When it first opened, the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser was billed as an immersive hotel experience at Walt Disney World Resort that would take Guests on a two-night all-inclusive adventure, allowing them to live out their own Star Wars story aboard a luxurious “starship” called the Halcyon.
The experience is designed to be fully immersive, with Guests interacting with characters from the Star Wars universe, participating in lightsaber training and other activities, and exploring the ship’s various decks and areas. Guests will also have the opportunity to visit Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, the Star Wars-themed land at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and experience the attractions and dining options there.
But, right from the start, it was met with backlash.
The prices for the hotel were out-of-this-world, as families would have to pay more than $3,500 per night to stay aboard the ship. The prices for the Star Wars hotel have been estimated at $1,209.00 per Guest per night, meaning that one Guest would pay more than $2,400.00 for the two-night experience.
While many Disney Park fans were willing to pay the astronomical pricepoint for an experience similar to what the Star Wars experience was billed to give, most who have boarded the Halcyon have been disappointed. Disney just offered a 30% discount for Annual Passholders on the Galactic Starcruiser, and the company has announced a new schedule for the hotel beginning this fall, as a voyage per week has been cut.
A report from ScreamScape speculates that Disney could use the new schedule as a way to offer a “discounted mid-week voyage,” or come up with an entirely different voyage concept altogether.
“The new fall schedule does give them the perfect opportunity to offer a discounted mid-week voyage if they wanted to experiment with the concept and pricing going forward,” ScreamScape shared. “And just thinking outside the box… it would be interesting to see Disney come up with an alternate voyage concept with a different series of events that could take place over 2 days and only require a 1-night stay that would skip out on the day excursion to Batuu (aka: Galaxy’s Edge) that could be offered at an entirely different price-point.”
Of course, this hasn’t been confirmed by Disney.
There have been rumors circulating for quite some time about the future of the Galactic Starcruiser, though, and there are quite a few fans who’d like to see the experience completely overhauled and changed to provide a more immersive, and less expensive, offer for fans to enjoy.
At this point, however, it’s unclear if Disney will listen to fans or if it will continue to move forward with the voyages as they are already being conducted.