Backlash to Disney's $5,000 Star Wars hotel grows: 'Poorly executed idea for the rich' [View all]

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https://www.sfgate.com/disneyland/article/Backlash-grows-to-Disney-Star-Wars-hotel-16695226.php

For years, Disney has been hyping up its mega-expensive, hyper-immersive Star Wars hotel in Walt Disney World. But now, as its opening date approaches, sneak peeks have fans concerned the luxury space resort is the latest Disney dud.

The Galactic Starcruiser is Disney's most ambitious hotel concept yet. Guests must book two nights — which will set you back nearly $5,000 for two people or $6,000 for a family of four — and will spend most of their time inside the spaceship resort, much like a cruise. There's an "excursion" into the Galaxy's Edge part of Disney World, while the remainder of the stay includes interactions with characters, lightsaber training (more on that later) and exclusive restaurants.

With the big price tag and big promises from Disney, Star Wars fans were expecting a mind-blowing, life-changing experience. As the March 1, 2022 opening day grows closer, however, glimpses of the finished product have been underwhelming. The look and feel of the hotel has been criticized as looking plastic and cheap, and reception to one sneak peek video was so bad, it has since disappeared from Disney's YouTube channel.

The video showed actor Sean Giambrone of "The Goldbergs" being given a tour of some of the ship's features, which look pretty bare and antiseptic for the Star Wars universe, and listening to a strange musical performance. (Another user uploaded the deleted video here.) The promo prompted one Twitter user to comment, "Bro this isn't Star Wars, this is 'Space Conflicts.'"

(excerpt)

When I first learned of this project I was quite enthusiastic about it. I've been playing roleplaying games for almost half a century, love Star Wars (well, the original trilogy at any rate), and I'm also a huge Disney fan. All three of these converging into a single experience?



But a couple of recent revelations have put made unwilling to spend any significant money on it:

1) It's not priced with single adults (such as myself) in mind. They'll be charging the same for a single person as they will for two adults, and given that I don't know anyone who would want to shell out this kind of money, it would cost me $5K for two nights. Throw in the cost of various extras, and it's even more. Ouch.

2) Even if I were willing to pay that much for so short an experience, we've now seen a couple of videos (as described above), and they look terrible. Check out stills from each one:





Welcome to your $5,000 experience, folks!