News Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser coming to Walt Disney World 2021

MagicHappens1971

Well-Known Member
Right. So you can see that "Look! The booking site shows availability!" could indicate anything from:

"There is one (perhaps the most expensive) room available on each cruise through the rest of the year!"
and
"They don't have a single cabin booked between tomorrow and the end of the year!"

So "This thing is an utter failure!" might be a bit premature and uninformed?
Yes. A cruise with 100 rooms sold could be 200 people, could be upwards of 350 people. It just depends
 

TP2000

Well-Known Member
Does "available" refer to one room, or multiple rooms?

That's a question as old as time. And it's valid. And yet...

I just went and tried to book a room at the Grand Floridian for tomorrow night. It's fully booked.

From parking lot garden view twin rooms to lagoon view 3 bedroom villas, there is no availability tomorrow or this weekend at the Grand Floridian. Even when I try and toggle to book a package including theme park tickets, the 867 room Grand Floridian is fully booked this week.

GrandFloridianIsBooked.jpg


I'd imagine if I went and tried at the Poly or the Contemporary, the results would be the same. The parks are packed after all and it's the weekend before Thanksgiving when most schools in the USA are off for the week.

But the 100 room Galactic Starcruiser still has open availability this weekend. That can't be what they were planning for the first holiday season of its operation.

 
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MagicHappens1971

Well-Known Member
Not arguing towards availability and what not as I have no idea, however one thing to note is there are “no holidays in space” so the Starcruiser won’t be celebrating anything
 

Vegas Disney Fan

Well-Known Member
That's a question as old as time. And it's valid. And yet...

I just went and tried to book a room at the Grand Floridian for tomorrow night. It's fully booked.

From parking lot garden view twin rooms to lagoon view 3 bedroom villas, there is no availability tomorrow or this weekend at the Grand Floridian. Even when I try and toggle to book a package including theme park tickets, the 867 room Grand Floridian is fully booked this week.

View attachment 678874

I'd imagine if I went and tried at the Poly or the Contemporary, the results would be the same. The parks are packed, after all and it's the weekend before Thanksgiving when most schools in the USA are off for the week.

But the 100 room Galactic Starcruiser still has open availability all week. That can't be what they were planning for the first holiday season of its operation.

Depends on their expected occupancy. If the reports of 25% are accurate they’re probably in full panic mode, if they’re at 95% they’re probably doing exactly what they hoped. They likely expect a cabin or two available every trip as proof they are correctly priced and maximizing return.

They probably view a sold out GF as proof they underpriced the weekend and can charge more next year.
 

TP2000

Well-Known Member
I just went and looked at the entire property for this weekend, with a check-in starting tomorrow and checking out on Sunday (to clear out for the Thanksgiving crowds). There are only six Disney hotels on property that still have rooms available this weekend. They are, in no particular order;

Coronado Springs Resort - $412 per night
Caribbean Beach Resort - $357 per night
Port Orleans Resort - $299 per night
Animal Kingdom Lodge - $496 per night
Cooper Creek Villas - $2,706 per night (only a hot tub King Cabin is left)

And the Galactic Starcruiser.

 

_caleb

Well-Known Member
That's a question as old as time. And it's valid. And yet...

I just went and tried to book a room at the Grand Floridian for tomorrow night. It's fully booked.

From parking lot garden view twin rooms to lagoon view 3 bedroom villas, there is no availability tomorrow or this weekend at the Grand Floridian. Even when I try and toggle to book a package including theme park tickets, the 867 room Grand Floridian is fully booked this week.

View attachment 678874

I'd imagine if I went and tried at the Poly or the Contemporary, the results would be the same. The parks are packed after all and it's the weekend before Thanksgiving when most schools in the USA are off for the week.

But the 100 room Galactic Starcruiser still has open availability this weekend. That can't be what they were planning for the first holiday season of its operation.


But resort rooms use flexible pricing and dump blocks of rooms to Travelocity, Expedia, Booking.com, etc. Maybe not the best comparison.
 

TP2000

Well-Known Member
But resort rooms use flexible pricing and dump blocks of rooms to Travelocity, Expedia, Booking.com, etc. Maybe not the best comparison.

