When Walt Disney (DIS) released plans for a Star Wars hotel, fans went crazy with joy over what that might entail. Anticipation and expectations get incredibly heightened making it nearly impossible for the actual reality to live up to what people hoped the experience would be. That, plus a roughly $5,000 price tag, led to the inevitable backlash when Disney started showing footage of the actual hotel/immersive experience.
Once Disney started showing people what Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser at Walt Disney World in Florida looked like, they became disenchanted and many early reservations got canceled. That likely would have happened had the company shown anything short of being able to make guests force-sensitive while giving them their very own Wookie best friend.
The theme park giant faced the same sort of backlash when Star Wars: Galaxy Edge opened at Disney's Hollywood Studios and Disneyland. The first groups of guests had their own ideas as to what the theme park land should be like. That made anything other than what was in their imagination a disappointment.
Over time, the negative reviews reset expectations and consumers entered Galaxy's Edge with a more realistic view. That's likely to happen with the two-night Galactic Starcruiser hotel experience, which began operating in early March.
Image Source: Daniel Kline/TheStreet.
Disney Likely Has a Huge Winner
Over the past few months, the media has given a lot of attention to people canceling their Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser experience. This was framed as being about people not liking what Disney had created, but the reality is that the price tag plus the pandemic likely gave a lot of people cold feet.
Now that the first people have actually experienced that two-day immersive Star Wars hotel experience, Twitter reviews seem positive, including from some noted Disney bloggers.
And, while there was a lot of skepticism before anyone had actually experienced Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, the world of Disney bloggers, some of whom paid for the experience, seemed very impressed by it.
Praise, as you might imagine, was not universal (because when is it ever, especially when Star Wars is involved).
Disney Rarely Truly Fails
Disney's biggest recent misstep might be "Solo: A Star Wars Story", a film that "bombed" at the box office compared to expectations. The reality is that "Solo" made nearly $400 million globally from its theatrical release. That's a money loser most certainly, but it's hardly a dud compared to other studios' big failures.
Yes, "Solo" lost money in theaters, but it may have even eeked out a profit from secondary markets, streaming, and commercial tie-ins. Star Wars has arguably become too big to fail and recent history -- including a whole bunch of new theme park attractions -- suggests that the reality of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser may not live up to what people imagined, but it's probably going to deliver a very strong experience.
Is that worth $5,000? Are theme park tickets worth over $100 a day? Is a $6 churro a good value? What about a $16 themed adult beverage?
For Star Wars fans, the answer is likely yes and that's predictably good news for Disney shareholders.
