News Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser Permanently Closed Fall 2023

Sirwalterraleigh

Premium Member
Well, to me, that’s what the Starcruiser should have been and what Disney should double down on. More of it in the parks (with no upcharge), and possibly again in a hotel-like application for a (more realistic) fee.
The lands are bad and are going to decay as well…if they don’t get serious…which they won’t
 

Br0ckford

Well-Known Member
Jenny Nicholson just released a fantastic video about her experience onboard and the failure of the Starcruiser. As someone who really wanted to see this idea succeed its incredible to see just how much Disney blundered this concept.


I'm about 3/4 of the way through this video. The whole thing seems so sad and hastily put together. It's vaguely Star Wars themed with some familiar merch and characters thrown in just to say "See, it's Star Wars". The way Disney has handled the franchise since they paid $4B for it. 😓
 

Sirwalterraleigh

Premium Member
I'm about 3/4 of the way through this video. The whole thing seems so sad and hastily put together. It's vaguely Star Wars themed with some familiar merch and characters thrown in just to say "See, it's Star Wars". The way Disney has handled the franchise since they paid $4B for it. 😓
It’s beyond belief to be honest.

“Hey…George went the wrong way and the fans rebelled…
…so let’s buy it and go completely off the map!!”
 

JD80

Well-Known Member
Personally I think this concept from a 30k view is what Disney needs to lean in to but it doesn't need a platoon of actors to make it work. You can make an elevated hotel experience that is extremely themed, and it doesn't have to have much inventory.

For a Star Wars hotel, you can keep it at a small number of rooms, put in an Oga's-like bar/lounge, put in a SW restaurant, maybe a dinner show like Hoop-dee-doo?

You know they know how to do this because that's just DCL. Attach it to a park and it's automatically a $700-$800 a night hotel easily (if not $1000). You could probably get away with not having a pool and other amenities.
 

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
Personally I think this concept from a 30k view is what Disney needs to lean in to but it doesn't need a platoon of actors to make it work.

I like Jennie's content.

However, a 30k view for someone with 1.1M subs isn't that substantial.

And 30k is the number of people who visit the MK in just one day... a light day.

In other words, this is not a significant data point for Disney.
 

Joel

Well-Known Member
I like Jennie's content.

However, a 30k view for someone with 1.1M subs isn't that substantial.

And 30k is the number of people who visit the MK in just one day... a light day.

In other words, this is not a significant data point for Disney.
"From a 30k view" as in "the view from 30,000 feet." Not the best use of figurative language for a flightless bird, of course, but I'm pretty sure that's what JD80 meant. The video has almost 3.5 million views.
 

Disstevefan1

Well-Known Member
In the end, Disney’s theme park business (unlike their movie business) is about MAKING MONEY and not just making money, it’s about making enough money on any given venture.

If the numbers were right, they would have kept it going.
 

Sirwalterraleigh

Premium Member
Personally I think this concept from a 30k view is what Disney needs to lean in to but it doesn't need a platoon of actors to make it work. You can make an elevated hotel experience that is extremely themed, and it doesn't have to have much inventory.

For a Star Wars hotel, you can keep it at a small number of rooms, put in an Oga's-like bar/lounge, put in a SW restaurant, maybe a dinner show like Hoop-dee-doo?

You know they know how to do this because that's just DCL. Attach it to a park and it's automatically a $700-$800 a night hotel easily (if not $1000). You could probably get away with not having a pool and other amenities.
They don’t built rack hotel rooms anymore

…because they cannot fill rack hotel rooms anymore
 

George

Liker of Things
Premium Member
Jenny Nicholson just released a fantastic video about her experience onboard and the failure of the Starcruiser. As someone who really wanted to see this idea succeed its incredible to see just how much Disney blundered this concept.


I'm a half hour from the end and its one of the greatest youtube videos I've ever seen. She's absolutely brilliant. Look up her video about the Hallmark party youtube channel. My son pointed me to it. It's from about 3 years ago, I believe. Only 18 minutes long. The first time I watched it I laughed so hard I almost couldn't breathe. There's only a few things that have made me laugh this hard. Blazing Saddles. Charlie, the blood capsules, and their effect on him in "Frank's Pretty Woman".
 

George

Liker of Things
Premium Member
But isn't scanning QR codes on crates more fun?
Like many, when "Star Wars Galaxy's Edge featuring Blue and Green Milk with Some Exciting Characters from Various Star Wars Movies and the Like" opened, we did some of those things on our phones for free. I expected something to more to happen. Incredibly lame. At least it wasn't part of a super expensive frantic SW experience that I raided my son's piggy bank for.
 

