like this is the last fifteen minutes (well, and the Spirt Airlines foreshadowing) where she takes this experience and connects it to wider critiques about current operations at their US resorts, in general. It speaks to problems bigger than one expensive and accidentally bad "voyage".

 

[pdude81]

One of my favorite things she points out towards the end is something that has been said ad nauseum here on this thread especially- is that even though it is closed- everyone that went flat out LOVED IT and GOT IT and the cast was amazing and it was those who did not go on it - are the ones whom did not understand what it was. And she correctly says-that is FLAT OUT NOT TRUE. Anyone notice how all the hardcore supporters of the Star Wars Land Hotel have disappeared since she posted her DETAILED video of why this thing sucked which directly attacked the average defender's talking points??? She debunked them all- whether it be price- the experience- the cast interaction, etc. She debunked them all because she paid out of pocket for this mess and ALL THE USUAL DEFENDERS- You know who they are- are NOWHERE TO BE FOUND! Her video is better than any Defunctland video we could hope to get about this because it not only single handily shut up all the defenders but it made Disney soooo upset they are DESPERATLEY trying to find ways to get the video removed from social media. Jenny- my hats off to you!

We're just tired of listening to you. Finally you may have found a legitimate criticism from someone with relevant experience. Happy Birthday.

But for me to put in 4 hours of watch time to give real thought to what she said and then respond here is a lot. Especially given that the vast majority of those who experienced this loved it, and one in-depth video is what you cite as proof that all the others are wrong.

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

One of my favorite things she points out towards the end is something that has been said ad nauseum here on this thread especially- is that even though it is closed- everyone that went flat out LOVED IT and GOT IT and the cast was amazing and it was those who did not go on it - are the ones whom did not understand what it was. And she correctly says-that is FLAT OUT NOT TRUE. Anyone notice how all the hardcore supporters of the Star Wars Land Hotel have disappeared since she posted her DETAILED video of why this thing sucked which directly attacked the average defender's talking points??? She debunked them all- whether it be price- the experience- the cast interaction, etc. She debunked them all because she paid out of pocket for this mess and ALL THE USUAL DEFENDERS- You know who they are- are NOWHERE TO BE FOUND! Her video is better than any Defunctland video we could hope to get about this because it not only single handily shut up all the defenders but it made Disney soooo upset they are DESPERATLEY trying to find ways to get the video removed from social media. Jenny- my hats off to you!

One person's opinion does not debunk the positive feedback, which has come from many people.

There's simply nothing left to discuss.

There is a vocal contingent of people who hate this, despite not having experienced it. They cling to photos of line dancing and QR code scanning, or any singular thing they can use to criticize.

I've never seen a positive review that referenced those minor things. People who did it and liked it had a fulsome experience and have explained why.

They're probably just sick of trying to explain it to people are have made up their minds and don't care about what it was actually like.

 

[McMickeyWorld]

I really have never understood where a certain discourse comes from that says, "if you like something, you can't accept valid criticisms or you can't criticize what you like yourself." In the end, both sides are equally valid. I was just watching a video where, from the first few minutes, it was questioned whether she was actually a fan of themed entertainment-LARP and Star Wars, just because of her critique... for not "understanding" the product. And while there are cases where this happens, like with the Frozen coaster or the musical genre of PTN-any modern parade, where they are criticized for not being an E-ticket when they weren't promoted as such or for having a "party" atmosphere, where they are seen as mediocre products just because of that.
In her video, she clearly criticizes the hotel for what they sold her and the product she ended up receiving as a consumer.

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

I really have never understood where a certain discourse comes from that says, "if you like something, you can't accept valid criticisms or you can't criticize what you like yourself." In the end, both sides are equally valid. I was just watching a video where, from the first few minutes, it was questioned whether she was actually a fan of themed entertainment-LARP and Star Wars, just because of her critique... for not "understanding" the product. And while there are cases where this happens, like with the Frozen coaster or the musical genre of PTN-any modern parade, where they are criticized for not being an E-ticket when they weren't promoted as such or for having a "party" atmosphere, where they are seen as mediocre products just because of that.
In her video, she clearly criticizes the hotel for what they sold her and the product she ended up receiving as a consumer.

Of course there are different views. Some people will like a Star Wars product that other didn't, and vice versa. Something many people fail to understand.

However.

I do find it amusing that the people who have ignored so many actual guest reviews, most of which have been positive, have now latched onto this one negative review as suddenly revealing the "truth" that all of those other people failed to see.

Her opinion is valid, but I still keep in mind it's a minority opinion. At least she experienced it. I haven't watched, but I'd be far more interested in her views than the "I found a picture of the Starcruiser and it looks bad and I'm judging it solely on this one picture I found" crowd.

 

[Incomudro]

One person's opinion does not debunk the positive feedback, which has come from many people.

There's simply nothing left to discuss.

There is a vocal contingent of people who hate this, despite not having experienced it. They cling to photos of line dancing and QR code scanning, or any singular thing they can use to criticize.

I've never seen a positive review that referenced those minor things. People who did it and liked it had a fulsome experience and have explained why.

They're probably just sick of trying to explain it to people are have made up their minds and don't care about what it was actually like.

This thing failed in mere months.
Look, I have no doubt that a portion of the people that did it - enjoyed it.
I've said on this forum that I'd have enjoyed it as well, particularly if my son's were still the "right" age for it.
I know we would have had a great time.
But that doesn't mean it would have been worth it money wise, nor hide the fact that there were clearly glaringly bad details like the light saber training, and huge amounts of cost cutting.

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

This thing failed in mere months.
Look, I have no doubt that a portion of the people that did it - enjoyed it.
I've said on this forum that I'd have enjoyed it as well, particularly if my son's were still the "right" age for it.
I know we would have had a great time.
But that doesn't mean it would have been worth it money wise, nor hide the fact that there were clearly glaringly bad details like the light saber training, and huge amounts of cost cutting.

It's fine to discuss why it failed. Marketing, cost, limited appeal, whatever.

It didn't fail because it was "just line dancing and scanning QR codes" as some would like to believe.

It was an intriguing product, and Disney should be taking lessons on what worked and how it might be applied to a future project.

There's a market for unique experiences. The Disney cruise line is proof you can charge more than the competition for a premium product.

 

[McMickeyWorld]

It's fine to discuss why it failed. Marketing, cost, limited appeal, whatever.

It didn't fail because it was "just line dancing and scanning QR codes" as some would like to believe.

It was an intriguing product, and Disney should be taking lessons on what worked and how it might be applied to a future project.

There's a market for unique experiences. The Disney cruise line is proof you can charge more than the competition for a premium product.

Independently, as was already mentioned in the other thread, I still hope that Disney doesn't abandon the concept. Honestly, I would like to experience an improved version.