Disney has finally revealed details of the upcoming Star Wars hotel, the Galactic Starcruiser, a virtual space cruise experience that will send guests from Disney World in Orlando, Florida to a galaxy far, far away aboard a ship called The Halcyon.
The experience will last two nights and two days, and is designed for all intents and purposes feel like you’re on a cruise ship in space. Of course, anyone who’s actually been on a cruise and stayed inside an interior room with no view of the ocean outside will be wondering about one feature in particular: Yes, every cabin aboard the Halcyon has a view of space outside your window.
During the Sunday morning D23 panel focused on Disney parks, Walt Disney Imagineering EP and creative director Ann Morrow Johnson took the stage to introduce attendees to the Galactic Starcruiser resort.
She described an immersive experience that starts before guests even board the “ship.” They’ll begin in a launch pod boarding vessel that will travel up into orbit and dock with the Halcyon, then emerge into the vessel’s atrium, where they’ll be shown to their cabin. The crew and staff will all be in character as various aliens, and there will be familiar characters on board, including Rey and Chewie–plus some more nefarious characters, as Kylo Ren and some Stormtroopers were also teased.
During the “cruise,” guests will make choices that determine the course of their story, and take place in various onboard activities, including training with a lightsaber against a remote droid like Luke Skywalker in A New Hope. Guests can also visit the star cruiser’s bridge and take a turn steering the ship themselves, or sneak away to the engine room to find rebels plotting the resistance.
The ship will also stop on Batuu, the planet that houses Disney World’s Galaxy’s Edge is based in. In other words, guests will leave the hotel and head over to the Blackspire Outpost in Galaxy’s Edge as if going on a shore excursion while on a real cruise.
There are still a few key details we don’t yet know about Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser–most importantly, the opening date and pricing.
It’s been an eventful D23. Throughout the weekend, we learned about more returning MCU characters in WandaVision’s cast, the reveal of Disney Plus’s Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, and Moon Knight shows, more details about the Lokiand Falcon and Winter Soldier shows, Black Panther 2’s release date, and more about Disney+ and the MCU phase 4.
On the Star Wars side, Disney confirmed that Ewan McGregor is returning to the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi, announced the release date for Star Wars Clone Wars Season 7, and revealed a Disney+ show starring very dead Rogue One characters.
