I think turning it into a normal hotel is the last thing they would do -- it would struggle to sell rooms. They're tiny and there are almost no amenities, not to mention a lack of transportation to get anywhere else on property (obviously they could add this, but that would be a lot of expense for a small number of customers). The immersive story part of the experience is the main reason they're charging such a high price, and that would certainly be eliminated entirely if they were going to turn it into a normal hotel.
They're far more likely to turn it into an upcharge experience where people can go dine in the restaurant/hang out at the bar, do the lightsaber training etc.
It's a small, cramped hotel with small, cramped rooms and a few small, cramped public areas. It can house only a very limited number of guests who, if they are paying reasonable rates, can barely support the necessary staff. It has no pool or other standard hotel amenities. The exterior is entirely unthemed, so you can't add external public spaces or even windows without essentially rebuilding much of the structure.
It's not going to work as a standard hotel.
Lol, good lord. You would pay $1000 a night to stay in a 75 square foot room with no pool or even quickservice? I wouldn't pay $100 to stay in a cruise ship room if you stuck it on land going nowhere.
I've stayed at AKL and Y&BC in recent years, the latter being concierge. I did go to the Y&BC's pool because it's spectacular and from my perspective, its primary selling point.
I have never wandered into AKL's pool because its main selling point is the Savannah views. I enjoyed extensive time on my balcony and just wandering around the resort.
The Starcruiser's main selling point is direct access to the back of Galaxy's Edge. Y'all say there'd be no reason to go to the hotel, but they could easily offer a before park opening access to Galaxy's Edge. If ILL for Rise currently costs $15, and you have a family of four, you're spending $60, but there's always a chance ILL fills up or gets more expensive. Include ILL for Falcon, and you have more value. The people who are going to stay at Disney's more expensive hotels are definitely more than willing to use ILL. So if at 7 am, you can get Rise knocked out, Falcon, and then do Savi's workshop and what not, by 9:00 am you're back at the Star Cruiser and then decide to go to Epcot.
That little trip to Galaxy's Edge is worth hundreds of dollars in savings because you don't have to buy Genie, ILL, or a park hopper to get into the land or rides, while also getting a more premium experience.
Then, the Starcruiser itself has cool features. The lobby, bridge, and restaurant all look cool. I don't have $6,000 to shell out on a 2-day experience, but I'd definitely splurge on this if it were cheaper just do to it once as I did for Y&BC and AKL.
But as someone who has taken 11 Disney Cruises, there are absolutely people who'd be willing to go on stationary cruise ships. That's how most cruise lines resumed sailing after Covid. They had no ports, just consecutive sea days.
There's absolutely a market for this sort of experience. It'll do fine. To me, the price is the only absurdity, but so are the Polynesian bungalows and many other cash sinks across the resort. And luckily for Disney, the price is the thing that's most easily addressed.
And the lack of hotel amenities? The only main one is the pool, which I assume only a minority of guests actually use during a stay. A Spa is another absent amenity, but there are great Spa options at CS, GF, and S&D already. The Starcruiser has a dinner show. Aulani's Luau costs $184 per adult for preferred seating. Not gonna escape that one without paying over $700 for a family of four.
It's generally better to underpromise and overdeliver, and at its current pricing, they absolutely rejected that approach, but by underpricing the experience given the demand, they leave money on the table. I think the Starcruiser will be successful in its current form with only minor modifications, but even if that doesn't work, this isn't going to be a complete flop.
Friendly reminder to anyone who hasn't been on a Cruise's maiden voyage, they're generally a bit of a cluster. No one knows what's going on and a lot of changes are made relatively quickly that drastically improve the experience.
Bottom-line, at this point, this will get absolutely panned even if it was the holy grail. Yes, I am essentially making the stance that "all this criticism means nothing," which is never a good stance, but y'all are also saying that everything positive that comes from the media people is invalid because they're essentially being bribed by the mouse.
