From the moment Disney announced its Star Wars hotel—sorry, its Galactic Starcruiser—it was the subject of ridicule and indignation. The price point was a particular area of consternation; the hotel only offered two-day, two-night stays, and charged about $5,000, if not more, for the experience of staying in a windowless room in Central Florida. If the price wasn’t enough of a detractor, few people ever got to participate in what was billed as a choose-your-own-adventure experience; the Galactic Starcruiser hardly lasted 18 months, opening in March 2022 and closing in September 2023.
Fortunately for us rubberneckers, one person who did get to see and document the experience was Jenny Nicholson, who, on Saturday, shared the most polite evisceration of a theme park attraction in recent memory. Coming in at just over four hours, Nicholson takes you through the whole saga, from the announcement and the marketing to the fights to get her souvenirs that Disney lost in the mail. Nicholson, who visited the attraction with her sister, said she booked the cheapest option she could find, reserving the room for two at $6,066.88, or $3,033.44 per person. By her calculations—which excluded the time she spent asleep—there were about 25 hours of entertainment on the luxury-priced vacation, meaning the vacation aboard the Galactic Starcruiser cost about $2 per person per minute. It’s hardly a spoiler to say it was not worth it.
Nicholson is generous with credit where it’s due; for example, she praises the commitment of the actors aboard the ship, as well as the food offerings, which were different at every meal, even the ones that people were less likely to attend. Otherwise, it did not look like something worth $2 a minute. Perhaps the biggest issue is that the game simply didn’t work for her, and she details spending much of her time simply wandering around the ship. The Twi’lek performance at her dinner was also blocked by a giant pole, and they had assigned seats. It’s best to let her tell you about that herself; truly, it is worth the Scorsese-length runtime of the YouTube video.
But the tl;dr version of this is that Disney cut corner after corner that could have turned the attraction from a TikTok photo op into an actual thing worth spending your money and two days of your life on. Early in the video, Nicholson compares the experience to Spirit Airlines, which offers the cheapest possible price but then charges you for every bag, every Diet Coke, every pretzel aboard, giving the feeling that you’re being nickeled and dimed even though you chose the cheapo airline. But the Galactic Starcruiser is not a cheapo vacation; its price promised luxury, but still charged more for various activities, for photo ops, and more. There is a feeling of being scammed, one that Nicholson suggests cannot possibly be profitable for Disney in the long run.
Here is the closest thing that could be considered a spoiler for the essay, so skip to the comments if you want to watch Nicholson’s video with virgin eyes. Nicholson makes a convincing argument that much of the stuff that was on the Galactic Starcruiser was actually meant for Galaxy’s Edge, the Star Wars-themed park that exists in Disney World. Reputation scores, dinner shows, roaming droids, and actors dressed as aliens were all pitched as part of the park, but Nicholson suggests the price of these things, which didn’t directly net any money back, caused them to be placed behind the de facto paywall that was the hotel stay. To hear her tell it, this is now the philosophy of the parks as a whole. It’s not a surprise, but it is a bummer.