Why not in California?

Club Cooloholic

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Am I the only one who thinks this actually would have worked better in California? Given their limited space they could have had the hotel further from Disneyland and then developed a cool shuttle to take you to the park. I feel at WDW there are enough parks that fitting it the starcruiser is even more difficult.
 

mkt

When a paradise is lost go straight to Disney™
Premium Member
Am I the only one who thinks this actually would have worked better in California? Given their limited space they could have had the hotel further from Disneyland and then developed a cool shuttle to take you to the park. I feel at WDW there are enough parks that fitting it the starcruiser is even more difficult.
Cost of land in Socal?

Explaining why your themed shuttle is stuck in traffic on the 405?
 

CaptainMickey

Well-Known Member
WDW has a lot of advantages. WDW has so much more space. The entire CA resort can fit in WDW Magic Kingdom's parking lot.
Starcruiser is built in the parking lot right behind Galaxy's Edge. No traffic required. Everything is cheaper in Florida and Orlando brings in way more visitors then Anaheim does. Disney management agrees.

A good question though. It would be interesting to hear Disney's decision process on site selection one day.

With the limited space at Disneyland, they probably can't afford any misfires. If the starcruiser sat vacant for decades in it's current location, no one would even notice.
 

Mireille

Premium Member
Here's one reason I agree it would have worked better in California... There is so much else to do in WDW, why do I want to pay over $5000 for 2 nights and spend all that time in a tiny fraction of what there is to do? In California, you aren't missing out on nearly as much.
 

Robbiem

Well-Known Member
I actually think it would have worked best in a stand alone location- I get they wanted to use the florida investment already built but it was never going to be totally immersive when you know you’re in WDW. If it was built in a new location - a smaller area somewhere like texas or arizona. You arrive and are taken from the local airport to the spaceport then board your shuttle to the space cruiser. When you visit the planet it would be more imersive as there would be no other tourists just the cast, much more of a westworld type experience. I know this would be too expensive to really work but it would have been amazing IMO. If it was built right disney could have reset the experience by redressing the planet between visits to be different and sell new experiences
 

Phroobar

Well-Known Member
Here's one reason I agree it would have worked better in California... There is so much else to do in WDW, why do I want to pay over $5000 for 2 nights and spend all that time in a tiny fraction of what there is to do? In California, you aren't missing out on nearly as much.
You do realize that the Disneyland Resort has more rides than the entire WDW does combined.
 

Mireille

Premium Member
You do realize that the Disneyland Resort has more rides than the entire WDW does combined.
True, but it's in a much more compact area and only two gates. Four gates, plus waterparks and resort activities spread out over 43 square miles with transportation... It's just plain harder to do as much as quickly in WDW. And Galaxy's Edge is in HS in WDW vs access to the entirety of Disneyland in California with CA just across a promenade, not a bus/monorail/boat needed.... it feels like you're constrained to a tiny percentage of everything available in WDW and for the price... that's hard for me to justify.
 

Phil12

Well-Known Member
It might have worked for children under the age of 12. However, for adults, you really have to be a hard core Star Wars bobo for this to have any chance of working. And yes, I know there are still a lot of Star Wars shills, but they are usually smart enough to refrain from spending $5,000 to have a Luke Skywalker tattoo emblazoned on their chest.
 

choco choco

Well-Known Member
Am I the only one who thinks this actually would have worked better in California? Given their limited space they could have had the hotel further from Disneyland and then developed a cool shuttle to take you to the park. I feel at WDW there are enough parks that fitting it the starcruiser is even more difficult.

It would never have worked in California. There is plenty of immersive experiences in SoCal (Halloween haunts, escape rooms, theatre, even residential and retail architecture) that uses the deep expertise of set and production design from the movie industry to create world-class immersive experiences and environments. There is an understanding of the level of detail and execution relative to price that locals are used to here, and Starcruiser never even came remotely close to matching that. It simply was too expensive and looked too cheap and was too shallow in its ideas to ever be accepted in a place where these types of experiences is frequently available.

And if your argument is that it would be tourists from other locales and not locals who would patronize it, I think its (Starcruiser's) poor reputation would quickly spread, and visitors would be recommended better local options, dooming it anyway.

Starcruiser in execution was laughable. And Southern California would have seen through it right away.
 

Raidermatt

Active Member
Here's one reason I agree it would have worked better in California... There is so much else to do in WDW, why do I want to pay over $5000 for 2 nights and spend all that time in a tiny fraction of what there is to do? In California, you aren't missing out on nearly as much.
That's only 1/2 true, and even that 1/2 truth only applies if you stay on property. SoCal has many popular attractions besides Disney, and they are much closer than the lesser alternatives in Central Florida. This thing would have flamed out even faster in SoCal.

The idea had a chance, but it was so poorly executed that chance was long gone before it even opened.
 

GimpYancIent

Well-Known Member
The Star Cruiser concept was a brilliant idea totally mismanaged, cheapened and poorly executed. It had its day and will join the likes of the Orlando version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as a historic mention.
 

Vegas Disney Fan

Well-Known Member
I actually think it would have worked best in a stand alone location- I get they wanted to use the florida investment already built but it was never going to be totally immersive when you know you’re in WDW. If it was built in a new location - a smaller area somewhere like texas or arizona. You arrive and are taken from the local airport to the spaceport then board your shuttle to the space cruiser. When you visit the planet it would be more imersive as there would be no other tourists just the cast, much more of a westworld type experience. I know this would be too expensive to really work but it would have been amazing IMO. If it was built right disney could have reset the experience by redressing the planet between visits to be different and sell new experiences
I had a similar thought, I think it could maybe work here in Vegas, even in a better location the price would probably have to come down a couple thousand dollars a night though, in Vegas they could at least have an onboard casino to give the guests some more entertainment options.

It’s a cool concept, it was just poorly executed and didn’t really benefit from being at WDW, if anything the location probably hurt it.
 

celluloid

Well-Known Member
I had a similar thought, I think it could maybe work here in Vegas, even in a better location the price would probably have to come down a couple thousand dollars a night though, in Vegas they could at least have an onboard casino to give the guests some more entertainment options.

It’s a cool concept, it was just poorly executed and didn’t really benefit from being at WDW, if anything the location probably hurt it.
Even there though people want to check out the strip.

This thing just arbitarily held people.

A cruise entertains you as you are within a traveling vessel for days, seeing sights and often porting. Free to explore real new adventures when there.


An airplane entertains you and you pay for your 1 to 20 hour flight time for what you pay as best as budget thousands of feet in air can. And it's a expedited real travel. Free to explore a real new place when there

nearly 1/4th of the time of that fail was spent in the land at a theme park area much cheaper to get in on its own without limits.

People say they want immersion, but they also want proper hospitality and breaks from it..even most die hards.
 

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