The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel

Jenny Nicholson
7 HN recommenders · recommended in 6 months, 2024–2026
YouTube
17.7M views · 2 years ago · documentary · evergreen

Jenny Nicholson's roughly four-hour review of Disney's Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser hotel, covering her stay and why the experience failed. She goes through the cost, the room and food, the interactive story, and the guest experience.

HN people treat it as the definitive account of how misaligned incentives and weak guest experience sank a very ambitious immersive attraction.

“an incredible documentary covering the misaligned incentives and poor guest experience”
Service designInteriors & exhibition design
#immersiveexperience#themeparkdesign#starwarshotel#guestexperience#disney#larp

7 comments from Hacker News

A
@Arainach2026 · in “I'm Making Strandfall, a Solarpunk Orienteering Larp”
> Though closed now, the Star Wars hotel experience was probably the best one on the planet. No. Nope. About the furthest thing from it. Not even the best Disney has done. This video is 4 hours and somehow was engaging to me (who never went to the Star Wars park) for its entire duration: ▶ this video Doing proper immersive experiences where the participants are involved is a ton of work, often without a ton of replay value. This makes them tricky to attract customers to and limits the potential for massive returns, so they are overwhelmingly passion projects.
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@lazystar2025 · in “Disney Imagineering Debuts Next-Generation Robotic Character, Olaf”
and for anyone with 4 hours to kill... here's as an incredible documentary covering the misaligned incentives and poor guest experience at the now-shuttered Disney Star Wars hotel. ▶ this video She covers everything - the line getting in to the hotel, the size + cost of the rooms in comparison with the same size/cost on a Disney cruise ship, and theories on why the experience was so poor.
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j
@jimbob452025 · in “The Collective Ambition Behind Odysseus, a Game-Changing Sci-Fi Larp”
Obligatory link to the Jenny Nicholson Galactic Starcruiser review[0] since there's really no better overview of the experience. [0]▶ this video
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@fullshark2024 · in “Chuck E. Cheese's animatronics band bows out”
I’ll take this opportunity to plug the YouTube videos of animatronics super fan Jenny Nicholson. Her videos on the Star Wars hotel: ▶ this video and the theme park Evermore: link are peak YouTube content.
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j
@jeffwask2024 · in “Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser”
Jenny did a really good video of her experience there... ▶ this video
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t
@topherjaynes2024 · in “The Failure of the Star Wars Hotel”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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c
@carabiner2024 · in “The Failure of the Star Wars Hotel [video]”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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