Jenny Nicholson - The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel

[PlanetSmasher]

There are tens of thousands of adults who would shell out for an official high-polish weekend Star Wars LARP, which is what this was. The appeal was never in doubt, but you LARP once and then if you go again there's an expectation of a new experience.

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My point was more about the solo part. I just can't picture anyone wanting to have this experience alone. It feels like it's absolutely designed around doing it with at least one other person so you don't look/feel like a weirdo hanging around in a building full of families talking to people in makeup.

I'm sure that kind of user exists, but not at this price point and not at the scale Disney would need for this to be a viable product.

 

[Fat4all]

Medieval Times is like

lite-LARP

that'd work better for Star Wars

especially if you get to wear a robe

 

[LordHuffnPuff]

My point was more about the solo part. I just can't picture anyone wanting to have this experience alone. It feels like it's absolutely designed around doing it with at least one other person so you don't look/feel like a weirdo hanging around in a building full of families talking to people in makeup.

I'm sure that kind of user exists, but not at this price point and not at the scale Disney would need for this to be a viable product.

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I think it would have been totally fine solo. Maybe that's just me. I don't think it would have been alienating or weird, especially if you were there to roleplay.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

I think it would have been totally fine solo. Maybe that's just me. I don't think it would have been alienating or weird, especially if you were there to roleplay.

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The thing is, Jenny pointed out that it didn't really seem like the actors were ABLE to really fulfill the LARP promise and looked at her really weirdly when she tried to get in character and talk to them in character, hoping to get a personalized story journey as someone who's totally in-universe. And if even a COUPLE of big-name folks had that kind of experience, that's going to spread around quickly and dissuade other people from going.

Especially just given the price point. A "max out your credit card balance and potentially tank your credit rating" trip where the fundamental core of the entire product doesn't even work seems like a huge gamble. And who's going to do that twice? Like I said, it's just too expensive and too flawed for the repeat-visit intent.

 

[LordHuffnPuff]

The thing is, Jenny pointed out that it didn't really seem like the actors were ABLE to really fulfill the LARP promise and looked at her really weirdly when she tried to get in character and talk to them in character, hoping to get a personalized story journey as someone who's totally in-universe. And if even a COUPLE of big-name folks had that kind of experience, that's going to spread around quickly and dissuade other people from going.

Especially just given the price point. A "max out your credit card balance and potentially tank your credit rating" trip where the fundamental core of the entire product doesn't even work seems like a huge gamble.

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I haven't watched the video, and I can only speak generally due to the NDA, but I will say a few things:

* I've never heard of Jenny Nicholson before this thread;
* There was a rotating stable of actors in each role - some of whom would be better at this than others, and I have no clue about turnover in the position;
* I think you're vastly overestimating the power of an internet personality having a less-than-ideal experience when pitted against the power of the Star Wars brand. The price was always going to be what sunk the experience, and I can comfortably say that I felt this way even before visiting in person, as somebody who has worked in and around the games an immersive experience space for fifteen years.

I would suggest reading Adrian Hon's write-up of the experience as well - he writes at length about the specifics of what it was like to roleplay on the Starcruiser:

The better you are at roleplaying, the better experience you'll have on the Starcruiser, a bit like how you'll have a better experience at Disneyworld if you're a super-organiser. That a roleplay-centric experience rewards roleplayers is not surprising except for the fact that Starcruiser isn't seen as (or marketed as) a roleplaying experience. In fact, while their GDC talk frequently referenced video game RPGs as an inspiration, I don't recall much if any time spent on guests' role play.

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Adrian and I don't always see eye to eye on experience design but he's a sharp observer and a good designer whose summary mostly aligns with my own feelings on the whole thing.

 

[Fat4all]

* I've never heard of this person before this thread

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you should watch the vid, fam

 

[LordHuffnPuff]

you should watch the vid, fam

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who has that kind of time :(

 

[Fat4all]

who has that kind of time :(

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does your NDA stop you from finding out why this shit failed on a customer level

 

[LordHuffnPuff]

does your NDA stop you from finding out why this shit failed on a customer level

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What? I know why it failed because I experienced it firsthand, spoke at length about its failures with the folks behind it, read a pile of professional reporting and individual experience anecdotes, and do this for a living. My point is that even if the experience had been firing on all cylinders in every possible way and nailed it at every turn it still would have remained an infeasible project to keep open due to the cost of admission alone. Any other failures or issues only accelerated things.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

I haven't watched the video, and I can only speak generally due to the NDA, but I will say a few things:

* I've never heard of Jenny Nicholson before this thread;
* There was a rotating stable of actors in each role - some of whom would be better at this than others, and I have no clue about turnover in the position;
* I think you're vastly overestimating the power of an internet personality having a less-than-ideal experience when pitted against the power of the Star Wars brand. The price was always going to be what sunk the experience, and I can comfortably say that I felt this way even before visiting in person, as somebody who has worked in and around the games an immersive experience space for fifteen years.

