Star Wars: Visions

[Drunk Monk]

Somehow this became the Galactic Starcruiser thread. I blame tg

Galactic Starcruiser cost Disney millions. What happens now to the empty building?
The failed "Star Wars" hotel experience is closing, leaving behind an extraordinary, expensive vacant building
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Katie Dowd, SFGATE
May 29, 2023
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The Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser hotel at Walt Disney World Resort is seen on April 3, 2022, in Orlando, Fla. 
AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
After the Galactic Starcruiser hosts its final bookings in September, the doors will close permanently on Disney’s infamous “Star Wars” hotel. Inside a nondescript white warehouse on the outskirts of Walt Disney World’s Hollywood Studios park, a question will echo through its expensive, empty hallways: What happens next?
Abandoning a pricey failure is not without precedent for Disney’s theme park division. Perhaps the most famous is Discovery Island.
The island, located in Bay Lake, was not created by Disney. For decades prior, it was owned by private individuals, one of whom sold the entire island to Disney in the 1960s. In 1974, it opened to the public as Discovery Island, a kind of zoological preserve primarily populated by birds, reptiles and lemurs. It was the second park opened in the Walt Disney World Resort, after Magic Kingdom, and charged separate entry fees. In 1999, Discovery Island closed its gates and relocated many of its critters to the newly opened Animal Kingdom.
“Our guests have so many more choices. And they are choosing other things,” Disney spokesperson Diane Ledder told the Orlando Sentinel at the time. “It’s a little bit sad when we say goodbye to an old favorite, but change is part of the process.”
The Sentinel reported that Disney weighed converting the island into a pirate lair with treasure scavenger hunts, luxe cottages for honeymooners or a wilderness camp themed to “The Lion King.” None ever came to pass. Since then, it has sat abandoned in full view of the thousands of guests who pass by on ferry boats each day. 
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A First Order loyalist takes control of the ship from captain Riyola Keevan, right center, at the ship’s bridge as the first passengers experience Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Fla.
Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag
Although some outlets have ballparked the Galactic Starcruiser’s costs past $1 billion, a more conservative estimate of $350 million by a former Imagineer seems more likely. Many were surprised Disney didn’t first attempt to slash prices before canning the project entirely, but presumably, calculations showed it wasn’t financially or logistically feasible to keep operating at reduced rates. At a Q&A last week, Disney Parks chair Josh D’Amaro indicated that the company is taking a tax write-off on the building, which he said they’re estimating will have $100 million to $150 million in accelerated depreciation in both of the final two quarters of 2023. 
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The Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser hotel at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Fla., looks like a warehouse on the exterior. 
AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
From the outside, Starcruiser looks like any other warehouse-type building; inside, there are 100 guest rooms — including a few one- and two-bedroom suites — a main atrium, a bar, one dining room where all three meals are served daily, a gift shop and some unique “Star Wars” spaces like a spaceship bridge and a lightsaber training room. 
A Disney Parks spokesperson told SFGATE that there are no immediate plans for the Starcruiser building. When asked if any elements would be integrated into Galaxy’s Edge, the “Star Wars” land in Hollywood Studios and at Disneyland, the spokesperson said that too has not yet been decided.
Fans who couldn’t afford the $5,000-a-stay experience are hopeful Disney will open the doors for more limited experiences, such as dinner reservations in the Crown of Corellia Dining Room. The Starcruiser is already connected via a short shuttle ride to a corridor into Galaxy’s Edge. 
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Singer, songwriter and galactic superstar Gaya performs as the first passengers experience Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, a live-action role-playing game that doubles as a high-end hotel at Walt Disney World Resort in in Orlando, Fla.
Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag
But “Star Wars” diehards still holding out for a reimagined version of the hotel have a beacon of hope. In the late 1990s, Disney World announced it was building the Pop Century Resort, a lower-priced hotel option themed around the decades of the 20th century. During construction, the 9/11 attacks happened, profoundly decreasing tourism around the nation. When Pop Century opened in 2003, it only had half of the decades represented: the 1950s through the 1990s. The Legendary Years section, though partially constructed and visible to guests, was left unfinished.
For years, the buildings sat abandoned. But in 2010, Disney revealed the partially done structures would become part of the new Art of Animation Resort. Those buildings were repurposed into an animated movie theme and opened at last in 2012. Art of Animation is hardly a 100-room hotel, though; the enormous resort has more than 2,100 rooms and suites. How the Galactic Starcruiser could repurpose its relatively tiny space — or if it’s possible at all — remains up in the air.