News Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser Permanently Closed Fall 2023

[kingdead]

As a final aside, whilst Jennie got the worst seat in the house for dinner, I think we got the best seat in the house... for Day 1 dinner the Lieutenant Croy (First Order) sat at our table for the majority of the first nights dinner. We had no idea. We didn't pay extra. We just got given the table where he sits each Day 1 dinner and then the experience that goes with that.

That was the problem--for that price, there shouldn't be a worst seat in the house! Some attendees were getting these personal interactions with cast members and some were stuck scanning crates, and the ratio of actors to attendees meant this had to have been baked into the system.

 

[SamusAranX]

I agree, but I don't think HP/Hogwarts are comparable to Star Wars in this area. The IPs are similar in popularity overall, but HP revolves almost entirely around Hogwarts, and attending it is essentially the only fantasy any HP fan would ever want to fulfill.

Star Wars doesn't have something like that, even if it was based around the OT (although I'd agree that Darth Vader etc. appearing would be a bigger draw than the ST characters, especially to people that are currently more likely to have disposable income). There's not some specific location where everyone wants to go.

Lake Como in Italy says hello

 

[FettFan]

Regarding repeatability, you basically have no real impact on the main story, right?

They present it as "your adventure" but it's always going to end with the same battle at the end and the good guys winning in the same choreographed way, right?

Like if you go with First Order, no matter how hard you try to narc on Chewbacka, he's still getting away, isn't he?

There's no ending where Rey still beats Kylo but somehow Palpatine comes out of it with a nice wookie fur rug, is there?

They pitch it as your story and your adventure but you're really more of an extra or side-character in terms of the arch, aren't you?

That alone would kill the repeatable nature for most as far as the LARP aspect of it goes, I'd think.

When I was a kid, I learned early on to hold my finger in the forks I'd make on decision pages of choose your own adventure books so I could go back and take the other choice once I got to the end. That didn't cost me $6k a pop but I still didn't want to go all the way back to the start to go through all the motions where I could make a different selection to change the outcome and this is for adults... and there's no changing the outcome so I'm guessing that while some will, most aren't going to want to go through everything - expense, planning, time - of another trip just to see the alternate middle acts coming from the same start and leading to the same ending every time.

They might have been able to produce an A/B cruse with completely different story (good guys always winning, of course) and different characters but we'll probably never know how flexible or inflexible what they built to make this whole thing work was when it comes to that sort of tweaking.

Personally if it was *my* story, I’d want to be a dark Jedi who who is disillusioned with both the Republic and the Old Empire and want to destroy both Rey and Ren by suiciding halcyon into the nearest convenient sun as soon as they were both aboard.

Alas…

 

[Br0ckford]

Personally if it was *my* story, I’d want to be a dark Jedi who who is disillusioned with both the Republic and the Old Empire and want to destroy both Rey and Ren by suiciding halcyon into the nearest convenient sun as soon as they were both aboard.

Alas…

I think you just nailed what they were going for.
Mission accomplished Disney. Way to subvert expectations. I never saw it coming.

It was destined to end.

 

[FigmentJedi]

There is something there, if you choose to dig deep enough. He resents his parents. He hates himself. Perhaps he subconsciously wants to ruin that which facilitated his existence.

When viewed through the Reylo lens, he's a salmon returning to the Skywalker Spawning Grounds.

 

[RoysCabin]

This.

The price point was a bit higher BUT if the experience was done right, it may have truly been a once in a lifetime experience worth justifying. You have weeks long cruises in Europe that cost a couple thousand a person, and they almost always have a market.

Ask yourself this. If USO decided to make an immersive, two night Harry Potter experience that was truly done faithfully; with the same price point; staying perhaps as a “exchange student”, being taught, being “sorted”, receiving robes and a wand in the experience, a quidditch simulator, dining in Hogwarts, etc, is there any doubt there’d be a waiting list banging on the door ? Heck people would pay MORE.

Disney fudged this and it was more then just a price point problem

Digging back to this comment, but yeah, this goes back to what I was saying before about why Potter works for theme parks, even if I'm not a fan of the franchise, while Star Wars and other properties are harder sells to get just right: there are multiple generations of Potter fans who specifically dreamt at some point about going to Hogwarts, getting "sorted", having their own wand, and doing all the rituals associated with a super specific, well-detailed and described location that they're familiar with both on page and on screen. This is then joined by an entire surrounding area with stores and foods and drinks and references that everybody who follows the franchise understands, because Potter is concentrated, again, to a few very specific, fleshed-out locations.

Star Wars almost completely lacks that; you can't superimpose it over the Potter experience and say "Yeah, but it's Star Wars, of course it'll work!", you have to understand why something is a better or worse fit for a particular setting, scenario, or experience! People may dream of being able to use the Force, or maybe living out the Death Star trench run, but there's not really a setting in the Star Wars universe people look at and say "Man, I wish I could spend a week living there, just doing all the cool stuff I've read about/seen them do in the movies", because living in Star Wars means living under a fascist regime and constant internal strife and civil war. Plus, you want people to get all their senses involved, but the only snack you can bring from the franchise is blue milk...something that's on screen for all of five seconds, which doesn't contrast favorably with something like butterbeer, which gets more descriptions.