I would suggest reading Adrian Hon's write-up of the experience as well - he writes at length about the specifics of what it was like to roleplay on the Starcruiser:



Adrian and I don't always see eye to eye on experience design but he's a sharp observer and a good designer whose summary mostly aligns with my own feelings on the whole thing.

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My point is that Jenny IS that kind of player. She went into the experience with a personally crafted character, backstory, special outfits every day of her trip, and tried to engage with the experience as hard as possible. None of the actors remembered her character's name and some gave her weird "why are you doing this" looks when she tried to engage with them in character, ALL of the interactive gameplay elements failed hard for her for any number of reasons, and the system failing means she was not allowed to take part in any of the personalized story-track experiences except the Rey holocron scene (which she believes she may have just been filtered into by accident) and the Sammy bridge scene (a storyline she did not engage with at all and was DEFINITELY sorted into to fill a quota for that particular scene's time slot).

If it can't work for her, someone who went in with the full intent of playing as hard as possible, that kind of stuff just speaks to a fundamental failure in design and execution.

 

[Mirado]

The thing is, Jenny pointed out that it didn't really seem like the actors were ABLE to really fulfill the LARP promise and looked at her really weirdly when she tried to get in character and talk to them in character, hoping to get a personalized story journey as someone who's totally in-universe. And if even a COUPLE of big-name folks had that kind of experience, that's going to spread around quickly and dissuade other people from going.

Especially just given the price point. A "max out your credit card balance and potentially tank your credit rating" trip where the fundamental core of the entire product doesn't even work seems like a huge gamble.

Click to shrink...

I think the concept of having people really LARP was fairly half-baked like the rest of the experience. It seemed very much a case of the marketing saying/promising one thing and the actual reality of the experience delivering another, as there were very cute moments of fun LARPing that the cast helped bring to life (bringing a drink for Skippy), but either her theory of the tech they were using to pull up guest info on the fly didn't allow for full on guest roleplay/characters in that way, or just the super densely packed schedule wasn't going to allow for that deep of a roleplay.

I would suggest reading Adrian Hon's write-up of the experience as well - he writes at length about the specifics of what it was like to roleplay on the Starcruiser:



Adrian and I don't always see eye to eye on experience design but he's a sharp observer and a good designer whose summary mostly aligns with my own feelings on the whole thing.

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Having read this, Jenny's experience directly contradicts what he is saying. She very much bought into the full roleplay, attempting to establish clear rapport with the characters (specifically frequently noting she was on the side of the first order, that she was worried about/afraid of the Resistance and hoped they got caught, etc), and absolutely none of her interactions with the cast were in any way reflected in her app or even the storyline she was eventually put onto, if you could even call what she got a "storyline". The app indicated she had high familiarity with characters she barely interacted with, the AI app characters would straight ghost her and never reply, certain events would never trigger no matter how many times she returned to them (she never was able to get the codes to enter any of the "restricted" areas until the app just gave up and unlocked it randomly without her getting a message of any sort), she was told to go to a specific spot at a certain time only to show up and find that the story beat was already over, etc. etc. etc.

You really should watch the vid before commenting, because I fail to see how this article talking about how people who are great role-players will get more out of the experience is relevant when she basically went as hard as a person could go in trying to engage with it, only to be met with confusion and an outright busted experience.

 

[Fat4all]

My point is that Jenny IS that kind of player. She went into the experience with a personally crafted character, backstory, special outfits every day of her trip, and tried to engage with the experience as hard as possible. None of the actors remembered her character's name and some gave her weird "why are you doing this" looks when she tried to engage with them in character, ALL of the interactive gameplay elements failed hard for her for any number of reasons, and the system failing means she was not allowed to take part in any of the personalized story-track experience.

