Disney’s Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser Hotel Deserved to Fail

The Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser hotel, one of Disney’s most ambitious — and expensive — flops today closed forever this week.

Good.

Just… good. It’s absolutely deserved to fail.

The “immersive Star Wars experience” was destined to fail from the time the pricing was announced. Anyone with half a brain could see the writing on the proverbial wall. Many (usually Disney-friendly) media outlets called out what a massive miscalculation the endeavor was, and how absurd the price tag was.

Let’s examine a few reasons as to why this Star Wars hotel was such a terrible idea, and how Disney could’ve easily course-corrected to get it out of the way of the Death Star’s superlaser.

Nobody Cares About the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

I’m just going to rip the band-aid right off. Disney’s Star Wars sequel trilogy has its fans, sure, but it’s not a universally beloved, timeless classic like George Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy. Basing the hotel on the divisive Star Wars sequels was a critical failure, price point aside. If you asked the casual Star Wars fan if they’d rather watch Rey and Kylo Ren duke it out, or have dinner with Darth Vader… I guarantee you that Vader would easily win.

While I’m at it, basing all of Galaxy’s Edge on the Sequels instead of the Original Trilogy (as intended) was a huge, huge misfire. But I digress.

Nothing to Do

The Galactic Starcruiser offered very little for its guests to actually do. Some mobile apps. Some rock jiggling. Racing some off the shelf droids from the Droid Depot. A dinner theater with a whopping two (count ‘em two!) alien cosplayers and that was just about it. All of the immersion that was promised seems to have been left on the cutting room floor.

Speaking of which…

Budget Cuts Galore

Despite the massive price point, the experience seemed very budget cut. Hotel guests were transported via an unmarked box truck, and immersion wasn’t anywhere near what was initially promised for Galaxy’s Edge, let alone this “luxury” hotel.

That Insane Price Tag

The Galactic Starcruiser cost a lot. Like, an ungodly amount of money for what is ultimately less than a two day stay in a hotel that looked more like Star Trek than Star Wars. The LARPing hotel cost $4,809 for two people or $5,999 for four people based on a 2-night, mid-week package.

Almost six thousand dollars.

Six. Thousand. Dollars.

That’s more than the average week long trip to Walt Disney World for a family of four, which is ballparked at around $4,000 in 2023.

Yes, all the warning signs were there, but Disney chose to ignore them all and plow ahead with this galactic disaster anyway. The pandemic gave them an easy out, as they were already cutting announced projects. Apparently Disney thought this would be a quick and easy cash grab, but now they’re stuck with hundreds of millions in dollars in losses.

Again I say good.

Current Year Disney needs to learn a few more lessons like this and bring the company back down to Earth.