Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge (1 Viewer)

[Optimus Prime]

Outside the windows, there’s nothing but stars in the blackness of space. The occasional starship flies by; there might be a planet in the distance. This is no longer unusual though – it’s our second night onboard the Halcyon.

Two stormtroopers stand to one side of the gleaming atrium. Guests are milling about, some with a drink in hand. A couple of travelling musicians are playing instruments unlike anything found in an orchestra on Earth, while the intergalactic singing sensation Gaya meets her adoring fans.

But I’m not here to get an autograph. Instead, my eyes are roving around the room, alert for the signal that it’s time for the heist to go down.

I’m standing in position with my partner – it has been impressed on us that our part in the operation is essential – while our fellow undercover guests move into their positions around the room. Lookouts make sure no one comes up the turbolifts, a decoy distracts the captain and a crowd blocks the view from the Sublight Lounge……..

In defence of Disney’s $2,400-a-night Star Wars hotel – from the ultimate superfan

Despite the many people crowing over the pricey attraction’s premature demise, it offered an unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime experience, argues Graham E Hancock

www.independent.co.uk

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

Outside the windows, there’s nothing but stars in the blackness of space. The occasional starship flies by; there might be a planet in the distance. This is no longer unusual though – it’s our second night onboard the Halcyon.

Two stormtroopers stand to one side of the gleaming atrium. Guests are milling about, some with a drink in hand. A couple of travelling musicians are playing instruments unlike anything found in an orchestra on Earth, while the intergalactic singing sensation Gaya meets her adoring fans.

But I’m not here to get an autograph. Instead, my eyes are roving around the room, alert for the signal that it’s time for the heist to go down.

I’m standing in position with my partner – it has been impressed on us that our part in the operation is essential – while our fellow undercover guests move into their positions around the room. Lookouts make sure no one comes up the turbolifts, a decoy distracts the captain and a crowd blocks the view from the Sublight Lounge……..

In defence of Disney’s $2,400-a-night Star Wars hotel – from the ultimate superfan

Despite the many people crowing over the pricey attraction’s premature demise, it offered an unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime experience, argues Graham E Hancock

www.independent.co.uk

It sounds like an amazing experience... as long as you have the money.

 

[Optimus Prime]

It sounds like an amazing experience... as long as you have the money.

It’ll only be open a few more months

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

It’ll only be open a few more months

Yeah, I know... I've been tempted to go a few times since it has opened... but for a family of 5 it's like $7500, and for 2 nights I just can't wrap my head around that.

We're going to Norway in July for two weeks, and Norway isn't cheap, but that's like close to our lodging costs for the trip.

 

[Optimus Prime]

More on the closing
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OnMay 18, when Disney announced that it was shutting down its ambitious Star Wars-themed Galactic Starcruiser hotel in Orlando at the end of September, just 19 months after opening, company executives did not immediately elaborate on what went wrong, framing the closure as merely “a business decision.”


A somewhat fuller explanation came four days later. Speaking on May 22 in Boston at a J.P. Morgan investor conference, Disney parks chairman Josh D’Amaro stated the obvious: “It didn’t perform exactly like we wanted it to perform,” he said. “Despite the fact it was a never-before-seen experience and raised the bar, we thought it was time to sunset this in September.”


D’Amaro told conference-goers that Disney would accelerate depreciation on the Galactic Starcruiser by up to $150 million in each of the last two quarters of 2023. In other words, one of Disney’s grandest, most innovative experiments will end up a $300-million write-off.

Launched with tremendous fanfare in March 2022, the Galactic Starcruiser had spent the good part of a decade in development and took an estimated $400 million to build, according to Dennis Speigel, founder and CEO of International Theme Park Services, an industry consulting firm. The project ran over budget and the opening was delayed for various reasons, including the Covid pandemic, he says. (For context, Disney reportedly spent $1 billion to build the 14-acre Star Wars: Galaxy Edge land, which opened in 2019 inside Hollywood Studios park with two rides, five food outlets and nine retail shops.)


Even by Disney’s standards, the Galactic Starcruiser was no ordinary hotel. It was a swing-for-the-fences mold breaker, a two-night immersive experience where guests pretend to board a spaceship for an elaborate days-long Star Wars cosplay, complete with costumed characters, meals and storylines. Once aboard the Halcyon ship, passengers received lightsaber training, rubbed elbows with space creatures and went on missions to aid either the Resistance (a.k.a., the good guys) or the evil First Order.

“This is not your typical hotel where you have desk clerks and housekeepers,” explains Speigel. A disproportionate number of personnel are actors, which makes the Starcruiser extremely costly to run. “It is a very niche market that Disney is catering to,” he says. The target audience is the subset of Star Wars fanatics who can afford to shell out nearly $5,000 for a couple or $6,000 for a family of four.

While guests have given the Galactic Starcruiser some of the highest satisfaction ratings in the 50-year history of Walt Disney World, not enough of them return for a second voyage. Some of the two-night voyages have been less than half full, according to reports, often causing Disney to consolidate two dinner seatings into one…….

Inmany companies, shutting down such a high-profile, expensive project might be seen as an earth-shattering failure. But this is Disney, whose parks division raked in $7.9 billion in operating profit last year, compared to a loss of about $4 billion for its shiny but as yet unprofitable streaming unit, Disney+.

At the J.P. Morgan investor conference, D’Amaro put the closing of the Star Wars hotel into perspective. “The Galactic Starcruiser got a fair amount of attention,” he said. “But it’s a boutique hotel, it’s 100 rooms. If you think about Walt Disney World, it’s actually got 30,000 rooms. So this is very, very small in the context of what we deliver at Walt Disney World.”

Limited capacity was a big part of the problem, says Robert Niles, creator of Theme Park Insider. “The math never worked for the Starcruiser. Not at the high cost per guest to run it and the number of rooms available. Disney does blockbusters, not boutique.”

With its 100 guest rooms, the Galatic Starcruiser has a maximum capacity of 502 passengers. Assuming that every guest pays an average of $1,800 for a two-night stay, Disney could take in roughly $900,000 per voyage—or about $13.5 million per month—but that’s before expenses. It sounded workable on paper, but only if bookings stayed strong……..

The High-Flying Death Of Disney’s Star Wars Hotel

Walt Disney World’s $2,500-a-night Galactic Starcruiser went from hyperdrive to a $300-million write-off in a little over a year. The inside story of how the Empire swung for the fences—and struck out.

www.forbes.com