I don't know if $6k for just about any experience like this could have worked, but yeah, something like "live out your Hogwarts dreams" would have a much higher likelihood of working than this. The lack of understanding about what fundamentally makes all these properties different, why "immersion" in some IPs just works better than in others, is a very, very alarming aspect of current Disney park management, especially as they continue diving headfirst into the "IPs ONLY!" mandate, and most especially when Universal just seems to get it much better than they do, something that's evident when you see which IPs they chose to center Epic Universe around.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Yeah, but it's Star Wars, of course it'll work!", you have to understand why something is a better or worse fit for a particular setting, scenario, or experience!

This is extremely important! Thank you.

I’m not a Harry Potter fan but the themed areas at Universal are 10 times more interesting and fun to be in than galaxies edge.

 

[DonniePeverley]

Who green lit this originally and what is their role at Disney now ?

 

[asianway]

Who green lit this originally and what is their role at Disney now ?

He’s the CEO

 

[MagicHappens1971]

Who green lit this originally and what is their role at Disney now ?

I've said it before and will say it again. This project was not a bad idea, it was marketed poorly and priced outrageously. I'd love to see the numbers but this was honestly cheaper than most R&D projects that WDI embarks upon given that this did rake in some cash while it was open.

 

[asianway]

I've said it before and will say it again. This project was not a bad idea, it was marketed poorly and priced outrageously. I'd love to see the numbers but this was honestly cheaper than most R&D projects that WDI embarks upon given that this did rake in some cash while it was open.

I’m sure there were middle managers cautioning higher ups the whole time that were summarily rebuffed

 

[kingdead]

I've said it before and will say it again. This project was not a bad idea, it was marketed poorly and priced outrageously. I'd love to see the numbers but this was honestly cheaper than most R&D projects that WDI embarks upon given that this did rake in some cash while it was open.

One of the horses that hasn't been beaten to death--what was the labor situation? I know they were using college program kids to keep costs down and they didn't seem to be paying the actors extra, but realistically how long could they expect the actors to do hours worth of interactive play without burnout? Or was there an endless supply of starving Orlando talent out there?

 

[MagicHappens1971]

One of the horses that hasn't been beaten to death--what was the labor situation? I know they were using college program kids to keep costs down and they didn't seem to be paying the actors extra, but realistically how long could they expect the actors to do hours worth of interactive play without burnout? Or was there an endless supply of starving Orlando talent out there?

The actors were on contract and they would hire new actors as people left, or moved to other roles with the company. I don’t think finding actors was the problem, it was the incredible cost of keeping the operation going.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

One of the horses that hasn't been beaten to death--what was the labor situation? I know they were using college program kids to keep costs down and they didn't seem to be paying the actors extra, but realistically how long could they expect the actors to do hours worth of interactive play without burnout? Or was there an endless supply of starving Orlando talent out there?

There were equity actors who were a part of this… not sure if the number of actors got cut but some were there.

 

[danlb_2000]

The actors were on contract and they would hire new actors as people left, or moved to other roles with the company. I don’t think finding actors was the problem, it was the incredible cost of keeping the operation going.

Those two things could be related. I question whether there was anyway to actually make this work. To make it work you need a large number of skilled cast members, pretty much everyone needs to be an actor at some level. There were also a lot of people behind he scenes coordinating things. All of this means more operating costs. If you make it cheaper, you aren't going to be able to pay for the people you need to make the experience work as expected.

 

[asianway]

One of the horses that hasn't been beaten to death--what was the labor situation? I know they were using college program kids to keep costs down and they didn't seem to be paying the actors extra, but realistically how long could they expect the actors to do hours worth of interactive play without burnout? Or was there an endless supply of starving Orlando talent out there?

I’ve flipped on using the CPs for this one. The cast here were doing something very different and they couldn’t have the tenured CMs bringing in all their bad habits. I firmly believe it was a good thing

 

[Coaster Lover]

I would have loved to experience this, but there was no way I would have at the price that they offered this. I was hoping that after the initial hype died off, they might decrease the price or offer a "lite" version of the experience, but unfortunately, that never happened.

Any chance we get even a tease of what they will do with this building at D23? Or is the general thought that they will let it sit for at least a few more years before they touch it?

 

[LSLS]

I've said it before and will say it again. This project was not a bad idea, it was marketed poorly and priced outrageously. I'd love to see the numbers but this was honestly cheaper than most R&D projects that WDI embarks upon given that this did rake in some cash while it was open.

Part of that depends though. Was it priced outrageously because it had to be, or strictly because they thought they could? If on greed, you may be right (though I will forever say I don't think the idea was a good one either). If it had to be that high, then I would say the idea was poor as well.

 

[MagicHappens1971]

Part of that depends though. Was it priced outrageously because it had to be, or strictly because they thought they could? If on greed, you may be right (though I will forever say I don't think the idea was a good one either). If it had to be that high, then I would say the idea was poor as well.

I think the extremely high price tag was due to the fact that they thought they could. But also knowing the manpower that went into the experience every single day, coupled with the fact that they just shuttered it instead of lowering the price tells me that they couldn't have priced it too much lower.

 

[cjkeating]

But also knowing the manpower that went into the experience every single day, coupled with the fact that they just shuttered it instead of lowering the price tells me that they couldn't have priced it too much lower.

I agree. I'd love to know how many Cast Members did a shift at the Starcruiser each day but it was high. I did a cruise that was close to capacity and even then the ratio of guests to cast felt exceptionally high. Wherever you looked there were cast.

This is all without taking into account the cast that were backstage and then the costs of building Starcruiser that had to be recouped over time etc.