Which makes saying that the experience is universally loved, misinformation. The most telling and probably honest assessment of the experience is the wide scale ridicule which has been heaped upon it. If the initial media previews were any indication, the most common takeaway is that even for average Star Wars fans the experience was overpriced for what it offered. I’m not saying it’s a bad experience, but I am sure that if I wanted to plunk down a couple thousand for the ability to experience it, I would have a much more positive outlook on the experience.
To your last point, the ability to book through the end of the year has been available for quite some time now. Most Disney trips are booked more than 3 months out. The large amount of availability should be alarming to those interested in the future of this experience. It relies heavily on sold out “cruises”. The expectation was that this experience would be continually sold out. It is not meeting that expectation.
You're conflating those who heap ridicule with those who criticize it for being overpriced.
E.g., it's overpriced for me, but I'm not heaping ridicule on in it like Doomcork who interviews someone lying about the experience or try to drum up 'cringe-gate' because of one teaser video. Those people live in the bastement-hole of the Internet pumping out video after video of ginned-up outrage and lies fueled by nerdrage.
Then there are those who were critical because it became clearly apparent that they couldn't wrap their minds around what a MMLARP is like. "We can't stay in the pool.. duh duh duh?" Those aren't the kind of feedback anyone would want.
Also, let me call you out that you're claiming that those who *didn't* experience are in a better place to give an honest appraisal than those who did attend. Really?
If you want honest appraisals, look to those invited as media who weren't big Star Wars fans. Or who didn't really understand what it was until they experienced. Almost all of them wound up very positive. But, then, of course, you have people claiming "Because it was free for them, and they don't want to make Disney angry and lose out on such events!"
The other source of honest appraisals come from spouses who wouldn't have gone if not for their spouse. They paid the money to make their spouse happy. And almost all of them in the end enjoyed it.
As far as the rate of full bookings is slowing down... that could be just a function of the price, and Disney is running out of whales. If so, that could easily be fixed by slowly discounting the price finding a new cohort's price point.
But so far, full bookings have mostly been in place for the upcoming next three months... that's been steady. Long term bookings have always been relatively not-booked-up.
And yes, that's a sign that it isn't crazily popular. But always having the next three months fully book isn't a sign that nobody likes it, either and it's failing.
on anyone that shows excitement in anything Disney World does. It's not enough they are miserable and frustrated with Disney, but God forbid someone is actually looking forward to it. Just do you and have fun.
