Disney bets on immersion and launches Star Wars-themed hotel in the US

Carina Ja had a wary look on her face as she scanned the lobby of the Walt Disney World hotel. Check-in had been easy. But now employees bombarded her with an awkward greeting (“Have a nice trip!”) as part of a roleplaying game, the parameters of which weren’t entirely clear. Suddenly, a siren sounded, red lights flashed, and Stormtroopers appeared with blaster rifles in hand.

Ja’s side gaze turned into a smile. “This looks really perfect,” she said. “But I still don’t know if Disney will make it. It’s easy to get ‘Star Wars’ wrong, as we’ve seen in the last three movies.”
Wow! She’s an uncompromising fan of “Star Wars” — just the kind of person Disney is targeting with its latest Florida attraction, which reflects a constant effort by the company to create “premium” offerings and attract guests who want an experience. more intimate: more personalization, less waiting in line with the sweaty masses.

But don’t be afraid. Ja, a model and TikTok influencer, was soon eating out of Disney’s hand. “It’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen,” she said excitedly.

This is “Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser”, an expensive experiment in what you might call immersive hosting. It’s equal parts luxury hotel, interactive theater, theme park ride, food as entertainment, digital treasure hunt and role-playing game (RPG). Guests are encouraged to dress up in “Star Wars” clothing. Forgot to bring your Togruta head tails? Starcruiser gift shop will sell a pair for $100. Need an alien-style hairstyle? You can also pay for it.

Here, you don’t book a room for the night. You ostensibly “board” a 275-year-old space liner called the Halcyon, travel to a “Star Wars” planet and back. All “trips” are two nights. The hundred “cabins” have no windows. Stars, planets and asteroid showers are visible on video screens. Along the way, your choices in a tracking app determine whether you’re recruited to help the evil First Order or the courageous Resistance, a club that includes a furry stowaway: Chewbacca.

As the story unfolds, crew members and costumed “Star Wars” characters interact with guests. You may be asked to deliver a secret message or sent to the engine room to help fix a fuel valve. In groups, guests are invited to participate in lightsaber training. Another activity involves taking control of the bridge and working as a team to stop an Imperial attack.

The two-night stay includes a visit to Galaxy’s Edge, the “Star Wars” theme park (within a theme park) that Disney opened in 2019; a dinner performance by a Twi’lek diva; and surprise appearances by characters like Yoda, Rey and Kylo Ren. A space transport simulator is used to travel to and from the Starcruiser Halcyon.

“Hold on with hands, tentacles, and other appendages,” intones an unearthly voice as the passenger ship to Galaxy’s Edge departs (after an air chamber on the vessel closes, of course: psssht).

None of this is cheap, which has exposed Disney to exorbitant pricing criticism — taking advantage of the intense “Star Wars” franchise’s fan club — and transforming the 103-kilometer mega-resort^two of Disney World in yet another land of the rich and the dispossessed. A ticket on the Galactic Starcruiser for a family of four costs around US$6,000. A modified suite can cost up to US$20,000.

Rates include rooms, valet parking, near-continuous inflight activities and entertainment, admission to Galaxy’s Edge, express access to “Star Wars” rides, and all meals, some of which are extravagant. Unlike many cruise ships, however, glasses of beer ($13.50; R$69) and wine ($11; R$56 or more) cost more, as do specialty drinks like Mark of the Huntress ($23), which incorporates bourbon, peach-infused black currant syrup, lime and “sparkling bubbles.”

You can pay an extra $30 per person to sit at the captain’s table in the Star Cruise’s Crown of Corellia Dining Room (limited availability). Pricing for the characters’ hair and makeup in the bedroom is still being determined, according to a spokesperson. Guests can also hire a Disney photographer, starting at $99, which can include up to eight guests per session.

“We’ve made the first of something that we hope will change the way you think about the possibilities for immersive experiences,” said Scott Trowbridge, Disney’s creative executive, or “imaginer,” who oversaw the development and construction of the Galactic Starcruiser. “Some people still call it a Star Wars hotel, which is not what this experience is.”

(As part of a pre-opening media event, a New York Times reporter stayed there. Disney declined to accept payment, but suggested a $1,000 charitable donation for a two-night stay. Times made a donation of that amount to Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, which serves the area around Disney World and helped lay off Disney employees during the pandemic.)

