Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser: Will it be worth the money?
This week Disney released much more information regarding their new Star Wars hotel, officially named ‘Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser’. After picking ourselves up off the floor once we had seen the price of the two night experience, we were left pondering the question “How will the experience possibly be worth the money?”
Firstly, it must be noted that what one person considers good value, another may consider a rip-off. So for some background on us, we are very big Star Wars fans, huge fans of Disney World and in normal times, a lot of our spare income can be spent at Disney World on stays, items and experiences only a real Disney nerd could consider as good value. Therefore, we are highly likely to be within the niche group of people that Disney are aiming this experience at.
The Price
The price of a 2 night Voyage for 2 people in a standard cabin starts at $4809. For 4 people the price starts at $5999. Now, let’s be real, this is incredibly expensive. These packages do include one day entry into Hollywood Studios, including skip the line entry to both Rise of the Resistance and Smuggler’s Run , food, including a lunch at Docking Bay 7, and drinks. Certain drinks, like speciality cocktails, are not included in this package. Disney also stated that these prices are, for now, the price floor, therefore during popular tourist periods the price of this experience will be even greater. More specifically, Disney said that the prices shown are for weekdays from 8/20/2022 to 9/17/2022. To get a real understanding of the price, we have priced up some other available Disney experiences during the same period and here’s what we found;
4 adults 2 night stay at the Grand Floridian: Theme Park View- Outer Building= $2045
4 adults 2 night stay at Disney’s Yacht Club: Water View= $1487
4 adults 2 night stay at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort: Cars Family Suite= $1167
4 adults 7 night stay with 7 day Ultimate ticket at the Grand Floridian: Garden View- Outer Building= $8567
4 adults 7 night stay with 7 day Ultimate ticket at Disney’s Yacht Club: Water View= $7831
4 adults 7 night stay with 7 day Ultimate ticket at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort: Cars Family Suite= $6654
3 night Disney Cruise on the Dream, 2 person suite with concierge departing from Florida this September= $5500 (priced for September 2021 as 2022 prices not yet released)
I think it’s fair to say that these comparisons show just quite how expensive this Star Wars experience is, even for Disney parks. On the other hand, I don’t think this proves that the experience is overpriced, as 2 nights on the Galactic Starcruiser is going to be a high-end, unique and personal experience like nothing else available across the globe.
The Experience
As well as pricing, Disney released a sample personal itinerary for your experience. From 1pm on your day of arrival until you check out at 10am on your last day, your time will be packed with things to do. In fact, apart from food and drink breaks, there really isn’t any downtime. Some of the highlights of the experience include Lightsaber training, Droid Racing and a Sabacc Tournament. For those that don’t know, Sabacc is the legendary card game seen played in many Star Wars movies, most famously of course by Han Solo. For Star Wars fans, the itinerary really does look like a dream come true. During your stay, you are truly going to be able to immerse yourself into the world of Star Wars in a way not available for any other popular film, book or comic out there. I’m sure this experience is going to take theme park immersion to a whole new level. Now with that being said, if you are not a truly dedicated Star Wars fan, I think the level of structure and lack of relaxation time will eventually become quite tiresome, a point which leads nicely onto our next topic.
The Audience
Having looked at both the price and the sample itinerary, the target audience for this experience is very niche. To want to do this experience you are going to need to be a big Star Wars fan, but to be able to do this experience you are going to need a large amount of spare income (especially if you are not relatively local and are going to have to place this price on top of a normal Walt Disney World trip). Combining both those factors together means that there is not a huge number of people out there who can both afford and want to do this experience. I’m sure that Disney have done their market research regarding how many people they expect to book this experience and, being big fans of Star Wars, we are aware of how much Star Wars memorabilia sells, which indicates towards the fact that there are a lot of wealthy Star Wars fans. After all, the first Star Wars movie was released in 1977 and those that became die-hard fans back then are now in their late fifties and early sixties and therefore at a time in your life when you’re most likely to have a good amount of income. Overall, I think that if there is any fan base out there which can support such an experience it is the Star wars fan community.
Will it be a success?
I think the success of the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser remains in the balance. Despite the cost, I do believe that Disney can make a success of this project but to do so they are going to have to provide a breathtaking, flawless and extremely high end experience. Everything from the rooms to the food and the service is going to have to be as good as it gets to truly justify the price. Initially, I expect that we will see huge demand, but maintaining this success is where I can see the project faltering. As already stated, there is an audience for this experience but it’s not huge. With this experience being so expensive and story based, it does seem unlikely that Disney will get too many repeat customers unless they have a way of radically changing the experience every couple of years. Another factor to consider is that we don’t yet know the nightly occupancy of the Starcruiser. For Disney to be able to deliver the expected level of experience, the occupancy can’t be that big and if this is the case, then it will certainly extend the length of time in which Disney can maintain this experience as a success. Eventually though, I can see Disney having to drop the experience side of the stay and converting the cruiser into a high-end but more traditional Disney hotel.
Will it be worth the money?
As we’ve said, the answer to this question is very subjective and I’m sure many people will have alternate opinions to our own. Overall though, we currently are struggling to justify how we could spend quite so much money on a two night experience which lasts less than 48 hours. However, if we start hearing from other fans that this experience is the greatest thing Disney has ever done then we may well be taking the plunge and booking a stay on the Galactic Starcruiser.