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even Jenny knows how this is supposed to work, she's former Disneyland cast, but even she was shocked at how haphazard it was thrown together, leaving the poor cast to make things up on the fly

it makes more sense towards the end of the vid when you find out that they basically just threw unprepared and young staff at the project

 

[SuperBanana]

Paying $3,333 per person and they don't even give you access to Disney+ in the room. Jesus christ. The nickle and diming for such an expensive experience would sour me even if I was rich.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

I think the concept of having people really LARP was fairly half-baked like the rest of the experience. It seemed very much a case of the marketing saying/promising one thing and the actual reality of the experience delivering another, as their were very cute moments of fun LARPing that the cast helped bring to life (bringing a drink for Skippy), but either her theory of the tech they were using to pull up guest info on the fly didn't allow for full on guest characters in that way, or just the super densely packed schedule wasn't going to allow for that deep of a roleplay.

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Exactly. LARPing at that kind of scale is just unfeasible. Speaking as someone who has contributed to the writing and design of one or two immersive theatre experiences, one of the things you have to account for is the "runtime" of the event. An experience that lasts an hour to a couple of hours gives you just enough time for your actors to pick up on maybe one or two details about the guests they engage with, and they only need to remember it for the duration of that one show. If a guest comes back later, and the actors remember them, that's bonus points, but it's not an expectation. And typically, your yield for a show is, what...ten people max? Maybe a bit more if you're a bigger show. You give the guests just enough of a feeling like they're "there" that they don't feel like they're being conned out of their money but a lot of it is just pattern recognition or memorization. Everything past that is improv.

Spending two full days with HUNDREDS of guests at a time, expecting to remember anything about any of them as they float in and out of your attention over 40 hours, must've been so overwhelming for the actors - even extremely talented improvisors would struggle to maintain it at that scale. And it sure seems like the earpiece tech feeding the actors info about guests flat-out didn't work for Jenny's trip, which only made it worse.

I feel really bad for the actors, honestly. I don't blame them at all. You can't keep that kind of stuff up day in/day out in a two-way performance experience without a LOT of help and a LOT of breaks. And this kind of immersive 'trapped in a box with the same actors for a whole trip' setup doesn't really help.

 

[Calamari41]

Medieval Times is like

lite-LARP

that'd work better for Star Wars

especially if you get to wear a robe

Click to shrink...

For some reason Disney decided years ago that what the average person wants out of Star Wars is hardcore LARPing. I would imagine that they got some kind of outlier focus test at some point and ran with it.

But then, at the same time, it seems that they've half-assed it and none of it is actually much good for LARPers anyway. So it's like the worst of both worlds.

And then what drags it all down even further is that they're hyper fixated on the Sequel Trilogy, which nobody is interested in.

 

[El Bombastico]

There are tens of thousands of adults who would shell out for an official high-polish weekend Star Wars LARP, which is what this was. The appeal was never in doubt, but you LARP once and then if you go again there's an expectation of a new experience.

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Except there wasn't, otherwise this wouldn't have failed after only 18 months.

 

[Charred Knight]

Yeah. This is the problem. If they really wanted it to be a "return again and again" themed experience, there are two cardinal flaws.

1) The price is just too fucking high. Unless you're an extremely rich Disney Adult who lives solo (and if you are, why would you want to GO to this), you can't justify the price of multiple trips. If you have a family, a regular DW trip is significantly cheaper and more fun. And your kids definitely won't want to come back and do this again a second time when they could just go to the parks and go on all the rides.

2) There isn't ENOUGH variation for it to be worth going back to multiple times. The structure of a Starcruiser stay is too regimented, too breakneck, too "Do this and then this and then this and then this and then Rey fights Kylo now go home" to justify repeat trips unless, again, you're an absolutely insane, absolutely loaded Disney adult. And considering the interactivity didn't even work for a LARGE portion of potential guests, why would anyone WANT to come back?

It just speaks to the resort being the answer to a question no one asked, trying to create a niche that's way too small to sustain itself. A regular Star Wars total-immersion cruise ship would've been infinitely cheaper to manage, cheaper for guests to attend, and could've been re-themed far more easily than this hotel was! It's insane how many miscalculations were made at just about every step of the process.

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Its too big to fail

They had all these ideas for Galaxy's Edge but instead of having people come up with expensive alien costumes and dramatic storylines why not force the fans to pay thousands of dollars for that experience.