An angry Wookiee roar emanated from the “Star Wars” corner of the internet as Disney began marketing the hotel-show-ride-game. Some fans thought the interior looked cheap and complained that — based on marketing images alone — it lacked the distinguishing features of the “Star Wars” universe, and instead looked like Space Mountain and “The Love Boat” were gone. placed in a blender. “Disney’s biggest failure?” asked a theme park vlogger in a December 2021 post.

Disney ended up removing some marketing materials from its website.

“Speculation from the outside world was unavoidable because this had never been done before,” said Josh D’Amaro, president of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, speaking to a reporter in the aisle of a star cruiser on Tuesday. “And I didn’t mind that. People are supposed to hold us to the highest standard possible. I also knew what was waiting inside, that our imaginers had created an entirely different level of surprise and delight.”

Even analysts who follow Disney aren’t quite sure what to make of it.

“Grow up or go home?” Michael Nathanson, a partner at MoffettNathanson, said in an email in response to a question about what business strategy the Galactic Starcruiser reflected. “Lately, your efforts have increased the ‘wow factor’.”

Nathanson said it’s unclear how much it cost to build the Galactic Starcruiser. Jessica Reif Ehrlich, a media analyst at Bank of America, also did not have an estimate.

Ehrlich noted that demand at Walt Disney World exploded as the United States began to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic. The resort, which includes six separately priced parks, 19 Disney-owned hotels and vacation clubs (more than 18,000 rooms), has almost fully reopened. This month, Disney has greatly relaxed its mask requirements for guests. On April 22, she will restart some night parades and fireworks.

On Friday, tickets to Disney World’s three busiest parks were sold out. “Repressed demand is extremely high,” Ehrlich said in an email. In terms of annual participation, “international visitors represent about 20% of the total, and they haven’t even returned yet!” he added.

The Galactic Starcruiser will have its grand opening on Tuesday (1st). March, April and most of June are sold out.

Disney began work on the Starcruiser project about six years ago, Trowbridge said, as part of its project for Galaxy’s Edge, a $1 billion “Star Wars” addition to Disney World’s Hollywood Studios theme park. Galaxy’s Edge was about mass entertainment, while the starcruiser was designed for intimacy. “We didn’t want it to be so big that people lost the sense of ‘they see me,'” Trowbridge said.

At the time, the hospitality and retail industries were repositioning themselves for millennial consumers. Stay in a hotel? Shopping in a store? How banal. Increasingly, creating “immersive experiences” was the ticket to relevance, and the more the experience intertwined the real and virtual worlds, the better. Interactive theater was also becoming fashionable, with “Sleep No More” in New York being a prime example. (Audience members create their own story by entering different rooms and choosing, over the course of several hours, which characters to follow and when.)

But this was uncharted territory for Disney, which doesn’t like to leave anything to chance. In fact, the company has spent decades perfecting the opposite.

Disney parks have always been about immersing guests in a story, of course, whether that’s transporting them to Cinderella’s castle or a Caribbean sea full of pirates. But most Disney rides are passive experiences. You sit and something happens. Young visitors now expect more: they want to be part of the action and even influence the outcome.

Galactic Starcruiser takes immersion to the extreme. If guests arrive within the authorized first minute and stay until checkout, they will have 45 hours within a game. Disney has always called its employees cast members, but the people it hires to staff the hotel go a step further; everyone, even the messengers, are residents of the “Star Wars” universe who stay in character when you ask a question.

“If you would like a drink from your home world, please ask,” read the drink menus inside the ship’s Sublight Lounge. Hairdryers in rooms are labeled “heat blowers”. Dinnerware includes pairs of giant tongs called “galactic grabbers”. Press a button in your cockpit and a logistics droid, D3-O9, appears on a video screen to chat, with the dialogue changing according to your responses.

Don’t worry, says D3-O9, “I can’t see your cabin”.

This can be a bit much if you’re not an ardent “Star Wars” fan, although Trowbridge has noticed that guests choose their own level of role play. “It has to be fun for the people who love ‘Star Wars’ and for the people who love the people who love ‘Star Wars,'” he said.
Much? Too small? Just enough? It didn’t seem to matter to Jude Steakley, 7, who wandered through the media preview of the star cruiser in a Mandalorian helmet and sweater. He was with his father, a Disney technician, and got excited about the ship’s bridge, where he learned to “blow things up and pop things”.

That wasn’t the best part of the trip, though. The best, Jude said, was “being together with my father.”

Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves