What does the future hold for the soon-to-close Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser

The Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser was one of Disney World’s most ambitious projects — and that’s saying a lot about a company that has paved a lot of roads in the worlds of parks and entertainment. While it may have been known off-handedly as the ‘Star Wars Hotel,’ it provided much more than a place to sleep after running around Disney World all day … and charged accordingly.

When the Galactic Starcruiser departed on its first public voyage on March 1, 2022, reports from guests of the two-night, immersive entertainment painted a picture of an out-of-this-world time. Multiple TPG staffers who tried it felt the same magic of living out childhood dreams.

But guests on the Starcruiser also paid an out-of-this-world price for the experience, even by Disney standards — a two-night voyage for a family of four costs upwards of $6,000. Despite the price, many of the first several months of experiences appear to have sold out. But there was evidence of cracks in demand by late 2022.

Today, Disney announced the final voyage for the Halcyon Starcruiser will be Sept. 28-30, 2023.

This news comes as Disney is in the midst of a plan to cut $5.5 billion in costs across the Walt Disney Company, including not only the Starcruiser but reducing 7,000 jobs from its workforce, restructuring its business segments and canceling a plan to move approximately 2,000 Disney’s Parks, Experiences and Products cast members from Southern California to a new campus in Lake Nona near Disney World.

So while this is a much larger day of news for Disney than just the Starcruiser, we’re going to focus on what happened — and what we hope will happen next.

By November 2022, Disney offered a 30% discount on select voyages to Disney Vacation Club members. In January of this year, Disney offered its first public discount on pre- or post-Starcruiser Disney hotel stays, and in March 2023, Disney announced that Starcruiser voyages would be cut back from three voyages per week to only two starting in October of this year, while also offering up a 30% discount to annual pass holders.

Even with those discounts, you were still looking at thousands of dollars to have the experience. Despite that, guests who visited the Galactic Starcruiser largely sang its praises as evidenced in multiple Facebook groups dedicated just to the experience. It won a themed entertainment industry award, despite only being open for a short time. Even TPG gave it an award in 2022 for its innovation.

But at $6,000+ for a family, it cost more than a Disney Cruise and potentially even more than some family trips to Europe. As cool as it was, ultimately it was a high price tag for a less than 48-hour experience largely taking place inside a building in Central Florida.

In a statement shared with TPG, Disney gave more details on the closure:

“Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser is one of our most creative projects ever and has been praised by our guests and recognized for setting a new bar for innovation and immersive entertainment. This premium, boutique experience gave us the opportunity to try new things on a smaller scale of 100 rooms, and as we prepare for its final voyage, we will take what we’ve learned to create future experiences that can reach more of our guests and fans.”