When the news broke that Florida's Walt Disney World planned to open a Star Wars-themed hotel, there was a huge amount of excitement among fans of the franchise.
Unfortunately, "Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser" was met with mixed reviews right from the off. With trips starting at $4800 for two guests in a standard cabin and going upwards of $6000 for a family, it was immediately out of reach for the vast majority of Star Wars fans visiting the theme park.
Still, rooms did initially sell out and there were those who seemed to enjoy the experience of heading into a Galaxy Far, Far Away.
Bookings soon slowed and the hotel will close its doors this September, a rare failure for the House of Mouse when it comes to its theme park offerings. Once, there were plans for additional Starcruisers in Paris, Tokyo, and Anaheim to follow but Disney CEO Bob Iger made the decision to pull the plug on what's proved to be a costly failure.
How costly? According to interim CFO Kevin Lansberry (via SFFGazette.com), the company is anticipating taking a hit of $250 million in "accelerated depreciation," news which was broken quietly in Disney's third quarter report call earlier this week.
It's worth noting that revenue for the Disney Parks, Experiences and Products division increased 13% to $8.3 billion in the same quarter as the hotel's closure, so some might argue $250 million is chump change in the grand scheme of things. However, it remains an embarrassing failure.
There are many reasons why the Galactic Starcruiser didn't work, though it does feel like the project was somewhat rushed and not up to the usual standard of Disney's Imagineers. Blame for that has been laid at the feet of the ousted Bob Chapek as he was looking to increase profits across the board as quickly as possible, regardless of the product's quality (explaining what's happened to the MCU, to at least some extent).
Before Iger scrapped the hotel, a number of ideas were thrown around. Among them were "tours" of the facilities that would have given access to the bar, dinner show, and gift shop for an additional charge. They also considered retheming it to The Mandalorian, but the CEO said no.
Now, it remains unclear what will become of the building that has 100 hotel rooms in it (which, technically, now cost a cool $2.5 million each...).