FerretAfros

Well-Known Member
Finally finished the video, really really really well put together, especially the last 10-15 minutes. Currently at 3.1 million views! Hope people are noticing.

Imagine if all the people who watched Jenny’s video had visited the Starcruiser! There’s definitely and audience for this insert of thing (done better).
Let's do a little math...

As of this exact moment, YouTube shows the video has having 3,626,654 views. Let's assume this means that many people have watched the entire 4 hours, 5 minutes, and 38 seconds of it (probably inaccurate, but it's what we've got). That comes out to 14,847,118.51 hours of eyes watching this video about the Starcruiser's failure.

The Starcruiser itself operated from March 1, 2022 to September 30, 2023, which is 578 days, or 289 possible 'departure' days (though we know that it was only operating 4 days a week toward the end). Assuming an average occupancy of 4 people per room (which is higher than reality), with 25 hours and 15 minutes of 'entertainment' time per trip (per the numbers in the video), that comes out to 29,189 hours of people being entertained on the Starcruiser.

In less than 1 week, this video has been consumed over 500 times more than the Starcruiser did during its entire operational lifespan. And of course, that says nothing of the number of people who have watched this video compared to the number who experienced the attraction itself.

While I'm sure the number of people willing to watch a 4+ hour YouTube video about a defunct tourist attraction is somewhat limited, it appears that this is reaching a fairly wide audience that likely includes a lot more mainstream viewers than Disney news typically garners. One has to wonder whether it will have any effect on Disney's business philosophies that have been so clearly called out in it, or at the very least, whether it will make customers more skeptical of the practices already in place.
 

Ghost93

Well-Known Member
Can anyone elaborate on a designer commenting she was excluded because of a camera? Smells like another Surrell/Kleyla moment
If Disney is going to exclude people for having cameras, they need to make that known in advance, before the 2-day experience begins, not after someone has invested $6,000. Even still, it would be stupid to not treat all guests equally.
 

pdude81

Well-Known Member
Let's do a little math...

As of this exact moment, YouTube shows the video has having 3,626,654 views. Let's assume this means that many people have watched the entire 4 hours, 5 minutes, and 38 seconds of it (probably inaccurate, but it's what we've got). That comes out to 14,847,118.51 hours of eyes watching this video about the Starcruiser's failure.

The Starcruiser itself operated from March 1, 2022 to September 30, 2023, which is 578 days, or 289 possible 'departure' days (though we know that it was only operating 4 days a week toward the end). Assuming an average occupancy of 4 people per room (which is higher than reality), with 25 hours and 15 minutes of 'entertainment' time per trip (per the numbers in the video), that comes out to 29,189 hours of people being entertained on the Starcruiser.

In less than 1 week, this video has been consumed over 500 times more than the Starcruiser did during its entire operational lifespan. And of course, that says nothing of the number of people who have watched this video compared to the number who experienced the attraction itself.

While I'm sure the number of people willing to watch a 4+ hour YouTube video about a defunct tourist attraction is somewhat limited, it appears that this is reaching a fairly wide audience that likely includes a lot more mainstream viewers than Disney news typically garners. One has to wonder whether it will have any effect on Disney's business philosophies that have been so clearly called out in it, or at the very least, whether it will make customers more skeptical of the practices already in place.
Are you really comparing the reach of a free youtube video with Star Wars content to something that cost $6k? And I would bet money that less than 5% of people clicking on a 4 hour youtube video watched the whole thing.

What happens here is that tons of people watched starcruiser videos in the past, especially shorter ones criticizing the experience. This new video will be suggested to many of those people and others with related interests, who may not even know what SWGS is and click on it anyway.

But if you can get some real life viewing stats on this video to prove me wrong, please do. Certainly some have and will watch the whole thing, but come on.
 

999th Happy Haunt

Well-Known Member
Are you really comparing the reach of a free youtube video with Star Wars content to something that cost $6k? And I would bet money that less than 5% of people clicking on a 4 hour youtube video watched the whole thing.

What happens here is that tons of people watched starcruiser videos in the past, especially shorter ones criticizing the experience. This new video will be suggested to many of those people and others with related interests, who may not even know what SWGS is and click on it anyway.

But if you can get some real life viewing stats on this video to prove me wrong, please do. Certainly some have and will watch the whole thing, but come on.
Theme park content exploded on YouTube in the past few years. Defunctland’s hour+ long documentary style videos have gotten millions of views as well. While I agree not many of the millions of views account for the full 4 hours, I think there has been a very wide reach for the video, especially with lots of shorter clips of it being uploaded on Twitter. Jenny rocks, happy Disney’s price gauging is becoming way more public.
 

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