Okay, I just went and tried Expedia for the same dates this weekend, same 1 room request anywhere on Disney World property. According to Expedia, every single Disney property is booked and unavailable. Even though Disney itself still has a few rooms at those 5 properties I mentioned above.

Expedia is worse than Disney's own site for availability this weekend, and looking into next month.

ExpediaIsFull.jpg
 

_caleb

Well-Known Member
Okay, I just went and tried Expedia for the same dates this weekend, same 1 room request anywhere on Disney World property. According to Expedia, every single Disney property is booked and unavailable. Even though Disney itself still has a few rooms at those 5 properties I mentioned above.

Expedia is worse than Disney's own site for availability this weekend, and looking into next month.

View attachment 678885
I just got this on Travelocity:

Screenshot 2022-11-15 at 3.14.55 PM.png


A steal at $870 for a single night!
But my point is that resort rooms don't have set prices and manage availability by selling/listing them to discount booking sites. Does Disney do this with the Starcruiser?
 

Patcheslee

Well-Known Member
Depends on their expected occupancy. If the reports of 25% are accurate they’re probably in full panic mode, if they’re at 95% they’re probably doing exactly what they hoped. They likely expect a cabin or two available every trip as proof they are correctly priced and maximizing return.

They probably view a sold out GF as proof they underpriced the weekend and can charge more next year.
If they are truly cutting to 1 dinner service then 50% or less would make sense.
 

kingdead

Well-Known Member
Here's another example of how crowded it can get in the atrium...

View attachment 678852

(the saja there is giving my son some secret instructions)

I guess my point here is that it can almost be too crowded to have personal interactions sometimes. Our favorite times were lingering around after meals in the dining room or passing through the Atrium in slow periods (I had a great secret chat with Lenka and Raithe doing just that).

That looks like around the crowd size you'd want for the big events. Nobody is mashed into each other or crowding over the folks who have found seats, it's possible to find a sightline to whatever's going on.

However, having looked at the setup, I definitely think it would be more fun to go now that it's "failing" if the cast members are willing to put the time in. You are going to get your very own little story! (Until the cast members inevitably go insane from you nattering at them all the time.)
 

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
So, where's this site getting this from?
Have you read their other articles?...

 

mightynine

Well-Known Member

Vegas Disney Fan

Well-Known Member
The idea that Disney would close the Starcruiser next year is laughably absurd.

At most they'd just offer discounts -- I think they could charge roughly half of what they're charging now and still make a nice profit.
With set cruise dates they could also eliminate a cruise a week to consolidate demand, there’s a lot of things they could do before resorting to closing the whole hotel.
 

flynnibus

Premium Member
A lot of speculation on the Starcruiser losing money if it doesn't hit a certain capacity, but is this based on anything concrete? Does anyone actually know what the running costs are?

Well that is basic business sense. Things have operating costs... nothing runs for free, especially when it includes hospitality and entertainment.

But the notion that anything less than 100% is now critical is not basic business sense, and actually runs counter to it. So this is a classic sense of people taking a slice of truth and getting hyperbolic with it to jump to some biased conclusion.

They would know running 100% occupancy isn't a sustainable thing, even with unmet demand... so execs would know that approving a business plan that only made money at 100% is a fantasy.. and no regular exec would buy into that.

Unless they also know that running at a loss would be the norm, and is to be expected. And that not only runs opposed to most Disney pricing of late.. it would REALLY not make sense for a product intentionally priced as an exclusive. So this notion too has basically a zero probability.

So none of that makes any sense and anyone pushing that is just blowing smoke.

What is their real break-even point... that would be real insider information. We don't even know really how much staff they have. But any practical business plan would have an expected occupancy rate that is not only a forecast, but one that is believed to be achievable... and they'd setup a pricing structure that was inclusive of their cost and forecast needs.

I mean.. this isn't some guy that just woke up and said "I'm gonna start a hotel today!" - They have professionals managing this.. and even if they sucked, they would have financial analysts telling them they are crazy.. long before the thing opened.
 

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