Well that would involve an entire new building, and Disney adults are nuts so why not create a system where you charge 4 adults 1,2000 dollars each to stay in a cramp room. Got to setup several different storylines so the only way to get the full experience is with three separate visits and that's if the get a new storyline each visit, with the way the setup you could force a person to go 5 times no even more.

Then once people have their fill you just change the era and characters, then you repeat the process. Guaranteed way to print money. Cant Fail

The thing is, Jenny pointed out that it didn't really seem like the actors were ABLE to really fulfill the LARP promise and looked at her really weirdly when she tried to get in character and talk to them in character, hoping to get a personalized story journey as someone who's totally in-universe. And if even a COUPLE of big-name folks had that kind of experience, that's going to spread around quickly and dissuade other people from going.

Especially just given the price point. A "max out your credit card balance and potentially tank your credit rating" trip where the fundamental core of the entire product doesn't even work seems like a huge gamble.

Click to shrink...

The problem is that there's a set storyline and limited actual interaction, you cant improve an entire new story where some New Jedi showed up on board, or some other smuggler is after something else. You can play as resistance sympathizer, first order sympathizer, or a guest that got involved in a heist. You have free roaming actors but they are trained to go off from what the app tells them so your not exactly going to remember your star Wars name or relay to the person scheduling things about a conversation they just had. That's why Jenny had high familiarity with someone she barely met, and never had a conversation over say the role she was trying to get over.

Its pretty clear that the entire thing is app based so if the app is busted like with Jenny than you can roleplay your heart out no one is going to reciprocate.

 

[LordHuffnPuff]

My point is that Jenny IS that kind of player. She went into the experience with a personally crafted character, backstory, special outfits every day of her trip, and tried to engage with the experience as hard as possible. None of the actors remembered her character's name and some gave her weird "why are you doing this" looks when she tried to engage with them in character, ALL of the interactive gameplay elements failed hard for her for any number of reasons, and the system failing means she was not allowed to take part in any of the personalized story-track experience.

Click to shrink...

You really should watch the vid before commenting, because I fail to see how this article talking about how people who are great role-players will get more out of the experience is relevant when she basically went as hard as a person could go in trying to engage with it, only to be met with confusion and an outright busted experience.

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I think you're both missing what I'm saying about this, which is that it is a live theater experience and, like any live event, is subject to a thousand variables beyond the control of the cast or stagerunner, and yet hundreds more that are within their control.

There are so many moving parts around any individual's experience that you can only make judgments about this kind of thing in aggregate. Who was in what role that weekend? Were there last-minute substitutions? Was there a breakdown in training a new hire? (Please note these are not questions about this video specifically, they're things any guest experience professional would have to evaluate in terms of assessing the whole shebang).

Meanwhile, folks like Kathryn Yu, who was formerly executive editor of NoProcenium and herself a professional immersive experience designer, noted in her writeup:

The actors on Galactic Starcruiser truly make the experience. Each one goes out of their way to make every guest feel included. In conversations, they're listening and really responding to guests, authentically and sincerely. The care with which each actor interacts with passengers cannot be overstated.

And if you do choose to drop hints about what your allegiances are or give a character information from your backstory, they will file it away, and potentially incorporate it into a later interaction — even if it's just a passing mention.

It's remarkable how how much they remember about each individual passenger. And these touches really make the experience feel personal. Even more impressive, this is with a few hundred people onboard to keep track of each sailing — names, home planets, allegiances, backstories, and more — over two days. (Now lather, rinse, repeat for every voyage.)

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It sucks that Jenny Nicholson went on board ready to gung-ho roleplay and did not get to have the experience she should have. Lord knows there were infinite breakdowns and behind-the-scenes fires involved across the board with the entire project, any of which could pose an existential threat to the show, but to speak in sweeping statements about the mechanics of roleplay or how things were absolutely this way or could not have been like that is ignoring the realities of the live production environment. What should have happened (and clearly, from this thread alone, did not occur promptly or effectively) was some sort of major compensation on Disney's behalf, but that's just par for the course these days.

Except there wasn't, otherwise this wouldn't have failed after only 18 months.

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Well no, because you would go once and that's it - there wasn't really incentive to do repeat business. Many of these folks enthusiastically went in the first few months and then that was it. The upkeep costs of something like this are immense, it's not like they can fire and forget.

 

[Fat4all]

Except there wasn't, otherwise this wouldn't have failed after only 18 months.

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clearly that's because everyone who wanted to larp finished larping and we're waiting for more

not because it was a poorly received experience that demanded an absurd price

you can roleplay your heart out no one is going to reciprocate

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I know that feeling :(

 

[El Bombastico]

Its too big to fail

They had all these ideas for Galaxy's Edge but instead of having people come up with expensive alien costumes and dramatic storylines why not force the fans to pay thousands of dollars for that experience.

Well that would involve an entire new building, and Disney adults are nuts so why not create a system where you charge 4 adults 1,2000 dollars each to stay in a cramp room. Got to setup several different storylines so the only way to get the full experience is with three separate visits and that's if the get a new storyline each visit, with the way the setup you could force a person to go 5 times no even more.

Then once people have their fill you just change the era and characters, then you repeat the process. Guaranteed way to print money. Cant Fail



The problem is that there's a set storyline and limited actual interaction, you cant improve an entire new story where some New Jedi showed up on board, or some other smuggler is after something else. You can play as resistance sympathizer, first order sympathizer, or a guest that got involved in a heist. You have free roaming actors but they are trained to go off from what the app tells them so your not exactly going to remember your star Wars name or relay to the person scheduling things about a conversation they just had. That's why Jenny had high familiarity with someone she barely met, and never had a conversation over say the role she was trying to get over.

Its pretty clear that the entire thing is app based so if the app is busted like with Jenny than you can roleplay your heart out no one is going to reciprocate.

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Even if the app had worked perfectly, if the cast members were tired/having a bad day you were still going to possibly get a sub-optimal LARPing experience (and imo even getting the best experience still did not justify that goddamn price tag. Not when as Jenny pointed out, for that same price you could get your own motherfucking 1 bedroom suite on Disney's newest cruise ship).

That's another part of this that infuriates me as everything wring with modern Disney parks: overcharging yet cutting corners everywhere yet still placing everything on the shoulders of the underpaid cast members to pull everything off. Which means that if something does go wrong, these poor overworked and exploited people receive the brunt of the attendees ire, as I witnessed several times when Galaxy's Edge first opened.

 

[Fat4all]

Again, it sucks that Jenny Nicholson went on board ready to gung-ho roleplay and did not get to have the experience she should have.

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it's not that her larp failed

her entire gameplay failed

she tried to join the first order and got nothing, and after a day of frustration trying to find out how to get on the right path, started getting resistance missions

and that's if the app even fuckin worked, most of the time it would stop sending messages

and she was coming across other people on their expensive vacations also having issues with the fuckin game

 

[LordHuffnPuff]

it's not that her larp failed

her entire gameplay failed

she tried to join the first order and got nothing, and after a day of frustration trying to find out how to get on the right path, started getting resistance missions

and that's if the app even fuckin worked, most of the time it would stop sending messages

and she was coming across other people on their expensive vacations also having issues with the fuckin game

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Sorry, I guess I should have been clearer - I consider the app stuff to be part of the LARP, so when I say the LARP failed I mean the tech stuff too. The entire experience of in-universe fictional interaction, both with the app and with actors, is what I meant when I said LARP. That stuff being non-functional is pretty unacceptable, because it kills the whole experience - hence what I said about massive compensation.

When Disney (I think it was the same team maybe, who did this hotel?) did the Ghost Post years ago (another app-based experience that ended in the park) I did it and went with a few friends to see the conclusion in the Haunted Mansion, and when we were told that the unique ride experience was non-functional, they gave us complementary passes for an entire extra day at the parks to make up for it, so we could get the thing that we'd paid for.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Sorry, I guess I should have been clearer - I consider the app stuff to be part of the LARP, so when I say the LARP failed I mean the tech stuff too. The entire experience of in-universe fictional interaction, both with the app and with actors, is what I meant when I said LARP. That stuff being non-functional is pretty unacceptable, because it kills the whole experience - hence what I said about massive compensation.

When Disney (I think it was the same team maybe, who did this hotel?) did the Ghost Post years ago (another app-based experience that ended in the park) I did it and went with a few friends to see the conclusion in the Haunted Mansion, and when we were told that the unique ride experience was non-functional, they gave us complementary passes for an entire extra day at the parks to make up for it, so we could get the thing that we'd paid for.

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Yeah. Jenny called Disney to complain about several aspects of her experience in Starcruiser not working, including a droid she paid a ton of money for and had shipped to her house mysteriously being shipped to someone else by mistake, and was stonewalled and told "sorry we can't help you" at every turn until she went on Twitter to complain about it publicly, and then Disney immediately went 'oh shit' and gave her compensation, sometimes within 24 hours of the initial Twitter complaint.

They ONLY put any effort into resolving the issues once they realized she was a semi-famous theme park influencer with a high Twitter following.

 

[El Bombastico]

What boggles my fucking mind is why the app just didn't let you choose which story path you wanted to do from the fucking moment you booted it up. Yeah, that might've ruined some of the "immersion". But the alternative is what happened to Jenny and several other guests.

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

Only 17 minutes in but this is a good watch.
Real good.

I haven't been to a Disney park since I worked in WDW back in 1999, so videos like this and Defunctland are basically all I need to experience them.

 

[LordHuffnPuff]

Yeah. Jenny called Disney to complain about several aspects of her experience in Starcruiser not working, including a droid she paid a ton of money for and had shipped to her house mysteriously being shipped to someone else by mistake, and was stonewalled and told "sorry we can't help you" at every turn until she went on Twitter to complain about it publicly, and then Disney immediately went 'oh shit' and gave her compensation, sometimes within 24 hours of the initial Twitter complaint.

They ONLY put any effort into resolving the issues once they realized she was a semi-famous theme park influencer with a high Twitter following.

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Yep, par for the course. We actually went in-person to guest services, so it wasn't like they could get rid of us - it was "hey, we're here, in the park right now, your stuff is broken and we paid for it, what are you going to do about it?" and an actual human being had to look at us and make some sort of decision. I'm sure if we'd called after the fact we would've gotten stonewalled.

There was a really cool thing though where if you had the app you could go to a one-man-band machine in a shop in Frontierland and it would pick up your phone via bluetooth and start playing while you conducted it. I wonder if that's still hooked up because it feels like it would've taken more effort to remove it than to just let it sit there for the rest of time as a prop in the store.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Only 17 minutes in but this is a good watch.
Real good.

I haven't been to a Disney park since I worked in WDW back in 1999, so videos like this and Defunctland are basically all I need to experience them.

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My last trip to DW was in 2007 and I still have an Infinite Park Hopper Magic Pass (that I paid an exorbitant upcharge for) in a safe in my house that I'm very curious to see if it will still let me into the parks today. I'm sure they'll argue that it's not valid anymore but it's not like I have anyone to go with right now, lol.

Yep, par for the course. We actually went in-person to guest services, so it wasn't like they could get rid of us - it was "hey, we're here, in the park right now, your stuff is broken and we paid for it, what are you going to do about it?" and an actual human being had to look at us and make some sort of decision. I'm sure if we'd called after the fact we would've gotten stonewalled.

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That tracks with my experiences with Disney in-park Guest Services, yeah. Most of the support staff at the parks genuinely want to help you, but as soon as you get the corporate firewall up in front of you, you're boned unless you're famous enough to scare them into acting.

 

[LordHuffnPuff]

Infinite Park Hopper Magic Pass

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Wow what is that, like... lifetime admission to all the parks?

I'll be going in July, just schedule your trip for then and you'll have somebody to go with.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Wow what is that, like... lifetime admission to all the parks?

I'll be going in July, just schedule your trip for then and you'll have somebody to go with.

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It's a three-day Park Hopper pass whose 3-day timer (supposedly) doesn't start to expire until the first time you scan it at one of the parks.

I got it as a graduation present, I was going to use it to facilitate a surprise proposal that ended up not happening so now it's just sitting in my safe forever.

 

[LordHuffnPuff]

It's a three-day Park Hopper pass whose 3-day timer (supposedly) doesn't start to expire until the first time you scan it at one of the parks.

I got it as a graduation present, I was going to use it to facilitate a surprise proposal that ended up not happening so now it's just sitting in my safe forever.

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Wow that got dark fast, I'm sorry. Disney apparently does still honor no-expiration passes though, even if they don't sell them anymore.

 

[spyroflame0487]

This sounds like a great deep dive and I'm excited to watch this sometime.
One thing I never ended up seeing about this experience was food. I know there was a bar on board (and some kind of really expensive drink experience) but what about food?
My dad and I just came back from a cruise where we paid about $1500 a person - this is with balcony cabins and essentially, all you can eat food at the buffet/dining rooms.
Did the insane price tag cover food costs or were guests responsible for paying for their own dining experience?

