Disney shutting down Star Wars hotel

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s probably difficult to keep the cast members. I imagine there’s a degree of burnout working there and then you need to train-up new cast members, which is likely a very lengthy and expensive process. There’s a reason why most Broadway productions only run for 6-12 months max. The longer shows that last forever (Lion King, Wicked, etc.) can insert new actors like widgits, with an endless supply of actors in NYC and LA. They probably need to import talent into Orlando from other places.

They should’ve marketed this as a limited run experience. Maybe 2 years max. That would’ve created a scarcity mindset and they could positioned cast members for a set contract. At $2500/night I’m guessing that service expectations are sky-high. It’s got to be exhausting for the cast.

Very interesting and good point that highlights that staffing would have been a challenge even without the Great Resignation. The lack of good business judgment in this whole endeavor is astounding.

The pandemic upended a lot of businesses that relied on enough people onsite.

I think a lot of the cast wanted WFH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read besides the pricing issue that the rooms had screens instead of windows and many people didn't like that. It works on the Hogwarts train at Universal, but I don't know if I would like that in a hotel room.

Wait, the rooms are windowless? You can't call it a "room" and it's against firecode.

There are windows, they're just covered from the inside.

[Anonymous]

Our family went last summer and loved the star cruiser. I'm glad we were able to experience it while we did. Sure it was expensive, but there was nothing else really like it anywhere in the world. I just hope that this doesn't turn Disney off from experimenting with ideas like this in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least in part it has to do with DeSantis declaring war on Disney.

Disney effed this one up on their own before DeSantis got involved.

I wouldn’t be so sure. They just pulled a $1 billion office park development because DeSantis. I would fully expect them to continue divesting from Florida.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least in part it has to do with DeSantis declaring war on Disney.

Disney effed this one up on their own before DeSantis got involved.

I wouldn’t be so sure. They just pulled a $1 billion office park development because DeSantis. I would fully expect them to continue divesting from Florida.

They might be blaming DeSantis for canceling the project, but the decision to move Imagineering from Anaheim to Florida was a deeply unpopular one with the workers in that division. Nobody wanted to go. Diseny isn't divesting from Florida though. Didn't they just announce they're going to put in a fifth park?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least in part it has to do with DeSantis declaring war on Disney.

Disney effed this one up on their own before DeSantis got involved.

I wouldn’t be so sure. They just pulled a $1 billion office park development because DeSantis. I would fully expect them to continue divesting from Florida.

They might be blaming DeSantis for canceling the project, but the decision to move Imagineering from Anaheim to Florida was a deeply unpopular one with the workers in that division. Nobody wanted to go. Diseny isn't divesting from Florida though. Didn't they just announce they're going to put in a fifth park?

No, they didn’t. It’s in the long-term plans but it could be leverage in the fight with DeSantis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least in part it has to do with DeSantis declaring war on Disney.

Disney effed this one up on their own before DeSantis got involved.

I wouldn’t be so sure. They just pulled a $1 billion office park development because DeSantis. I would fully expect them to continue divesting from Florida.

They might be blaming DeSantis for canceling the project, but the decision to move Imagineering from Anaheim to Florida was a deeply unpopular one with the workers in that division. Nobody wanted to go. Diseny isn't divesting from Florida though. Didn't they just announce they're going to put in a fifth park?

This is correct. There's also been a lot of internet chatter over the last year that it was an employee revolt about having to move to Florida that helped to cause all of the DeSantis-Disney acrimony in the first place, in order to raise enough a stink that Chapek would have been forced to call it off. Instead, Chapek stayed the course. Once Iger came back, he had always planned to cancel the move because he was never in favor of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least in part it has to do with DeSantis declaring war on Disney.

Disney effed this one up on their own before DeSantis got involved.

I wouldn’t be so sure. They just pulled a $1 billion office park development because DeSantis. I would fully expect them to continue divesting from Florida.

They might be blaming DeSantis for canceling the project, but the decision to move Imagineering from Anaheim to Florida was a deeply unpopular one with the workers in that division. Nobody wanted to go. Diseny isn't divesting from Florida though. Didn't they just announce they're going to put in a fifth park?

This is correct. There's also been a lot of internet chatter over the last year that it was an employee revolt about having to move to Florida that helped to cause all of the DeSantis-Disney acrimony in the first place, in order to raise enough a stink that Chapek would have been forced to call it off. Instead, Chapek stayed the course. Once Iger came back, he had always planned to cancel the move because he was never in favor of it.

Disney has also publicly announced layoffs of 7000 people in 2023 and cutting $5.5 billion in expenses...

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/24/disney-layoffs-second-larger-wave.html

[Anonymous]

My quick take as a family with $$ to travel how we like generally and also as SW fans is that it was always too narrow a market. We took the kids to do the lightsaber, droid, etc. but we are not into role playing. We would pay for a well done SW themed stay, even with no pool as we rarely do that on a Disney vacation, but not this much for the role playing stuff we aren’t interested in. The Star Wars fans with both the money AND specific interest is just naturally limited.

[Anonymous]

My family was exploring whether we could manage to return before it closed, since we had such an amazing time. However, the phone lines were immediately swamped when booking re-opened this morning (kept getting "all circuits are busy" messages), and the one date we had identified as possible has sold out. Oh, well. So glad we had a chance to experience this when we did!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This seems utterly ridiculous to me. They put a ton into building that place and it’s been booked pretty well solid. Can they really be losing money on it? If so, why not raise the rates? I have a family member that went for a milestone present and loved it.

It's definitely not booked solid anymore. After the initial surge/interest they haven't been able to keep it full - even with offering some (pretty limited) discounts.
The venn diagram of people who love Star Wars, enjoy cosplay, and can afford this hotel is pretty small.

If they lowered the price significantly I'm certain they could fill it. It's got to be quite expensive to run, though, given they have lots of equity actors involved in addition to normal hotel staff. So clearly they've done the math and the expense to run it isn't worthwhile at a significantly lower price point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems utterly ridiculous to me. They put a ton into building that place and it’s been booked pretty well solid. Can they really be losing money on it? If so, why not raise the rates? I have a family member that went for a milestone present and loved it.

It's definitely not booked solid anymore. After the initial surge/interest they haven't been able to keep it full - even with offering some (pretty limited) discounts.
The venn diagram of people who love Star Wars, enjoy cosplay, and can afford this hotel is pretty small.

If they lowered the price significantly I'm certain they could fill it. It's got to be quite expensive to run, though, given they have lots of equity actors involved in addition to normal hotel staff. So clearly they've done the math and the expense to run it isn't worthwhile at a significantly lower price point.

I'm surprised that they didn't make it more flexible. A year of star wars, once that's done, a year of Frozen, a year of Marvel.... It's a great concept, but you're always aiming at a narrow group of people who are big enough fans and who can afford it.

[Anonymous]

It was a bad execution of the concept. Disney is taking a huge tax write off on the loss, will be able to fill seats for the next quarter with people hurrying to do it before it closes, and it sticks it to DeSantis due to timing ..even though he had nothing to do with it.

Continuing to run it at a loss or just breaking even is a bad idea but probably what Chapek would have done. I read that Disney is looking to expand existing parks as more in park attractions increases their capacity and or guest experience.

[Anonymous]

They fully sold out all remaining dates by 3 PM today. Too bad the demand wasn’t there in time to keep them from closing.

[Anonymous]

We are going over July 4. Cannot wait!