Would you pay $6,000 to live in the Star Wars universe for two days? Disney was certain enough people would answer "yes" to the question that it created Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, a two-day resort stay/immersive theme park experience at Disney World that purports to do that. When the first footage of the hotel was released onto the internet late last year, the fan response was negative enough that the videos vanished from YouTube. Disney never confirmed that it pulled down the videos because they were making fun of them for trying to charge as much as $1,200 a night to walk around what appeared to be a setting similar to the Star Tours line queue area. I'm pretty sure the initial bad buzz didn't play a role in the company's recent and seemingly somewhat hasty decision to invite a few dozen assorted journalists, fan site operators, and travel bloggers to experience it first-hand. Regular guests will need to pay for their own alcohol if they want to enjoy the exclusive merch.
The two night experiences start at $4,800 for two people and go up to $6,000 for four. I didn't say no when I was offered the chance to stay at the hotel for free. The short answer? No. It is really cool.
The concept of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser is that it is a two-night hotel stay combined with a two day Star Wars LARP. You are a guest on the luxury starship Halcyon, a passenger ship celebrating its 275th year in space, which is between The Last Jedi and the start of The Rise of Skywalker. Think of it as a sequel to the QE2. You are there to relax, take advantage of the shipboard amenities, enjoy some fine food, and be serenaded at dinner by a pop star. The First Order visited you to investigate rumors of Resistance activity onboard. You will be both an observer and a participant in the narrative that unfolds from there, and you will get to know a colorful cast of new but familiar Star Wars characters along the way.
I was worried that the experience of LARPing in the galaxy far, far away would remind me of the time I attended a Renaissance Fair with a friend of mine who was into leatherwork. There is nothing wrong with LARPing! I'm a huge nerd, but I don't feel comfortable around other people, and I have trouble getting over the fact that I'm an adult playing pretend. The reality is far more structured and elaborate than that, and it's better for it. It has been said that every person will experience Galactic Starcruiser in their own way, but all the guests are still following the same basic narrative. It isn't nearly so flexible that I would describe it as group improv. Sleep No More is a theater where your understanding of the story will change based on who you meet along the way, but the story itself will remain the same from night to night.
For anyone who goes on vacation to get away from a life spent staring at screens, an app, is the crux of the narrative. When you board the ship, you will be given a datapad that looks like an Apple mini, with the default unlock code. This is where the narrative will unfold and how your schedule will be shaped. If you have a no phones rule for your kids, they'll be getting their own. If your kids are anything like mine, you will yell "No more datapads!" at them before the voyage ends. Along the way, you will receive text chats from various characters onboard the ship who will come to play a role in the narrative, from the captain to the cruise director. How you respond to these messages will affect your schedule. Will you be sent to the engine room to help a hapless new recruit keep the systems running, or will you be sent to help a Wookie get out of the brig? Will you help a Jedi protect the secrets of an ancient holocron, or be invited to snitch on your fellow passengers to a stormtrooper? If you're not sure what to do next, you can hack into the ship by tapping your wristband/room key on one of the ATM-like onboard computers. You can either ride the rides or buy souvenirs at the Hollywood Studios section of the park. Your choices will allow you to experience the story in a different way. You can either side with the good guys or vacation as a bit fashy with the First Order. The story is still going to include the same moments, if presented a little differently, for example, every passenger will participate in a firefight on the bridge. You will not be surprised to learn the climax involves more than one laser sword.
I might not be the best person to answer this question because I have been playing Star Wars nonsense for 35 years. I brought a control group with me. My children have never seen Star Wars, and my spouse is indifferent to it, so they served as excellent case studies for the question of whether one need have spent their childhood waving around a broomstick and imagining it was a lightsaber to enjoy pretending to live inside the saga for a few days. The answer was no, for reasons that have less to do with Star Wars than with Disney Magic.
If no one has to explain to you that Han Solo won the Millennium Falcon from Lando in a game of sabacc, then you will get more of a charge out of seeing a real-life table. If you have a vague understanding of the basics, you will be able to follow along.
If 60 years of running theme parks has taught the company anything, it is how to make guests of all ages and background feel welcome. The Galactic Starcruiser doesn't feel like it's in the same universe as the original Star Wars because it feels like it's at a theme park. The Starcruiser is a little too bright and shiny, a little too quippy and self aware, to feel anything close to real like the Disney-era Star Wars films. Disney's cast members are rigorously trained to please guests, and it's hard to imagine the denizens of a galaxy far, far away saying good journey! I was hyper aware of the fact that everyone I talked to was playing a role, but was only paid a small portion of the $6,000 booking fee to show us a good time. The stormtroopers pretended to mind-control the little girl dressed as Yoda.
If you can overcome your internal critic, you will almost certainly be swept up in the experience. It is not a passive undertaking; you don't have to take on a persona and craft your character, but you do have to be willing to participate. Unless you work against the narrative, you will find yourself pulled into it when you leave your room. It doesn't hurt that the story plays out in a setting that is fully immersed. You can wander around the entire ship at will and you will see that it is part of the Star Wars universe. Even though the flips and switches on the bridge and engine room don't actually serve a purpose, you can touch most of the surface and push every button. The effect was still cool, even though it wasn't quite as convincing as I was hoping, and I never felt like I was missing out.
No. Maybe yes? How much is your vacation budget? You can take an incredible trip almost anywhere in the world for $6,000, and it will last a lot longer than two days, and I once spent two full weeks in Costa Rica for a fraction of that amount. If you want to experience LARPing Star Wars in luxury, the only place you can go is the Galactic Starcruiser. When I used to travel to San Diego Comic-Con for work, I felt the same way, but also amazed that so many were willing to spend so much to do what I was able to expense for this media preview.
Disney is expensive at the best of times. A few days visit is going to cost a family of four thousands in park tickets alone, and much more once you factor in accommodations and food. The all-inclusive experience of the Galactic Starcruiser is mostly all-inclusive, but it does include a fixed menu for dinner at certain times of the day, and a splash of Star Wars worldbuilding. The nicely themed rooms are nice on a comfort level, but you aren't supposed to spend a lot of time in them anyway. The attention you will receive with Disney employees is more intimate than anything else you will find at the parks. We were late to one of our scheduled narrative pit-stops and wound up getting an elaborate private recreation of it that involved a hologram of a Jedi and a full-sized astromech droid. It was nice to see the same faces over and over on the crew, whether they were doing their mundane jobs or more actively participating in the story, and they never failed to remember our previous interactions. The experience of a theme park vacation is not what the Starcruiser packs in. On either end of my stay on the Halcyon, I took my family to the regular old Disney parks, which are as crowded and spread out as ever. We ended those days exhausted from walking too much, and without a lot of money spent on the food and snacks necessary to sustain young kids through multiple hour-long lines. We would accomplish at least four or five things before everyone was tired and grumpy. We faced no lines, battled no crowds, and never had to go back to the hotel for a rest. The ride didn't end for two full days because we were fully immersed in the action and narrative. Seven minutes is how long Pirates of the Caribbean lasts. If you don't count the 70 spent waiting in line, it's not counted.
It's one of the fastest ways to spend a lot of money at Disney World, but when you consider the cost of park tickets and a night at the Grand Floridian, it's a better value. It's relatively. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that left me with some truly magical memories, but I didn't have to pay for it. If you're going to visit the Galactic Starcruiser, my advice is to have Disney pay for everything.
The Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser will open at Disney World on March 1, 2022.
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