 

[shadowman16]

This sounds like a great deep dive and I'm excited to watch this sometime.
One thing I never ended up seeing about this experience was food. I know there was a bar on board (and some kind of really expensive drink experience) but what about food?
My dad and I just came back from a cruise where we paid about $1500 a person - this is with balcony cabins and essentially, all you can eat food at the buffet/dining rooms.
Did the insane price tag cover food costs or were guests responsible for paying for their own dining experience?

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Food (not sure about booze) was inclusive in the ticket price. Food sounded like one of the best things in the experience lol.

 

[Mirado]

This sounds like a great deep dive and I'm excited to watch this sometime.
One thing I never ended up seeing about this experience was food. I know there was a bar on board (and some kind of really expensive drink experience) but what about food?
My dad and I just came back from a cruise where we paid about $1500 a person - this is with balcony cabins and essentially, all you can eat food at the buffet/dining rooms.
Did the insane price tag cover food costs or were guests responsible for paying for their own dining experience?

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Food (not sure about booze) was inclusive in the ticket price. Food sounded like one of the best things in the experience lol.

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Food was included, booze (and some mocktails I think?) was not.

 

[Fat4all]

This sounds like a great deep dive and I'm excited to watch this sometime.
One thing I never ended up seeing about this experience was food. I know there was a bar on board (and some kind of really expensive drink experience) but what about food?
My dad and I just came back from a cruise where we paid about $1500 a person - this is with balcony cabins and essentially, all you can eat food at the buffet/dining rooms.
Did the insane price tag cover food costs or were guests responsible for paying for their own dining experience?

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food is covered a bit, but it's not like a travel guide, it's more a general overview

it's covers mostly the game and the performances, and theming

(not sure about booze)

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I think booze was extra, like a cruise it has lots of up charges, maybe you could get one free drink with you meal? doubt it

 

[Mugenhunt]

I felt that the best way to handle it would be to do a Star Wars themed hotel that would occasionally do a LARP weekend, so that the people who were interested in participating in that sort of experience would all be attending at the same time. The resort would be much cheaper on the days that didn't have the full cast needed to run an immersive theatrical event, and thus probably get more people attending.

One of the main problems I heard from friends who attended was that it was great if you had a few friends who were excited about role-playing in a Star Wars setting, but that if you were just next to Shy Joe from Kansas who dragged his family along for the ride, it could lessen the experience. And they probably weren't happy about having a group of wannabe actors cosplaying next to them the whole time.

Disney saw that there is a world of immersive LARP events where customers are willing to spend money for an weekend experience. College of Wizardry has people going to a castle, wearing robes and learning magic for instance. So they believe that they could simultaneously make a high-end LARP-esque product that would attract all of those customers, but also make something that would be appealing to the average Star Wars fan who isn't necessarily interested in immersive roleplay.

And in trying to do both, they failed to do either.

 

[Mirado]

Sorry, I guess I should have been clearer - I consider the app stuff to be part of the LARP, so when I say the LARP failed I mean the tech stuff too. The entire experience of in-universe fictional interaction, both with the app and with actors, is what I meant when I said LARP. That stuff being non-functional is pretty unacceptable, because it kills the whole experience - hence what I said about massive compensation.

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Honestly I think we are both on the same page here, that she should have had great compensation (without jumping through hoops) as the whole thing sort of broke down around her. I think my sticking point is that I feel like it being able to break down in this way without some sort of bailout or backup in the form of alternate equivalent activities is a fundamental flaw in how the experience is designed. She was just left adrift and whatever else was on offer was frankly terrible. It very much feels like disney cheaped out, so much of the space seemed sterile, static, and underutilized outside of those specific story moments. She made a few references to cruise ships, and I think that's a decent comparison; where are the side activities for those that don't want to engage fully (or in this case, can't engage) in the roleplay? Why can't you build droids in a workshop, mess around with animatronics in the cargo hold, have some sort of jedi force training thing (outside of the little rock demo in the outdoor space)? Even if things were working great, if you get exhausted and decide to bail on the seemingly tightly packed schedule, there's really no marquee, self-contained vignettes that you can do at your leisure. Space bingo does not count.

I guess you can argue it was not meant to be that kind of experience. Overall, I'm just kinda bummed out that this turned into a bit of a fiasco, either from the standpoint of it falling apart for her, or just due to the general non-viability of the concept, because the original pitch was quite cool if vague to me.

 

[ConfusingJazz]

I know this is a stupid complaint, but can she move her script up or her camera down? Especially while wearing a baseball hat.

