I can see why someone would argue why going to sw:ge would be a ‘no brainer’ part of the experience… but honestly when that portion was revealed I was actually disappointed. It was too easy of a crutch and I thought it would be a significant break in the continuity of the environment being spun up for the experience.
And then when the actual unique elements were weak… it was a 1-2 punch.
When the concept was initially briefed to you… you could see this as s kind of experience you could have put anywhere… it didn’t need wdw next door. But what they did ultimately almost set themselves up for all the wrong guest expectations of it being a star wars hotel…, and forever were trying to get back out of the hole they dug themselves.
They fumbled the attempt at going full time experience… but i think many would agree they’ve been pretty successful with the few hour side adventure. Let’s hope they don’t give up and maybe find some happy inbetween.
Imagine being about to replace the part of someone’s vacation they spend now doing minigolf or a tour… with some awesome 8hr immersion experience.
I can understand that trying to do certain things in public mixed space might be difficult, especially with characters, since regular guests would be drawn to it but they could have converted a supply closet* in the park into some secret place you have to find - maybe that could have been what the QR code scanning got you, like an access code or "digital key" that let you have a surprise encounter.
Something really simple like that would have made the time in the park really tie into what was going on in the ship and even enhanced the "adventure" side of things by making it feel like more was actually going on around all these "clueless tourists".
I could see there being red tape for this - was the Starcruiser part of parks or resorts? If resorts, would they have had to lease a space from parks to allow this (?) - that sort of stuff but as a guest, nobody cares about the self-imposed issues Disney might create for themselves with organizational structure.
What you're describing seems like a more elaborate version of what Universal has (sort of) been trying with the themed escape rooms. In this case, a 6-8 hour experience including the dining would be really cool and would lend itself to a lot more things they could do.
Obviously, the fishbowl nature of it being a space ship made the idea of the Starcruiser an easier overnight thing to pull off than most stories but by ditching the stay they would:
• Elimiate scheduling challenges for the actors
• Eliminate the whole issue with rooms
(so many headaches solved here)
• Be able to bring the price down, opening it to a much wider pool of guests
(but still be able to attach premium pricing)
• Making it an easier sell for people not wanting to comit to two and a half days of something they're not sure they'll enjoy
• Be able to cycle a lot more guests through**
• Offer a much wider range of experiences with more than one running next to each other at the same facility
• Be able to swap out themes a lot more easially
I mean, hindsight is always clear but it's really hard to guess what they were doing with this from the start - creating something they couldn't duplicate, having something they
(allegedly) knew wouldn't be profitable - like what was their end-game with it other than it being something flashy to show the world they were still capable of "innovating"?
If that last part was it, the closer casts a shadow over that effort.
It would be interesting if they could learn the lesson from this and do something like you're suggesting though. Something like that
could be duplicated across all resorts worldwide, maybe even on cruise ships and in other tourst areas they don't have a full theme park presence in.
*or whatever - just a little spot behind a door somewhere.
**With a staggered start time, they might even be able to overlap groups depending on how it's setup.
