The Walt Disney Company has never shied away from ambitious projects.

Disneyland and Disney World, after all, have been building ambitious projects since the very beginning! Disney is also always at the forefront of technology, especially when it comes to ways to use that new technology for entertainment. Disney doesn’t always meet success with its massive undertakings, though. Take the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, which was one of the most unique experiences in the world, but also a project that ultimately failed.

Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser was a two-day highly immersive experience set in the Star Wars universe. The experience was also a grand roleplaying adventure, allowing guests on the Halcyon (the fictional cruise ship the Starcruiser experience took place on) to become part of their own Star Wars story that could change based on their choices. Although roleplaying isn’t a new concept, nothing at the scale Disney had in mind had ever been done before.

However, Disney decided to close the Galactic Starcruiser, after it failed to perform in the way the company had hoped. In the end, the entire project seemed like a failed experiment, but one that the company did say it hoped to learn from for future projects. So the Galactic Starcruiser closed for good, and there’s a chance something like it may never exist again. Here’s why.

Price

One of the biggest things that kept people from booking a trip on the Galactic Starcruiser was the price. When the price was initially announced, a lot of folks were shocked at just how high it was: the CHEAPEST option was $4,800 for two guests. Granted, that price included a trip to Batuu (aka Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge) and all food and some drinks, as well as all the interactive experiences and entertainment. However, that’s still a LOT of moolah.

The opening of the Galactic Starcruiser also came at a time when the economy was suffering and many people just couldn’t justify that much to  live out their Star Wars fantasies. The price was just too prohibitive for many to enjoy the experience.

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The cost for running the experience was too high

Although Disney never released how much it cost to run the experience onboard the Galactic Starcruiser, it had to be high. There were highly technological elements like lightsaber training and ship piloting. Then there’s the cost of keeping the highly-trained Cast Members around, who were basically actors getting paid to improvise…a lot.

There were all sorts of special effects, too, like windows that showed the ship traveling through “space,” as well as holograms, “real” lightsabers, and more. All of these elements had to be costly to run every day and night.

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The cruise experience was off-putting

At first, a cruise in space might sound like fun, but this went beyond a cruise. Not only did Disney have set times for things like meals and entertainment, but you could only embark and disembark at certain times. You could only visit Batuu with an organized group at a specific time. Everything had a schedule, so there was no room for spontaneity.

The roleplaying, for those who participated (and honestly, why would anyone go on this “cruise” without the interaction?), was almost non-stop. We spent a lot of late nights working jobs for the Resistance when we were onboard. It’s…a lot. Guests were trapped on the Halcyon for two days with very little freedom to do anything other than what Disney wanted them to do.

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It was too niche

We’ve mentioned that this was an experience that only hardcore Star Wars fans would want to do. We’re talking those fans who eat, sleep, and breathe Star Wars (which is pretty much what the Halcyon required).

But it’s only a subset of that group that could actually AFFORD to spend money on this experience, as it was quite expensive. So Disney seriously narrowed down how many people would be interested in the experience, to begin with.

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It was a one-and-done experience

So the entirety of the Halcyon experience was a very specific storyline that Cast Members had rehearsed, with some improvisation added based on the kinds of decisions guests made. However, in the end, there was only one story with a few branching plot points, that culminated in an ending that was written by Disney.

If the experience is basically the same, that pretty much keeps people from booking a second or third trip on the Galactic Starcruiser. Once that small subset of the population we previously mentioned had already experienced the Starcruiser, no one was left to book the experience. If Disney ever had plans of changing the experience occasionally, though, we’ll never know.

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We will say this, though: the Cast Members onboard the Halcyon were AMAZING and did an incredible job of making the experience as immersive as possible when we had a chance to take a cruise on the Galactic Starcruiser. The experience itself was unique and SO immersive, and we hope that Disney really does plan to use some of these ideas in other ways in its parks.

We’ll just have to wait and see what happens next.

Stay tuned to DFB for more.

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What did you think of the ideas behind the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser? How would like to see those implemented in the future? Let us know in the comments!

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