 

[Fat4all]

I know this is a stupid complaint, but can she move her script up or her camera down? Especially while wearing a baseball hat.

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yea ill let her know, let me use my one-time timetravel

 

[Nfinit]

I haven't watched the video,

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Everyone stopped reading here.

 

[Ambient]

Totally not on her but hearing her describe complaining or wanting a refund for stuff not provided fall on deaf ears only to tweet about it and have Disney give a refund and send out a deluxe package makes my blood boil. Companies don't give a fuck about the average consumer.

 

[Dwebble]

Just finished, and that was a dismantling, and richly deserved too.

Immersive Star Wars is a terrible idea, and it's sunk everything that Disney have tried to tie the brand to for the Parks ever since they bought it. They're trying to chase the Potter at Universal gold rush with a property not a fraction as well-suited (the whole reason that Potter works is because it's set in our world with a slight twist, you morons)... and even Universal has more restraint than to do something this monstrously bloated and overwrought.

 

[ChrisJSY]

Listened to this while playing D4, but it's exactly the stuff I expected and have heard from other media people.

Basically what people have echoed here, a lot of money for what is essentially over-priced tat.
It just seems nothing worked.

Imagine if they did put some more effort into it, expanded locations a bit more and didn't put so much stress on personal experiences with crew.
I think that's the biggest failure, these are actors that need to stick within a certain script and deal with all sorts of people from the good all the way to the really awkward.

There was one part of the video where Jenny was running down the stairs trying to chase a cast member that made me feel second hand stress (for the actor) from her wanting to be part of it. Not to mention I felt like at times, there's a room of people keeping to themselves and they were the most vocal if not distracting part. Like meeting up with a group already in session, the cast member walking down a halway and Jenny is yelling more questions like, damn I think maybe the actor needed to get to the next part.

Even still, pretty much everything she said I agree with.

 

[Grimm Fandango]

I skipped some parts but the "worth it?" section is fantastic. Only $800 value oofta.

 

[TrueSloth]

It sounds like in general, it would be a pretty decent or fun experience, even with all the technical difficulties, if the price was not what it was.

 

[El Bombastico]

I skipped some parts but the "worth it?" section is fantastic. Only $800 value oofta.

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Imo even that's being generous given how shit the actual rooms are.

 

[rsfour]

Didn't realize the vid was 4 hours. So good.

 

[Calamari41]

Just finished, and that was a dismantling, and richly deserved too.

Immersive Star Wars is a terrible idea, and it's sunk everything that Disney have tried to tie the brand to for the Parks ever since they bought it. They're trying to chase the Potter at Universal gold rush with a property not a fraction as well-suited (the whole reason that Potter works is because it's set in our world with a slight twist, you morons)... and even Universal has more restraint than to do something this monstrously bloated and overwrought.

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It's especially egregious at the Disney parks because Galaxy's Edge has nothing to do with anything we saw on screen. How successful would the Harry Potter land at Universal be if it took place in some brown canyon that was never mentioned in the books or movies, and had like a Hippogriff parked over here and a broom parked over there to let you know it's the Wizarding World? And then I guess wizards in dark robes would walk around asking guests where the good guys are.

 

[Perfect Chaos]

lol This video made me go check out the Galactic Starcruiser subreddit for the first time, and it's hilarious seeing the thread on the video there where so many of the replies are "Well, I'm not going to watch the video, but <insert exactly the empty counterpoints she anticipates and argues against in the video>" lmao

The really funny ones are people calling the video clickbait because it calls it a "spectacular failure."

It shut down after like 18 months and was barely half-full for a lot of its life!

It was a spectacular failure!

 

[Uncle Squingis]

I've mostly fallen off of Star Wars and fairly indifferent to Disney parks, but I'm really enjoying this video.

 

[MayorSquirtle]

lol This video made me go check out the Galactic Starcruiser subreddit for the first time, and it's hilarious seeing the thread on the video there where so many of the replies are "Well, I'm not going to watch the video, but <insert exactly the empty counterpoints she anticipates and argues against in the video>" lmao

The really funny ones are people calling the video clickbait because it calls it a "spectacular failure."

It shut down after like 18 months and was barely half-full for a lot of its life!

It was a spectacular failure!

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I mean, it already says a lot about those people that they're still hanging around on the subreddit for a $3k LARP experience that shut down 8 months ago lol