I know - "It's still yet to open!" and "Disney could turn it around!"
I think this thing is flawed from the get-go:
- it doesn't make sense. It makes sense on the surface until you realize:
- Guests aren't looking for a "cruise" in space.
- Why would you take a cruise that went anywhere near a war zone?
- On a normal cruise ship it may take me a week or more to explore the entire thing. If you look at the size of the Star Cruiser it's essentially the size of a large city. This building is the size of a very small hotel. I can't help but think that your brain is going to map it out as: The 12 rooms for guests are over there. There's the "bridge". There's the light saber training. There's the lounge. There's the dining area. That's it. It's going to be painfully obvious that this is like the opposite of the Tardis where it's actually tiny on the inside compared to the (supposed) outside (the giant ship they're saying you're on).
- done on the cheap
- Capt. Karen
- They'll be using technology of the past (because Star Wars IS in the past) like the iPhone or iPad you bring with you.
- when enter a port, you'll be transported by box car to a theme park that has sort-of Star Wars in it. You know you're in a theme park.
I think other realities will be:
- Disney isn't big on paying for actors to LARP (see Galaxy's Edge which was going to be so immersive with such people)
My guess is that this entire thing is management driven: "We bought Star Wars! We have to make money with Star Wars! Get Kennedy on the phone!"
Instead of an Imagineer driven thing which I think would have caught the #1 problem: No one really want to take a Star Wars space cruise. What they want is to be on a battleship on one side or the other blasting away. If you look at other interviews with Imagineers like Rhode, they always seem to catch these kinds of flaws and say things like, "Well, in this situation, if you think about it, you'd expect X, not Y," and you're left with, "That's both genius and incredibly obvious!" and that's where the brilliance is!
Left to the imagineers, I think we would have gotten a much better Star Wars land where we could have had interactive simulators (all battling in the same space) including the Millennium Falcon, X-wing, Y-wing, Tie-fighters, etc. How cool would it have been if it were all just a constant battle and you got to get in line to play until you were either hit or some time limit expired. You could have the Imperial side of the land (maybe you were "transported" to the Death Star) or the Rebel side (on one of the ships just on the other side of some planet).
Instead, (management), we got:
- $200+ droid building
- $40+ Star Wars drinks at a bar
- Expensive Star Wars plush / T-shirts
- 2 rides, one which isn't talked about much any longer.
- kind of an empty desert land
- a tiny "Star Cruiser" hotel at $6K/stay (not quite 48hrs)
I just think that management has blown it on this. From the looks of it, the Star Cruiser was done cheaply enough that they won't lose much by shutting it down in a few years. There's no fancy ride mechanism to simulate a shuttle to Galaxy's Edge. Nope. Just a box truck. Easily used for transporting plush.
...and that's leads to the subject of this post: I think, 5 years out, we're likely to see the Star Cruiser become long-term (because there's a road in the way) back-stage storage.
The few who will try it at $6K/stay (min) aren't likely to be repeat customers. The average Disney guest really is priced out of this one. The offerings for the $6K/stay (min) look pretty weak. Also, this isn't a park that they've invested $$B into. In that situation (like DCA) they pretty much have to redo it. This? It's a small building that can easily be repurposed for storage.
I'd guess that they'll try to rework it once or twice in that 5 years but, ultimately, they really don't want to spend the money on it. They really just want people to hand over $6K/stay (or more). I think that management sort of just expects people to do this because: Disney and Star Wars.
When Universal wanted to transport people, they build the Hogwarts train and it's an experience. Disney? They decorate the inside of a box car. This tells you what they think: You love them. You'll pay. Doesn't matter what they do.
I think this thing is flawed from the get-go:
- it doesn't make sense. It makes sense on the surface until you realize:
- Guests aren't looking for a "cruise" in space.
- Why would you take a cruise that went anywhere near a war zone?
- On a normal cruise ship it may take me a week or more to explore the entire thing. If you look at the size of the Star Cruiser it's essentially the size of a large city. This building is the size of a very small hotel. I can't help but think that your brain is going to map it out as: The 12 rooms for guests are over there. There's the "bridge". There's the light saber training. There's the lounge. There's the dining area. That's it. It's going to be painfully obvious that this is like the opposite of the Tardis where it's actually tiny on the inside compared to the (supposed) outside (the giant ship they're saying you're on).
- done on the cheap
- Capt. Karen
- They'll be using technology of the past (because Star Wars IS in the past) like the iPhone or iPad you bring with you.
- when enter a port, you'll be transported by box car to a theme park that has sort-of Star Wars in it. You know you're in a theme park.
I think other realities will be:
- Disney isn't big on paying for actors to LARP (see Galaxy's Edge which was going to be so immersive with such people)
My guess is that this entire thing is management driven: "We bought Star Wars! We have to make money with Star Wars! Get Kennedy on the phone!"
Instead of an Imagineer driven thing which I think would have caught the #1 problem: No one really want to take a Star Wars space cruise. What they want is to be on a battleship on one side or the other blasting away. If you look at other interviews with Imagineers like Rhode, they always seem to catch these kinds of flaws and say things like, "Well, in this situation, if you think about it, you'd expect X, not Y," and you're left with, "That's both genius and incredibly obvious!" and that's where the brilliance is!
Left to the imagineers, I think we would have gotten a much better Star Wars land where we could have had interactive simulators (all battling in the same space) including the Millennium Falcon, X-wing, Y-wing, Tie-fighters, etc. How cool would it have been if it were all just a constant battle and you got to get in line to play until you were either hit or some time limit expired. You could have the Imperial side of the land (maybe you were "transported" to the Death Star) or the Rebel side (on one of the ships just on the other side of some planet).
Instead, (management), we got:
- $200+ droid building
- $40+ Star Wars drinks at a bar
- Expensive Star Wars plush / T-shirts
- 2 rides, one which isn't talked about much any longer.
- kind of an empty desert land
- a tiny "Star Cruiser" hotel at $6K/stay (not quite 48hrs)
I just think that management has blown it on this. From the looks of it, the Star Cruiser was done cheaply enough that they won't lose much by shutting it down in a few years. There's no fancy ride mechanism to simulate a shuttle to Galaxy's Edge. Nope. Just a box truck. Easily used for transporting plush.
...and that's leads to the subject of this post: I think, 5 years out, we're likely to see the Star Cruiser become long-term (because there's a road in the way) back-stage storage.
The few who will try it at $6K/stay (min) aren't likely to be repeat customers. The average Disney guest really is priced out of this one. The offerings for the $6K/stay (min) look pretty weak. Also, this isn't a park that they've invested $$B into. In that situation (like DCA) they pretty much have to redo it. This? It's a small building that can easily be repurposed for storage.
I'd guess that they'll try to rework it once or twice in that 5 years but, ultimately, they really don't want to spend the money on it. They really just want people to hand over $6K/stay (or more). I think that management sort of just expects people to do this because: Disney and Star Wars.
When Universal wanted to transport people, they build the Hogwarts train and it's an experience. Disney? They decorate the inside of a box car. This tells you what they think: You love them. You'll pay. Doesn't matter what they do.
